Just as swine flu is about to reach pandemic proportions according to the WHO, pigs are about to have their reputations saved by a recent discovery by Chinese researchers who say that cells from adult pigs have the ability to be coaxed into any type of cell in the body, just like embryonic stem cells. Fear pigs no more–they are about to save our lives–or better yet be swine flu resistant!
According to news reports, it’s the malleability of these porcine cells that make them possible candidates for creating new organs for transplant, stem cell transplants, or breeding new strains of pigs resistant to swine flu.
The research has perhaps proven wrong after all that perhaps after all you can make, not a silk purse, but perhaps one heck of a xenograft out of a sow’s ear.
Summer Johnson, PhD