Researchers add human genes to monkey brains

[Catherine]

Researchers in China have been able to add a human gene for brain development to Rhesus Macaques. Only five of the monkeys survived. It was a limited experiment and only a small amount of genetic material was used. The changes in the monkeys were slight.

https://nationalpost.com/health/chinese-...experiment

So now we know it can be done. The real issue is whether it should it be done. This goes beyond the usual issue of the ethics of animals being used in experiments. This involves hybridizing animals with humans. Is there any possible benefit to doing this. Can we learn something valuable? What are the possibilities of something going very wrong. You don't have to be against DNA editing and genetic modification to see that this has possible negative consequences.

One thought on the ethics of the matter has to do with the amount of Human DNA  in each monkey. Primates and monkeys already have very similar DNA  to humans. At what point do the monkeys have so much actual human DNA that technically human medical ethics rules should apply to them. In particular they are using brain DNA so that will make the problems even more likely. When we have Rhesus Macaques that can talk and reason like humans we will have to make a lot of changes in how we treat animals. We already need to make changes, but it would be better not to have to act because we have a real emergency.
I can't see this line of research ending well and it certainly isn't fair to the monkeys.