From the ethically questionable pile ...
Chinese Scientists Added Human Brain Genes to Monkeys—and Yes, They May Be Smarterhttps://www.technologyreview.com/s/613277/chinese-scientists-have-put-human-brain-genes-in-monkeysand-yes-they-may-be-smarter/ Scientists in southern China report that they’ve tried to narrow the evolutionary gap, creating several transgenic macaque monkeys with extra copies of a human gene suspected of playing a role in shaping human intelligence.In a study published last month in Beijing’s National Science Review journal, researchers took human copies of the MCPH1 gene, which is believed to play an important role in our brain development, and introduced it into monkey embryos by means of a virus that carried the gene.
Of the 11 transgenic macaque monkeys they generated, six died. The five survivors went through a series of tests, including MRI brain scans and memory tests.
It turned out they didn’t have bigger brains than a control group of macaques, but they did perform better on short-term memory tasks. Their brains also developed over a longer period of time, which is typical of human brains.The Chinese researchers suspect the MCPH1 gene is part of the answer. But they’re not stopping there. One of them, Bing Su, a geneticist at the Kunming Institute of Zoology, told MIT Technology Review that he’s already testing other genes involved in brain evolution:
One that he has his eye on is SRGAP2C, a DNA variant that arose about two million years ago, just when Australopithecus was ceding the African savannah to early humans. That gene has been dubbed the “humanity switch” and the “missing genetic link” for its likely role in the emergence of human intelligence. Su says he’s been adding it to monkeys, but that it’s too soon to say what the results are.
Su has also had his eye on another human gene, FOXP2, which is believed to have graced us with our language abilities. Pondering the possibility of adding that gene to monkeys, Su told Nature in 2016, “I don’t think the monkey will all of a sudden start speaking, but will have some behavioral change.”
... Regarding the five survivors, what kind of lives will they have going forward, altered as they are and confined to an experimental laboratory?” ... “The use of transgenic monkeys to study human genes linked to brain evolution is a very risky road to take,” ... After how many eliminated differences does a monkey shade into a human being? There’s no clear answer to that question.Open Access: Lei Shi, et.al.,
Transgenic rhesus monkeys carrying the human MCPH1 gene copies show human-like neoteny of brain development,
National Science Review, 27 March 2019