In 2004 Dr Irving Weissman of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Research injected a few human brain cells into mice. He wanted the mice to develop humanoid brains so he could dissect them and learn more about brain diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries.
Weissman’s experiments were nicknamed the Stuart Little project after the famous children’s book featuring a miniature mouse kid. Those who were alarmed saw Dr Weissman and other experimental geneticists as latter day Dr Frankensteins. When Weissman proposed to increase the proportion of human cells so the mouse brain was almost completely composed of human cells, ethicists started to pull in the reins.
In his book The Future Church John Allen reports, “The Stanford ethics committee to which Weissman submitted the proposal gave him a cautious green light…the head of the panel — law and genetics professor Henry Greely — said that although the experiment might sound ‘creepy’ there was no serious risk of Weissman transferring what he called ‘humanness’ to the mice.”
“It’s not going to get up and say, ‘Hi! I’m Mickey!’ Greely said.”
However, Greely went on to say that the ethics committee instructed Weissman to stop his research if the mice began to show “human like behaviors” such as improved memory and…