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| Horace F. Henriques, III, MD | Chimera | |
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| General Surgery Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Lebanon, NH |
Illustration Courtesy Encyclopedia
Brittanica |
Illustration from Marvel Comics Wing-transplants? |
Successful transplantation depends on acceptance of non-self as self, while still fighting pathogens. Chimera examples in biology demonstrate this is possible.
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| Grape Leaf Chimera | Sheep-Goat Chimera | World's First Face Transplant |
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chimera: (or chimaera) plant or organ consisting of two or more genetically different tissues (variegation chimera on grape leaves) |
By Dr. Gary B. Anderson of UC Davis. Released under the GFDL with the additional stipulation that the subject not be called a geep. |
A sheep-goat chimera (sometimes called a geep in popular media) is a chimera produced by combining the embryos of a goat and a sheep; the resulting animal has cells of both sheep and goat origin. A geep should not be confused with a sheep-goat hybrid, which can result when a goat mates with a sheep.
The first sheep-goat chimera was bred in Manumbar QLD Australia; it was created artificially under laboratory conditions was born in 1984,[1] while the first instance created in the U.S. was in 1985 at the University of California, Davis.[2] Researchers fused a sheep embryo with a goat embryo. The resulting creature was a mosaic of mismatched goat and sheep parts. Those parts which grew from the sheep embryo were woolly. Those which grew from the goat embryo were hairy.
In a chimera, each set of cells (germ lines) keeps their own species identity instead of being intermediate in type between the parental species. It has four parents, whereas a hybrid has two parents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geep
First Human Face Transplant: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22218584/
Mythological Chimera: In Greek mythology, a fire-breathing female monster resembling a lion in the forepart, a goat in the middle, and a dragon behind. She devastated Caria and Lycia until she was slain by Bellerophon. In art the Chimera is usually represented as a lion with a goat’s head in the middle of its back and with a tail that ends in a snake’s head. This matches the description found in Hesiod’s Theogony (7th century BC). The word is now used generally to denote a fantastic idea or figment of the imagination. (Encyclopedia Brittanica)
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