Director, Commonwealth Policy Center

The National Institutes of Health just announced that it's lifting the funding ban on research that allows the mixing of animal DNA with human DNA. Scientists say it will better help develop therapies to treat human disease. and that it could eventually lead to animals growing human organs for transplant purposes. Science has become a tremendous tool to alleviate suffering and make our lives better, but at the same time we must recognize there are ethical boundaries that apply to science.   The NIH has opened the door to creating animal/human hybrids that you'd think of in a science fiction. That may seem far off into the future, but now is the time to have these conversations and to realize that regardless of the good that might come from scientific research, there are ethical boundaries that must be respected.