Man-Mouse Cells Made To Live

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31500, 14 October 1967, Page 13

Man-Mouse Cells Made To Live

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright)

NEW YORK, October 13.

Two American scientists in New York have succeeded in producing the first lasting hybrids between the cells of man and the mouse, the “New York Times” reported today.

Continued research was expected to expand man’s knowledge of the specific manner in which viruses, such as polio, infect living cells, the newspaper said. Human cells from embryonic tissue had been allowed to grow on the same nutrients as cells from mouse connective tissue in a laboratory culture flask, it said. Colonies of the resultant man-mouse cells had been kept alive for up to six months at the New York University School of Medicine by Dr Mary C. Weiss and Dr Howard Green. Their report on production of the hybrids is published in the latest issue of the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The “New York Times”, which reported the development of the hybrids in a lengthy front-page article, said that they would aid research into the little-explored field of human genetics. The newspaper added that production of the cells might also enable scientists to determine what it was in human cells that made them susceptible to polio virus infection. The new step might lead

to ability to identify genes, the determinants of human characteristics, responsible for defects in the human body. Attempts might then be made to correct their abnormalities.

The newspaper recalled that two British scientists succeeded in producing similar hybrids in 1965. The hybrids lived only 15 days, however.