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Blurring the Boundaries: The First Plant-Animal Hybrid Cells
The Solar-Powered Animal Cell Experiment: Inside the Plant-Animal Hybrid Revolution
In November 2024, researchers from the University of Tokyo and RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science published a groundbreaking study, making waves across the world of synthetic biology. The paper, published to J-Stage (managed by the Japan Science and Technology Agency), blurred the boundaries between plant and animal cells by successfully causing an ovarian cell to incorporate a chloroplast that wasn’t immediately destroyed by the cell and even briefly used the energy produced by it.
In a staggering step towards sci-fi-sounding science, this breakthrough is the beginning of augmenting cells to serve our desired purposes and functions better. The potential applications are mind-boggling: from making organs more efficient to providing more oxygen to oxygen-starved systems to even decreasing the carbon footprint our bodies produce just by existing.
A Breakthrough Decades in the Making
Since the 1970s, scientists have been working towards producing an animal cell that could be capable of photosynthesis. With the onset of the genetic engineering boom, it was a hypothetical possibility of interest for…
