In ancient Greek mythology, a chimera is a monster made up of different parts of different animals: a lion’s body, goat’s head, and snake’s tail.
In genetics, a chimera is a single organism with multiple genetic characteristics. This means that multiple sets of parents can have one offspring made from two fertilized eggs.
In China, scientists have created pigs infused with monkey cells. The monkey stem cells were introduced into fertilized pig embryos which were then implanted into sows. Out of four thousand embryos which undertook the procedure, ten were born. Of these ten, two were born with monkey cells present in their tissues scattered throughout multiple organs. All ten piglets died shortly after being born.
The scientists hope to get to the point where they can grow human organs inside pigs for transplantation. The first step would be to get monkey organs to grow inside the pigs which could be kept alive until the organs are needed.
Anyone familiar with Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake series would recognize this chimera. Pigoons, in her speculative fiction series, have human brains, and Mo’Hairs are sheep which are used to grow human hair.
Human chimera’s exist as well. A man who received a bone marrow transplant found out his DNA had changed to that of the German donor.
Bringing this into the realm of story, there are a lot of different avenues possible with this kind of technology. There could be an eccentric billionaire, an Elon Musk type character, who funded the growth of his own “backup organs.” Combined with cloning technology, there could be an army of his/her own self, similar to the clone army in Star Wars. A series could be written about their attempts to colonize different planets, using SpaceX as a model.
This also brings to mind a James Bond movie “Die Another Day” with Pierce Brosnan. In the movie the main character changes his facial appearance to continue his plans to take over the world. With the ability to change DNA to that of another person, a transformation to another human would allow the antoganist the ability to escape capture. This could set up an entire series, with the hero never able to tell for certain that the true bad guy has been caught.
A third idea would be to have the scientist who fully develops the technology on the run, with a Jason Bourne type character brought into the fray for their protection.
