Ivanov , a specialist in the field of artificial insemination and hybridization , attempted to ‘ build a living superwarrior ’ under the leadership of Stalin . The idea was to generate a pain- and cold-insensitive creature with superior strength to humans .
Fortunately , the method of artificial insemination was already developed at that time , so no humans had to have sex with an ape . Instead , Ivanov tried to fertilize female chimpanzees with human sperm . All three attempts at fertilization failed . Only as a next step did Dr . Ivanov ’ s experiments become more ‘ exceptional ’: he selected human ‘ volunteers ’, in this case Soviet women , to be inseminated with chimpanzee sperm . Fortunately ( or unfortunately if you ’ re into that sort
Oliver the chimpanzee ( 1958-2012 ) promoted as a ‘ Humanzee ’ due to his human-like face and tendency to walk upright . Source : wikipedia . com
of thing ) the story ends here . It is still unknown whether this experiment has been conducted but did not result in pregnancy or whether this could not be done because either the male ape died too soon or Ivanov was arrested as information about the experiments started to leak out just before he could conduct them .
Approximately 50 years later , at Cornell University in New York , Michael J . Bedford discovered that human sperm can adhere to and penetrate the egg of a gibbon , both in vivo and in vitro ( 4 ). This was , however , not possible for other lower primates ( like baboons , rhesus monkeys ), probably due to an altered egg and sperm surface ( 4 ). Rumor has it Bedford expressed his confidence that this penetration would work in greater apes as well , although this was not tested . However , exactly this argument that the sperm surface with their specific adherence to the complementary surface is the strongest argument of those arguing against the possibility of human-chimpanzee crossbreeding .
Around the same time , a creature called ‘ Oliver ’ has incited uproar in the United States . Oliver was considered a humanzee , the missing link between the two species : his face and behavior were human-like , he walked on two feet and apparently had a un-chimplike self-awareness . The owners stated that Oliver had 47 chromosomes , which has never been proven by official reports , but it brought fame and glory to him . Eventually , after 25 years of Oliver being in the spotlight , scientists disenchanted Oliver ’ s story by providing a DNA analysis confirming that Oliver is just a normal chimpanzee with 48 chromosomes ( 5 ).
Even though no human-chimpanzee hybrid has been reported in history so far , I am more than confident that sperm and eggs of humans and chimpanzees can create a zygote ( the technical name for a fertilized egg ) but whether this can actually lead to the proper formation and development of an embryo is a whole other story . Similar to the non-functional spermatogenesis in mules , proper development could arrest at a certain point , leading to a maybe horribly deformed or just retarded embryo that is not at all similar to a chimpanzee nor a human being . But if the embryo developed correctly , what would the hybrid be like ? Would it be a hybrid with the intelligence of a human , and the strength of a chimpanzee , as desired by Stalin , or maybe the other way around ? And , more importantly , how would you classify a humanzee ? Is it a human and can therefore not be owned , or is it an animal ? What does it mean to be a human ? How would it change the classification or shift the boundary between human and animal ? These and more are questions that I do not want to answer as they by far exceed my expertise .
Stefanie Schuster graduated from the Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience master ’ s program in 2015 . She is currently a PhD candidate in the Clinical Neurogenetics lab of Prof . Dr . Ludger Schöls at the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research in Tübingen .
[ 1 ] Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium . ( 2005 ). Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome . Nature , 437 ( 7055 ), 69- 86 [ 2 ] Patterson , N ., Richter , D ., Gnerre , S . et al . ( 2006 ). Genetic evidence for complex speciation of humans and chimpanzees . Nature , 441 , 1103-8 [ 3 ] Orlando , L ., Ginolhac , A ., Zhang , G . et al . ( 2013 ). Recalibrating Equus evolution using the genome sequence of an early Middle Peistocene horse . Nature , 499 , 74-8 [ 4 ] Bedford , J . M . Sperm / egg interaction : the specificity of human spermatozoa . ( 1997 ). Anat Rec , 188 , 477-87 [ 5 ] Ely , J . J ., Leland , M ., Martino , M ., Swett , W . & Moore , CM . ( 1998 ). Technical note : chromosomal and mtDNA analysis of Oliver . Am J Phys Anthropol , 105 , 395-403
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