Question: What will happen if you put chicken genes into humans? Will we grow feathers? Have beaks?

Adam Paige answered on 12 Nov 2012:

It is possible to move genes from one creature into another, and that can change the animal. For example scientists have put a gene from jellyfish into mice so that the mice glow green in the dark! (It sounds like a pretty silly thing to do, but we can use that green glowing protein to see how genes are switched on and off in a living creature, or to see where in the body particular genes do their work).

Things like growing feathers and beaks require lots of different genes to work together, so it is very unlikely that putting only one of those genes into a human would make us grow wings or beaks.

Also, most genes work by making proteins which then do things in our bodies. For example growth factors are types of proteins that can attach to receptors in our cells (they fit like a key in a lock) and this tell our cells to start growing (this is what causes our bodies to grow, or wounds to heal, by making new cells). However, if you took a gene for a growth factor protein from a chicken and put it into a human it would probably not be able to work. It would be like trying to open a lock with the wrong type of key – the chicken growth factor protein does not fit our receptor protein.

So moving genes from one species to another can be complicated and difficult. Fortunately though, we have very good laws controlling this kind of work, so I don’t think we will be seeing any human-chicken hybrids any time soon….Although, now I think about it, that could explain Big Bird on Sesame Street!