A human–animal hybrid (or animal–human hybrid) is a hypothetical organism that incorporates elements from both humans and non-human animals. In a technical sense, a human–animal hybrid would be defined as an organism in which each cell contains both human and non-human genetic material. This contrasts with a non-human chimera in which some cells are human and the other are derived from a non-human organism (a human chimera, by contrast, consists entirely of human cells from different zygotes.)
Examples of human–animal hybrids mainly include humanized mice that have been genetically modified by xenotransplantation of human genes. Humanized mice are commonly used as small animal models in biological and medical research for developing human therapeutics.
