When a DNA Test Says You're a Younger Man, Who Lives 5,000 Miles Away (nytimes.com) 76
After a bone marrow transplant, a man with leukemia found that his donor's DNA traveled to unexpected parts of his body. A crime lab is now studying the case. From a report: Three months after his bone marrow transplant, Chris Long of Reno, Nev., learned that the DNA in his blood had changed. It had all been replaced by the DNA of his donor, a German man he had exchanged just a handful of messages with. He'd been encouraged to test his blood by a colleague at the Sheriff's Office, where he worked. She had an inkling this might happen. It's the goal of the procedure, after all: Weak blood is replaced by healthy blood, and with it, the DNA it contains. But four years after his lifesaving procedure, it was not only Mr. Long's blood that was affected. Swabs of his lips and cheeks contained his DNA -- but also that of his donor.
Even more surprising to Mr. Long and other colleagues at the crime lab, all of the DNA in his semen belonged to his donor. "I thought that it was pretty incredible that I can disappear and someone else can appear," he said. Mr. Long had become a chimera, the technical term for the rare person with two sets of DNA. The word takes its name from a fire-breathing creature in Greek mythology composed of lion, goat and serpent parts. Doctors and forensic scientists have long known that certain medical procedures turn people into chimeras, but where exactly a donor's DNA shows up -- beyond blood -- has rarely been studied with criminal applications in mind.
Even more surprising to Mr. Long and other colleagues at the crime lab, all of the DNA in his semen belonged to his donor. "I thought that it was pretty incredible that I can disappear and someone else can appear," he said. Mr. Long had become a chimera, the technical term for the rare person with two sets of DNA. The word takes its name from a fire-breathing creature in Greek mythology composed of lion, goat and serpent parts. Doctors and forensic scientists have long known that certain medical procedures turn people into chimeras, but where exactly a donor's DNA shows up -- beyond blood -- has rarely been studied with criminal applications in mind.
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Between things like this and deep fakes images/videos, I think more and more evidence used in courts today, will be held to be questionable enough for "doubt" to be raised in criminal courts.
When you can't trust what you see or the DNA found at the scene, what can you trust?
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I figure the whole deep fake thing is gonna be great for politicians. They can cast enough doubt on a video or audio recording so that it's just fake news...
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Why would he need to flee the country? Is there some news I am missing about a crime he committed? Serious question. The man has done nothing legally wrong while President. This circus of "witnesses" and opinions from politicians should be illegal for the massive amount of tax dollars wasted on sham investigations while they get nothing done.
You mean apart from the attempt to force Ukraine into investigating a political rival while holding up and using earmarked funds as a threat?
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Trumpanzees are so fucking retarded.
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If enough politicians do this, the long term effect is that the credibility of all politicians will drop to zero.
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Well, donating bone marrow isn't something you do without realizing it. If you get arrested on DNA evidence, and you've donated bone marrow, let your lawyer know so he can subpoena the hospital for records of where that marrow went.
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Or they could commit a bunch of murders and change their DNA every week.
This is a half-million dollar procedure, with serious risks, that keeps you in isolation units for a couple of months.
Re:Side benefit: deny you're the dad. (Score:5, Funny)
"Sounds like this guy can go impregnate a bunch of women, like a pimp, and then deny he's the father.."
What are you? A teen?
You could make a fortune as a contract killer and all the world would look for the fucking German.
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But does this make him gay since he has another man's sperm in his nuts and DNA in his ass? lol
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Happened before in a similar way in Germany:
A lady packing cotton swabs didn't care much about wearing the gloves she was supposed to use; police were those the cotton swabs when taking DNA samples from crime scenes. So for a while, German police was looking for a female serial killer involved in multiple otherwise seemingly unrelated murders.
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The German guy could make a fortune as a contract killer and use his bone marrow donation to discredit any DNA evidence.
Bad reporting, sperm doesn't work this way (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds like this guy can go impregnate a bunch of women, like a pimp, and then deny he's the father and have it proved by the DNA test.
TL;DR: Except you're completely failing at biology. Sperm doesn't work this way.
That the DNA of the donnor will be found all over the place is pretty much normal: bone marrow contain cells that are rather high on the pluripotency ladder - they can differentiate into lots of different cell types.
Most of these produced cell types by the bone marrow are blood cells (mostlye white blood cells), i.e.: cells that gets everywhere.
Not only that, but in lots of body area, the white blood cell are the largest contributors to DNA in the secrations.
(Why the fuck do you think those body secretions are considered at risk for HIV transmission ?!? Because those secretions are rich in white blood cells, among those the Lymphocytes T CD4+ which are the carrier of said virus.)
So the donor DNA "taking over" in those secretions is more or less the expected behaviour, this study is just additionnal proof confirming what science has predicted before.
(Go read the Slide deck [netdna-ssl.com] it's much better that the crappy sensationalist article and explains the detail).
Now, look at the other cases: hair.
Unlike saliva or blood (very white blood cell rich. Most of the DNA will by from donnor), hair is almost entirely constituted of the hair cells (a cousin of the skin cell. NOT a cell type that bone marrow differentiates into). These hair cells are still the parents' original (unless he has had some hair implants done, but even there the current practice is auto-graft (same patient's hair, just move from more hairy places to less hairy places) rather than allo-grafts), maybe some pigment injected by the melanocytes (come from the neural crest, not from the bone marrow). And perhaps every now and then a white blood cell that took a wrong turn somewhere but shouldn't have been there.
Exactly as science predicted, hair stays close to 100% of the owner's DNA (save for the occasionnal fluke).
And now look at semen. ...if they still exist.
It going to be a mix of white blood cells (donnor bone marrow) (remember the HIV risk mentioned above ?) and sperm cells.
Sperm cells are NOT produced by the bone marrow. They are produced by spermatogonia cells IN THE TESTIS.
No matter the transplant, these are going to retain the patient's DNA...
Problem is, as the slide deck points out, lots of cancer patient recipient of chemotherapy become sterile (keep in mind that the target of a chemo therapy is to stop the cancer cells multiplying. The problem is that - despite progresses - most of the chemotherapies aren't that good are making distinction between multiplying cells and end up wreaking havoc upon other non-related but still fast-multiplying cells: common side effect are hairloss (this one is widely known), gut problems, and... drum roll.. sterility).
And in this case, the patient was sterile even before he had a vasectomy (reminder: work by blocking the canal through which the sperm cells are supposed to enter the semen. Vas deferens blocked ? no sperm cells in the semen).
To cite the slide deck:
So yes, donnor DNA showing in the semen. But no, the patient can't sire bastard belonging to the donnor.
To get a woman pregnant you need spermcells.
- These cells are either absent (if the patient has become sterile).
- Or these cells still harbour the patient's DNA because they are produced in the patient's balls, not in the (donated) marrow.
Even if the DNA analysis of the semen shows the donnor, because of tons of white blood cells (produced in the marrow).
Came close of getting an F in biology science. (Score:3)
From the NYTimes articles:
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Sounds like this guy can go impregnate a bunch of women, like a pimp, and then deny he's the father and have it proved by the DNA test.
Probably not. Note that this is a crime lab doing the testing, and not a research laboratory. That they "found the donors DNA" in a semen sample is not anything at all like "he is producing viable sperm with the DNA of the donor" which is extremely unlikely to be the case. Forensics testing aims to find whether DNA from a suspect appears at all.
They did PCR on a semen sample, found the donor's DNA in it after massive amplification. That does not mean any of it was sperm, nor does it mean that the hosts DNA
Movie script right there (Score:2)
Re:Movie script right there (Score:5, Interesting)
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Honestly, I am all but certain that writers for several of the long-running crop of insipid CSI/NCIS/SVU tele.vision series are already working on the scripts.
My wife loves those shows. I have to bite my tongue when they're on because the science and tech is generally pretty bad. But I do find it mildly interesting to see which news item from the past 6-12 months has provided the basic plot.
Re:Movie script right there (Score:5, Informative)
Real life already had it. Lydia Fairchild [wikipedia.org] divorced her husband and applied for child support for their two kids. The DNA tests done conclusively proved that her ex-husband was the father, but she was ruled out as the mother.
Her two children were taken away from her. The third child she was pregnant with at the time was born while under watch by a court appointed witness. An immediate DNA test was done on that child. Again, it showed that her ex-husband was the father, but she was ruled out as mother. Lydia's mother and father were consistent with genetic match for grandmother and grandfather though.
Turns out she was chimeric.
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Reading the wiki article it seems that to its credit the court didn't actually take her kids away, despite the prosecution calling for it. Instead it did the right thing and properly investigated.
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Screw crappy crime procedurals... think dystopian sci-fi. Some crazy gentic purism movement
running around surreptitiously using such means to replace every guy's balls so all the babies come
out as children of the cult leader.
Not the balls (Score:2)
Except that this guys' balls weren't what was replaced.
He got bone marrow transplant.
What he is producing is white blood cell.
Of which there are lots in the semen (hence the high risk of HIV transmisison. You know the virus that infects white blood cells - such as Lymphocytes T).
What this patient isn't producing is spermcells. These would have been produced by his balls which are still the original ones (so they would have shown up as his own DNA and the children would still have matching DNA).
Except that l
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Monocultures are a really bad idea.
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Very surprised. (Score:2)
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Re:Very surprised. (Score:5, Interesting)
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White blood cells (Score:2)
Are there other 'carrier cells' in the semen besides the sperm itself in there?
Yup.
Like other body secretions, the semen is choke full of white blood cells.
(That's why it's considered a risk of HIV transmission, you know: a virus which is carried by white blood cells - Lymphocytes T).
These cells are the one which are produced by the marrow, so these are the reason why the donnor registers on semen DNA analysis.
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Every term and concept stated is in the summary. And "relevant to itself" is nonsensical.
Your apparent self-hatred to the degree you'll directly negate your own mind, hoping to ensure you die, is a bit disturbing.
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Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man." .
--Thomas 7
Religion poisons everything.
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Jesus titty fucking Christ. I'm an atheist and can tell you more accurately what Jesus was saying there than your weird interpretation.
All Logion 7 is talking about the physical being (lion) vs spiritual being (man) and that only by recognizing the spiritual side can the self be truly realized. It's a load of claptrap to be sure but certainly not talking about some possible impacts of blood transfusions 1000s of years hence.
No wonder your lot starts so many wars, you don't have the first damn clue what yo
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It's dual level.
Firstly, on the level of evolution, by analogy.
Secondly, spiritually, which supervenes upon and wins the first.
You're fairly close, but you probably won't find much accuracy in what you immediately dismiss. That's fine. Something, lion or otherwise, will supersede you.
That's how evolution works, physically or spiritually. We just got a 1800 year prescient heads-up on that.
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Actually, I think that was a prophecy about this travesty:
Thundercats Intro [youtube.com]
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Looks like you're being properly prepared to be consumed.
Projecting anything else for yourself in a 200 year time frame?
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Shouldn't you be off somewhere threatening gullible idiots and small children with eternal damnation?
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It should be noted that the quote in GPP is from a book which orthodox Christianity holds to be a fake.
Get out jail free card! (Score:2)
Get out jail free card!
N.B. (Score:2)
Freeze some semen before transplants.
Nope. (Score:2)
recipient's sperm changes to carry my DNA
Nope. *Sperm* cells aren't produced in the bone marrow.
These are produced by spermatogonia in the testis.
The *white blood cells* that are present in the semen are the one which are produced by the bone marrow and will carry your DNA.
Yup even in your fantasy, your DNA will by by-stander.
see you later loveless virgins
Or you know, if you're that desparate for contacts of the opposite sex and that socially akward to ever manage to get some through normal *talking*, you could just visit a place where prostitution is legal and just pay a will
Who doubt's this? (Score:1)
Look forward to the Movie in 2022....
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Probably because it is 2019 and the Nazis are based here in the US now and haven't been a thing in Germany for as long as you've been alive.
Fine people in Germany [theguardian.com]
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learn to internet, noob [fuckinggoogleit.com]
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It's more reputable sources than it's worth spending time to link when you're not going to read them anyway, you lazy tool.
I have questions (Score:2)
Hard in practice (Score:2)
In theory:
well the bone marrow will start producing (mostly white) blood cells and will thus show up as the donnor in most of the body secretion where the cells are abundant (so the blood and saliva of the mouse will show up as "rat") but not other such as hair (still nearly 100% hair).
In practice:
You would need a compatible donnor. It worked between the rat and the mouse in the article. But before it works in human you would need a compatible donor.
Remember, that marrow is going to produce mostly white blo
Implications for Crime Labs (Score:2)
The police now consider DNA evidence as the gold standard for proving identity. The situation described here has some pretty serious implications for this. I wonder how long it will take for this argument to appear in a criminal case when a suspect is identified through DNA?
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There is a high rated AC comment describing the case of Lydia Fairchild several posts up (in my view anyway). While not criminal, it was court involved and custody, etc. issues.
What about transsexuals? (Score:2, Troll)
This may be the magic pill all the trans-wannabes have been waiting for. All they need is a bone marrow transfusion, and: Voila!
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Donor is 10 years younger (Score:2)
Not much (Score:2)
that should have an impact on his life expectancy.
Nope.
What would happen to that man if the donor had been a woman?
Not much.
Yes, bone marrow can differenciate into lots of different cell types. But most of them are blood cell types.
Yes, white blood cells gets everywhere and in some palces are the major contributor to the DNA you're going to pick up.
(Hence the donor DNA showing all over the place, but not in hair).
But, it might surprise you, you're far from being entirely made out of white blood cells.
So if the donor was a woman:
- her white blood cell are going to show up in lots of places and thus thwart DNA tests
-
but if the glove don't fit (Score:1)
Unexpected. (Score:1)
Seems like if that happened then he'd be maintaining and producing cells that aren't his, so should be a foreign body. Seems like that would kill him.
Since it's not, sounds like a study opportunity. Why isn't he rejecting those cells? Why isn't this producing cancer?