Chimeras!

by blogger jgl

For some reason, whenever I am giving a DNA lecture about mixtures, some knucklehead brings up chimeras. This is an old article concerning blood doping that i came across the other day, but it had some interesting facts, er... theories about chimeras.

Dr. Ann Reed, chairwoman of rheumatology research at the Mayo Clinic, who uses sensitive DNA tests to look for chimerism, finds that about 50 to 70 percent of healthy people are chimeras. The more scientists look for chimerism, the more they find it. It seemed not to exist in the past, she said, because no one was explicitly looking for small amounts of foreign cells in people's bodies.

I suppose if i wasn't so lazy, i could try to find out what type of "sensitive" DNA test they are using. I wonder if certain tissues are more likely to be "chimeric"? Anyone ever come across one in forensic casework?