Chimera (genetics) - Human Chimeras

Human Chimeras

In 1953 a human chimera was reported in the British Medical Journal. A woman was found to have blood containing two different blood types. Apparently this resulted from cells from her twin brother living in her body. More recently, a study found that such blood group chimerism is not rare. Another report of a human chimera was published in 1998, where a male human had some partially developed female organs due to chimerism. He was conceived by in-vitro fertilization. In 2002, Lydia Fairchild was denied public assistance when DNA evidence showed that she was not related to her children. After hearing of a human chimera in New England, Karen Keegan, it was eventually found that she too was a chimera and thus had two sets of DNA.

Read more about this topic:  Chimera (genetics)

Famous quotes containing the word human:

    The superstition respecting power and office is going to the ground. The stream of human affairs flows its own way, and is very little affected by the activity of legislators. What great masses of men wish done, will be done; and they do not wish it for a freak, but because it is their state and natural end.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)