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Now for some substance: I believe that this occurence is undoubtedly due to the fact the the donor and recipient were young children, not fully developed. I would venture a guess that young donars in the 9-year old range are relatively hard to come by, and thus situations such as these don’t arise all to often. The only way to know how rare this seeming phenomenon really is would be to track a great deal of similar situations i.e. liver transplant, pre-pubescent male and female. I also wonder if chimerism would occur if this were a female donating to a male
situation. Also how exactly does chimerism work? Does it enter during a stage of mitosis? We don’t have any crossing over to account for the gene exchange, so what’s up?

Shall I play the devil’s advocate and remind you all of the possibility that the first routine blood test could have been faulty? But seriously, I mean the chances for that are probably as good as the chances for, say, someone changing blood type. ahem.

If the body can make a baby from spare bits of biological matter in only 9 months, then I’m sure that the body can do pretty much anything. This article really didn’t surprise me, but it does have a definite scientific impact. Does this mean that anyone else who recieves a liver can change blood type? Would it be easier to get a certain type of blood for donations? I think it’s pretty awesome that the body didn’t reject the liver and switched blood types. I think that this means that the liver plays an extremely important role in the way our blood is produced.

As Kaston replied above, the mother would have to undergo a c-section, in order to protect herself and the child, however, just because it is the most effective way for her to give birth, it doesn’t mean that they’re are no risks. Just because the c-section is being used in higher-demand now then that of a vaginal birth doesn’t not mean that it has been perfected. Blood types can still transfer from mother to child, after all the baby’s blood is derived from that of the mother’s.

i am suprised that her blood type changed. this could change the whole transpantation process in medicine. this could make waiting list longer. i am confused about what will happen to the child if she decides to have one

This is a really interesting cenario, usually the body’s immune system would reject the new organ, but in this case that didn’t happen. This would make it much easier for people to get donar organs, well that is when we can figure out how to repeat what had just happened. Once we do that, more people will be able to get donar organs, even if the blood types don’t match.

I would suppose that her ability to HAVE children won’t be impaired, but the child might have a little trouble in the womb while maturing because of the blood that it is recieveing from the mother and the blood that it has itself. This may pose problems, and it might not until the baby is fully functional. This brings the question, how active is a babies immune system while it is maturing in the uterus?

Wait a second, how can you change blood types and still live, wouldn’t your body attack your blood because it didn’t recognize it? This is a pretty crazy occurence because there has only been one occurence of it, and you’d think with all the transplants going on these days, that this might happen more often. Surprising…I think so.

Okay, that right there is astounding. Changing blood types?! Could she have changed blood types due to the growth of the stem cells in her bone marrow? So, if the girl decides to have children when she becomes older, wouldn’t her child result with the genetic disorder down syndrome due to the extra amount of chromosomes the baby would have as a result of the girls presence of X and Y chromosomes? Although, the change in blood types for the little girl is amazing, I see no disadvantage unless it was a change from blood type O. Because the change in blood types that might arise from organ transplants, the growing of new organs synthetically looks pretty good right about now (from the previous blog article).

Maybe this means that you don’t HAVE to have the same blood type to perform organ transplants. There might be a way around it. This, I think, could potentially make it easier to receive organs. This is one of those things that goes to show how much we don’t know about biology and how the body works.

I am particularly interested in what would happen when this girl eventually decides to have children. Will she be able to? What will happen when her genes are combined with her partners? Are there three parties, in essence, involved in the resulting child’s life? Could this result in deformities or even chromosomal disorders, such as Down syndrome?

People receiving organs from young donors might not find themselves in similar situations as this girl because the chances of blood types switching is very rare. Of course there is a chance but I don’t think this would pose negative implications to the donor or recipient. The recipient and donor are going to have very similar tissue and blood types to begin with so its unlikely that this will occur frequently enough to be an issue everyone needing organs has to worry about.

This is definitely something unusual. A person becoming a chimera because of a transplant. I feel kinda sorry for the girl though. I think that when she is going to have problems even becoming pregnant. Her blood type is different from her gametes so it will undoubtedly cause problems. And even if she does become pregnant, I think she will miscarry. However, in a scientific point of view, it will be interesting to see how the chimerism will affect the girl. You never know she might mutate into some super trooper with some super powers and end war on terrorism.

I think this is awesome. Though there is confusion within the girl’s body, her overall good health makes the transplant a success, I think. It is curious, though, as to what would happen to her offspring. Perhaps for the future, would it help to restrict transplants for only individuals of the same gender? I think, though, that at this point, scientists do not know enough information to assume too much about what will happen to this girl’s children or what kind of problem this is (if it is a problem at all), and so I think that a string of tests and conjectures will follow this unusual occurence, seeing if it could be repeated, if it was just a rare occurence, what long-term effects are, etc.

I think that this is a concern for the medical world but there is only one known case that we know of. There could still be others out there waiting to be discovered but whether or not it is dangerous might only be determined by what happens to this young girl.

The only real concern that this discovery will raise is the need for safer testing on all organs before they are used in surgery. I think that the scientific world will just have to wait and see what happens to this girl overtime to decided whether or not she is in any real danger. People have been receiving organ transplants for years since 1905 when the first one was performed, we have come far in this area but mistakes are still a possibilty. However, I doubt it will make it more difficult to perfom organ transplants.

I think that the FISH method is a remarkable scientific innovation. It amazes me that the idea of using a dye to detect certain DNA sequences has actually become a reality. Science has evolved significantly over the past decade or so.

This is definetly an amazing discovery. Usually if an organ transplant has this type of effect, the patient dies. I believe that this 15 year old’s offspring will have birth defects because he chimeras and gametes do not match. Implications involved from recieving organs from young donors are future concerns such as pregnancies and the concern that this girl was a miracle patient and other organ transplant patients may or may not have this same outcome.