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Amit Gupta has found a 10/10 matched donor

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Re: Amit Gupta has found a 10/10 matched donor

#81

Post by andreyvit »

prolepunk wrote: post #50
cheald wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was gonna say, walking around with someone else's blood sounds like it'd make for an entertaining crime drama episode.

There was an actual real-life crime episode involving that, look up Andrei Chikatilo, the police and a real trouble catching him because of mismatching blood types. I'd give you a wikipedia link, but apparently I can't use google cache.

Actually, English wikipedia does not seem to mention that, and the Russian one says that not only Chikatilo did not have mismatched AB types of blood and sperm, but also that the condition has been proven to be genetically impossible (citing a broken link as a source for this statement, though).

Re: Amit Gupta has found a 10/10 matched donor

#83

Post by possibilistic »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #16
chimeracoder wrote: post #10

> At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own. That's actually really fascinating. This perpetuates for life? This would seem to imply that a person who's received a transplant will, thirty years later, be walking around with two separate sets of DNA, as the other cells in the body presumably would not change. Given that DNA is (indirectly)…

As a total non-biologist, doesn't the "10/10" refer to the parts of the cells that touch and communicate? That is, the interface? If so, I would guess that what DNA is inside doesn't matter for the purpose of compatibility. Walks like a duck . . .

The 10/10 match refers to HLA typing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_leukocyte_antigen

These are the human MHC molecules that present antigen to T-cells. Unfortunately for the transplant process, a vast number of HLA alleles exist for each locus. This is important evolutionarily for population disease aversion, but makes the process of finding a match very difficult.

Central tolerance makes our immune system unreactive to self antigen. Foreign HLA present in tissue grafts will never be screened out by negative selection since this process requires expression of our own genes to cull any B or T cells that are self-reactive. Anything foreign will most certainly have reactive cell-surface epitopes (to varying degrees of reactivity).

Try reading up on central tolerance, somatic recombination, and clonal selection if you get the chance as it's a beautiful example of nature stumbling upon metaheuristic optimization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_tolerance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonal_selection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V(D)J_recombination

To me, these are starker, more potent examples of biological optimization processes than evolution -- they're ongoing in your body right now.

Re: Amit Gupta has found a 10/10 matched donor

#84

Post by eapen »

ahoyhere wrote: post #39

I found out while in a taxi cab this morning & I started crying. So thankful. So glad I could (maybe) help. It's such a simple thing to save someone's life like this. Please register to be a marrow donor today. It's no more work than sucking on a lollipop & even the donation process these days is usually not much worse than blood donation (it just takes longer): http://marrow.org/Join/Join_Now/Join_Now.aspx This is E…

As a non-white person, I also registered a few weeks back after seeing the occasional posts on HN.

Re: Amit Gupta has found a 10/10 matched donor

#85

Post by fiznool »

It's stories like this that make you realise what's really important. It's so easy to get sucked into a life of computers and tech but heartwarming stories like yours, Amit, are what keeps us all human. I wish you the best for the forthcoming weeks, months and years, and I really look forward to hearing your progress on your blog, once you have recovered.

Re: Amit Gupta has found a 10/10 matched donor

#86

Post by kenver »

travisp wrote: post #19
chimeracoder wrote: post #10

> At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own. That's actually really fascinating. This perpetuates for life? This would seem to imply that a person who's received a transplant will, thirty years later, be walking around with two separate sets of DNA, as the other cells in the body presumably would not change. Given that DNA is (indirectly)…

I'm sure it does cause potential complications to an extent. However, I know of at least two comparable situations that occur without medical intervention: 1) Pregnant women -- During pregnancy, and to some extent afterward, the mother's blood contains cells from the fetus she is carrying. Some of these cells migrate to other places of the body. Scientists hypothesize that this is part of why pregnancy may lower canc…

Just when you start to think that you've seen the weirdest/strangest/most amazing thing in nature, along comes something else that you wouldn't even begin to imagine was possible. Thanks for the Chimera link!

Re: Amit Gupta has found a 10/10 matched donor

#87

Post by [deleted] »

travisp wrote: post #19
chimeracoder wrote: post #10

> At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own. That's actually really fascinating. This perpetuates for life? This would seem to imply that a person who's received a transplant will, thirty years later, be walking around with two separate sets of DNA, as the other cells in the body presumably would not change. Given that DNA is (indirectly)…

I'm sure it does cause potential complications to an extent. However, I know of at least two comparable situations that occur without medical intervention: 1) Pregnant women -- During pregnancy, and to some extent afterward, the mother's blood contains cells from the fetus she is carrying. Some of these cells migrate to other places of the body. Scientists hypothesize that this is part of why pregnancy may lower canc…

[deleted]

Re: Amit Gupta has found a 10/10 matched donor

#88

Post by sev »

chimeracoder wrote: post #10

> At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own. That's actually really fascinating. This perpetuates for life? This would seem to imply that a person who's received a transplant will, thirty years later, be walking around with two separate sets of DNA, as the other cells in the body presumably would not change. Given that DNA is (indirectly)…

After reading all this interesting discussion that your comment led to, I just now noticed your username :)

Re: Amit Gupta has found a 10/10 matched donor

#89

Post by [deleted] »

lusr wrote: post #80
superamit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, perpetuates for life. It's called Chimerism. I'd be interested (obviously) in finding out what other implications this might have for me long term besides enabling me to life a life of crime. ;-)

I watched Gattaca again this weekend. This sure seems like a simpler option (assuming it affects the urine) than everything the main characters had to go through (collecting and storing blood and urine samples, making finger pouches for blood prick tests, etc.)!

[deleted]

Re: Amit Gupta has found a 10/10 matched donor

#90

Post by itmag »

Good for him!

Flash of insight: a big part of why he was able to do this, is because he put himself in the public arena and allowed himself to become a celebrity (in some sense).

As someone who is a little scared of becoming famous, this is a wake-up call.

I always focus on the negative aspects (eg being judged) of being known to many people. But if Amit had been as much of as a fraidycat as me, he might not have gotten this chance.

Bottom line: being a public person confers many benefits. It's easy to focus on the 5% who are haters rather than the 95% who are fans. Being obscure is safe, but stifling.

(A friend of mine who is somewhat famous in his niche noted that the lynch mob he had expected never showed up :p )

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