So Just How Reliable Is Dna Anyways?

[Zakuska]

Critics like to make a big deal about DNA when it comes to questions about Nephites in the Americas etc. But just how reliable is DNA anyways, When a mother can not even be genetically related to her own offspring?

Chimerism... what implications might this have on Dna and its usage as a legal tool? When a single person can have several different Dna's depending on where the sample is taken? Might this have implications on cases where an original finding is overturned by new DNA evidence?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/science/dna-double-take.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

RE: BOM-: This exaserbates the fact that we don't even know what 600 bc MANASIC Dna looks like in the first place.

[thesometimesaint]

Critics like to make a big deal about DNA when it comes to questions about Nephites in the Americas etc. But just how reliable is DNA anyways, When a mother can not even be genetically related to her own offspring?

Chimerism... what implications might this have on Dna and its usage as a legal tool? When a single person can have several different Dna's depending on where the sample is taken? Might this have implications on cases where an original finding is overturned by new DNA evidence?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/science/dna-double-take.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

RE: BOM-: This exaserbates the fact that we don't even know what 600 bc MANASIC Dna looks like in the first place.

 

If the glove don't fit you must acquit.

[Thinking]

From the Church News (March 22, 2013)

An interesting development in family history research is the use of DNA testing to discover one’s ethnicity. John Pereira, senior vice president of DNA research at Ancestry.com, explained, “One of the most common questions we get asked all the time is, ‘What’s my ethnicity?’ or ‘Where am I from?’ It turns out that the answer is in your DNA. It’s the key to discovering where your family is from and learning all about the places and cultures that make you who you are.” By comparing their unique DNA signature with DNA from others around the world, people can find out what matches exist to further define who they are and where their ancestors came from. Link

[bu11fr0g]

Chimerism doesn't have an affect on forensics. Chimerism doesn't change who your mother or your father is.  All the DNA of these types of chimeras are related.  Entirely different are chimeras made in the laboratory, say between a human and a mouse.

 

If you want something that will stir the pot more effectively look at heteroplasmy vs. homoplasmy.

[Zakuska]

Chimerism doesn't have an affect on forensics. Chimerism doesn't change who your mother or your father is.

 

Um... did you read the article...?

 

 

 

Moving Cautiously

Medical researchers aren’t the only scientists interested in our multitudes of personal genomes. So are forensic scientists. When they attempt to identify criminals or murder victims by matching DNA, they want to avoid being misled by the variety of genomes inside a single person.

Last year, for example, forensic scientists at the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory Division described how a saliva sample and a sperm sample from the same suspect in a sexual assault case didn’t match.

 

Bone marrow transplants can also confound forensic scientists. Researchers at Innsbruck Medical University in Austria took cheek swabs from 77 people who had received transplants up to nine years earlier. In 74 percent of the samples, they found a mix of genomes — both their own and those from the marrow donors, the scientists reported this year. The transplanted stem cells hadn’t just replaced blood cells, but had also become cells lining the cheek.

While the risk of confusion is real, it is manageable, experts said. “This should not be much of a concern for forensics,” said Manfred Kayser, a professor of Forensic Molecular Biologyat Erasmus University in Rotterdam. In the cases where mosaicism or chimerism causes confusion, forensic scientists can clear it up by other means. In the Austrian study, for example, the scientists found no marrow donor genomes in the hair of the recipients.

For genetic counselors helping clients make sense of DNA tests, our many genomes pose more serious challenges. A DNA test that uses blood cells may miss disease-causing mutations in the cells of other organs. “We can’t tell you what else is going on,” said Nancy B. Spinner, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania, who published a reviewabout the implications of mosaicism for genetic counseling in the May issue of Nature Reviews Genetics.

That may change as scientists develop more powerful ways to investigate our different genomes and learn more about their links to diseases. “It’s not tomorrow that you’re going to walk into your doctor’s office and they’re going to think this way,” said Dr. Lupski. “It’s going to take time.”

 

Chimerism most definately is effecting the field of forensics.

 

They are also finding that baby boys nursing from their mothers can change the DNA in a womans breast contaminating it with XY chromosomes,

that Chimeras can have 2 different blood types, that bone marrow transplants can change the dna sequence of  host cells, and much more.

Edited June 13, 2014 by Zakuska

[Zakuska]

 

 

... All the DNA of these types of chimeras are related.  

 

 

If this is true then why  was Lydia Fairchild denied food stamps for her kids because according to the DNA test the children weren't hers? Then she was taken to court for fraud?

 

It took years of court battles to prove she was a Chimera and finally get the Government aid she needed.

 

 

Lydia Fairchild was a proud mother who faced the most unusual of challenges. She had to fight in court to prove the children born from her body were her own.

 

"I knew that I carried them, and I knew that I delivered them. There was no doubt in my mind," Fairchild said.

 

Fairchild's fight for her kids began when she was 26-years-old, unemployed and applying for public assistance in Washington state. Everyone in her family had to be tested to prove they were all related.

The Department of Social Services called Fairchild and told her to come in immediately. What Fairchild thought was a routine meeting with a social worker turned into an interrogation. The proud mother was suddenly a criminal suspect.

 

<snip>

 

Still Fighting to Keep Children

But what did this new discovery mean for Lydia Fairchild, the woman living across the country who'd been fighting to keep her children?

The state was still so suspicious of Fairchild that when she gave birth to another child, a court officer stood in the delivery room to witness an immediate DNA test.

"They took DNA from the baby and myself right then and there, after birth, and it came back that there is no way possible that baby is mine," Fairchild said.

Even though they'd witnessed the birth, officials believed she was acting as a surrogate, possibly bearing a child for money.

Fairchild's attorney was determined to solve the mystery. That's when he came across Keegan's chimera story in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"I asked the judge to postpone the case until these tests could be done," Tindell said.

After the tests were done, there was proof that Fairchild was her own twin as well. The judge finally believed Fairchild was the biological mother of her children and dismissed the case.

"I probably wouldn't have my kids today if they didn't discover her situation. They wouldn't have known to even consider me as a chimera," Fairchild said.

If not for Keegan, Fairchild said she might have lost her family forever.

 

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/shes-twin/story?id=2315693\

Edited June 13, 2014 by Zakuska

[thesometimesaint]

If the glove don't fit you must acquit.