Monday, August 21, 2006

Of Greek demons and DNA fingerprinting

A chimera is a greek demon that is part lion, part goat and part serpent. Why any mythical creature should possess the combined attributes of these three vertebrates is beyond me. However, a good thing did come out of the legend of the chimera. Geneticists found a perfect name for organisms which are a mixture of two or more genetically distinct types of cells. Most of us are non-chimeric. Almost all the cells in my body have identical genes. However, certain abnormal births can give rise to chimeric individuals. One way to achieve mixing of cells is to combine two separate zygotes into one. Imagine a womb with recently conceived twins. If these combine at an early stage, it makes a baby that is whole, seemingly normal, but chimeric. It is possible that certain tissues, say the liver cells, belong to twin 1 and certain others like blood cells belong to twin 2. This means, a chimera is actually two individuals living in one body. Yes, this happens.

Now, imagine that a chimera commits a murder. He is the prime suspect in the murder investigation. The CSI team has found some hair that belongs to the perp (yes, i use their lingo now). They hope the DNA evidence will clinch the deal, sending the perp away for a few decades. To their surprise, the DNA that they collected from the perps blood is completely different from the DNA from the hair. Our perp walks out free, and the law can not do a thing.

Is this a perfect crime?

5 Comments:

At 4:01 PM, Blogger Elwing said...

ooooh... u raise some questions... cool na when e can associate research with cool stuff like murder.... and i hope all the government officials checking on my blogging life dun think tht i show murderous tendencies by reading this scrap...

 
At 5:28 PM, Blogger Rick said...

damn...so EVERYBODY has a blog now? Hey u think reading your blog will help me with my mol bio course?

 
At 10:40 AM, Blogger Unsettler of Catan said...

is that so??!!
know of any such cases?? if that is true, crime wont be the only thing that would be perfect. if u know what i mean :D

 
At 8:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

how's the research going?

 
At 3:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

this is not a perfect crime; in fact, similar things have already happened. luckily, DNA is not the only evidence able to convict a 'perp' ... in such a situation one could ID a perp in a lineup, voicematch, handspread from bruising, skin cell derived DNA, footprints, fingerprints on the victim's skin, hair follicle derived DNA, and that's just off the top of my head ... this is however a tricky case and unfortunately solving such a crime would be determined by the chutzpah and inquisitiveness of the detectives and crime scene investigators ... too often our overworked judicial system would let such a twisted case slip through the cracks. and it would be an invasion of privacy to require semen samples from suspects when in 99% of cases a buccal swab is sufficient to get a matching DNA sample. there's a good Law and ORder SVU episode about a similar situation... or is it CSI?... can't remember. -Emily

 

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