Stem Cells Change Man's DNA

[adam7117]

Here is a fascinating article about a man who temporarily ended up with three different sets of DNA in his body after an experimental cancer treatment.

It is actually a most enlightening article on what is possible nowadays in the area of DNA manipulation. Let us for a moment imagine a goon hired to cause harm to others – how much easier would it be, knowing that a reliable DNA trace cannot be left behind?

Nevertheless, this article also provides insight into the reality of DNA changes taking place in an alive human body.

Article published by Portland Press Herald at the following address:
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=138639&ac=PHnws

Experimental cancer treatment includes a genetic bonus 'Wild thing' meshes with experimental DNA treatment

Not long ago, Greg Graves would have laughed at the thought of walking around with multiple sets of DNA. The first time he even heard of the possibility was on the TV show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
"There was this guy who had two different types of DNA because he absorbed his own twin," Graves said. "They got a DNA sample from the crime scene that was different from when they tested him."

Little did the Cape Elizabeth man know that for a time he would be carrying three sets of DNA.

A year into his diagnosis with an advanced stage of non- Hodgkin's lymphoma – a blood cancer that killed his father and two paternal uncles – conventional treatment did not seem to be working. So last summer, at age 48, he went to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston for an experimental transplant of stem cells intended to regenerate his blood.

Traditionally, the donor would have been another adult. But for this procedure, doctors used stem cells from the discarded umbilical cord blood of two anonymous babies – a boy and a girl.

Cells from both babies co-existed in his body for a while, then the boy's took root in the bone marrow and started producing healthy blood cells. Now, the genetic makeup of Graves' blood has gone from O-positive to the boy's O-negative type.

"If you were to do a DNA test of my blood and one from my skin, they'd be different," Graves said. "It's a pretty wild thing."

NO MATCH FROM BONE MARROW

The procedure performed on Graves is part of a worldwide effort to make stem cell transplants available to nearly every patient with a blood cancer, such as lymphoma and leukemia, or disorders of the bone marrow.

Currently, most of these patients get transplants from donors of bone marrow, a rich source of stem cells, also known as the body's "master cells" because they can turn into other tissues and organs.

About a third of patients are matched with a sibling – the ideal scenario – and another third can find a match among the more than 10 million people listed in bone marrow registries, said Dr. Claudio Brunstein of the University of Minnesota, where double- cord blood transplants originated.

Unfortunately, some of the matches made through bone marrow registries turn out to be worthless, because "you have a lot of people who move or no longer want to be donors," Brunstein said.

That leaves about 40 percent of patients without a match, Brunstein said. Graves was one.

For patients like him, the medical team at the University of Minnesota in 2000 decided to transplant stem cells from cord blood. Of the different types of stem cells, they are the youngest and most malleable, except for controversial embryonic stem cells, which are not used for medical treatments.

By that time, cord blood transplants had been widely performed in children, but a single unit would not provide enough material for an adult over 100 pounds. So the university team used blood from two babies' umbilical cords.

A CLOSE MATCH IS GOOD ENOUGH

Cord-blood stem cells are even less differentiated than an adult donor's, and matching is not as precise a science. That means all but 5 percent of patients "with the most unusual genetics" could find close enough matches, Brunstein said.

Graves' doctors at Dana-Farber picked cord-blood units based as much on the size of the batch as genetic appropriateness, and came up with a male O-negative donor and a female A- positive donor.

To set the stage for the transplant, doctors tried to wipe out Graves' malignant blood cells with chemotherapy. Then, on July 21, 2006, Graves received an injection of the babies' stem cells, and started a regimen of anti-rejection pills.

In most patients, the two sets of cells co-exist for several months. But a test of Graves' blood a month later showed that the baby girl's cells had vanished.

"We presumed it was just rejected," said Dr. Joseph Antin, Graves' doctor and the chief...

of transplantation at Dana-Farber. "We don't know if Greg rejected it or if the boy rejected the girl. We can't tell you any more precisely, other than it went away."

Graves said he is just glad his body "clicked" with the boy's cells. A year after the procedure, he is cancer-free and working part- time from home at his job as a principal with Milliman, an actuarial and consulting firm.

Graves is one of only several hundred people worldwide to have received the double-cord transplant. Dana-Farber is a leading provider of the transplant, having performed about 80 in New England since 2003, trailing only the University of Minnesota.

To promote cord-blood transplants, Dana-Farber is working on starting a cord-blood bank with the obstetrics department of Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Of the Dana-Farber cases, about 70 percent of the patients have survived their prognosis, and some of them are considered cured, Antin said.

Graves never received an official prognosis, but Antin said without the transplant, "most likely his disease would have progressed or devolved to a point where he's no longer treatable."

Now 50, Graves said he has thought about one day meeting the boy, whose sample came from North Carolina, and who should be 6 now. But Antin said that unlike adult donors, cord-blood donors cannot be identified, and may never know about their life-saving contribution.

"There's a boy out playing during recess and (he) has no clue that this is going on," Antin said.

 

[Charles]

You have given this the wrong title because it is simply not true that the transplanted stem cells changed the man’s DNA. More even, the man’s DNA did not change at all because of the procedure he went through.

So where is the DNA manipulation that you say the article will enlighten us about ?

It is understandable though that you made that mistake as the first title of the article is downright misleading.

Experimental cancer treatment includes a genetic bonus 'Wild thing' meshes with experimental DNA treatment .

A genetic bonus ? OK with this I can live, but “…meshes with experimental DNA treatment”, is BS.

All the guy received is a transplant. Like someone who received a kidney of another person is now running around with a foreign kidney, he received a foreign thing (the children’s stem cells) that continually makes blood and is now running around with foreign blood. Like each and every cell that makes up the transplanted kidney carries the DNA of the donor, the cells that make up his blood, now, carry the DNA of the boy. The stem cells of the girl were rejected. There is no mixing, or fusion of DNA’s within his own cells, or within the cells of his now foreign blood. There is no DNA manipulation that happened before, during or after the procedure. He received a transplant.

Before the girl’s cells were rejected he had indeed three types of cells of which the DNA was different: his OWN DNA (his entire body), few cells within his blood that carried the DNA of the girl, and few cells within his blood that carried the DNA of the boy. After the rejection he has two types of cells: his entire body with his own DNA and his blood cells with the boys DNA.

He received a transplant that is not rejected yet and let’s hope for him that it stays that way.

 

[adam7117]

It is understandable though that you made that mistake as the first title of the article is downright misleading.

The title was given as per posting on Slashdot (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/05/213218&from=rss).

The original title of the article is also given at the top of the quote. If somebody performs a search for any of the two titles, they will also find a copy on the Signs forum and might pay us a visit.

I did, however, forget to include the text from the side-note, which I wanted to run past the group - it is a rather bold statement:

TWO SETS OF DNA?

EVERY PERSON is born with their own distinct set of DNA, short for deoxyribonucleic acid. This genetic material is the same in virtually every cell in a person’s body.

BUT IN SOME PEOPLE, the DNA in the blood differs from the DNA in the rest of the body. Most often this results from a transplant of cells from another person, but some people are born with two sets of DNA or develop different DNA later in life.

This is the first time I have seen anyone make that kind of claim. Has anyone seen any material that would validate it?

 

[Charles]

This is the first time I have seen anyone make that kind of claim. Has anyone seen any material that would validate it?

Yes. Such person (or animal) is called a chimera. It happens naturally and is nothing new.

Remember though that there is no mixing of genetic material within one and the same cell. Chimeras have two types of cells, each with its own genetic make up.

 

[adam7117]

Here is a link to an article previously posted on Signs. It discusses the latest experiments with chimera-type beings and describes how far we are able to currently go.

I believe that it really puts the human transplant experiment into perspective. IMHO, it is immaterial that there is no merging of DNA within cells as described in the PPH article. This is probably the objective anyway – and all we have to go by are these scraps of news articles.

Where is the DNA manipulation? It is a semantically loaded question – it would suggest normality and a perfectly OK status-quo. This sort of mindset is also evident on the Slashdot forum where statements like, “Everything here is perfectly normal and quite well known to everybody.”

Well – is it?

Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/129234-Now+scientists+create+a+sheep+that%27s+15%25+human

 

[Charles]

Here is a link to an article previously posted on Signs. It discusses the latest experiments with chimera-type beings and describes how far we are able to currently go.

Ok, I’ve read the link which I probably missed in the past. Pretty heavy. To be more precise, the article that you now refer to indeed discloses something far reaching or too far maybe as in over reaching. Especially the intimacy between two different species doesn’t seem to be a very healthy situation. There is the potential of a carry over of viruses, as they no longer will be recognized. Usually such carry over is very much blocked as the typical glycosylation pattern that is otherwise acquired by many viruses from the foreign host is no longer there, i.e. they won’t be recognized, even by a healthy immune system maybe.

I have also seen how you have lifted out a statement within the comments section of that article that came from ‘animal activists’. And that they fear for DNA fusion between the sheep and the human stem cells that have fully settled within that sheep. I’d say they are misdirecting. I think about other potential harms that could come as, for instance, a carry over of viruses. Mostly, such fusions are not viable anyway.

I believe that it really puts the human transplant experiment into perspective.

If you are referring to the article that you proposed in this thread I’d say that it could bring it into perspective, ad hoc that is.

However, the article that you brought in about human stem cells settling within a sheep is quite different as the article that you proposed wherein human stem cells settle within another human being (in other words … a human to human transplant). While transplantation means “big business” these days and there is lots to say about that kind of practice, the article that you proposed (with the perception I have) does not further support the far reaching deed disclosed in the second article that was published already by SOTT.

IMHO, it is immaterial that there is no merging of DNA within cells as described in the PPH article.

Why would that be immaterial? DNA fusion of separate species and human to human transplantation are very different things. And still you are trying to sell this as DNA manipulation, i.e. that they are the same.
As to your first post wherein you literally said that “It is actually a most enlightening article on what is possible nowadays in the area of DNA manipulation.” , would you still say that it is IMMATERIAL that the article doesn’t enlighten us at all as to what is possible nowadays in the area of DNA manipulation? But this is what you said. There is a direct contradiction here. I don't think that such can be swept under the carpet as being immaterial.

While DNA manipulation is going on big time (what you eat for instance) the article that you propose does not enlighten me, nor does it support, or bring forth data in that direction.

This is probably the objective anyway – and all we have to go by are these scraps of news articles.

…as with the article that you proposed which I consider as trash considering the title.
Actually the title is about the only place wherein I see any possible allusion towards DNA manipulation. The title is completely disinforming and you still seem to fall for it. I’ve read the article.
And about the objective? I think it is about making big bucks. This alone could explain the over reaching deed that is disclosed in the second article you referred to. Transplantation business, remember, is usually for desperate people.

When you really want to play with genomes, there’s other ways to do it.

Where is the DNA manipulation? It is a semantically loaded question – it would suggest normality and a perfectly OK status-quo.

No, it is not a semantically loaded question. It says what it says. Please remember that this question referred to the article that you proposed. And I did not find anything in that article that enlightened me as to DNA manipulation. It is not there. Therefore I asked. Maybe you read something I missed. Maybe you know something I missed. Maybe you are working on a hunch. Something I like actually. After all, what else do we have at times?

If so, I’d appreciate you’d try to explain to me (us). And remember, hunches can carry you away, a sign that usually says that some different engine is at work here (a sort of carry over?).
Secondly, if you look at the statement: “Where is the DNA manipulation?” it could become loaded, but not semantically (come on!).

The syntax it is that you have to look at. It is stated in the form of a 'question'. As such you could have interpreted it as a rhetorical question, something that can become loaded … if that was your perception.

This sort of mindset is also evident on the Slashdot forum where statements like, “Everything here is perfectly normal and quite well known to everybody.”

Slashdot forum? I really don’t know what you are talking about. I really don’t. Maybe you could enlighten me?

Well – is it?

In my opinion? No it isn’t.
And maybe it never was and never will be, but here I am speculating, which I have not been doing above.

Nice conversing with you.

Cheers.

 

[The Mechanic]

Thanks for the link to that article adam, i had missed it:

The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor's bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep's foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant.

Imagine the possibilities... A lamb with a partial human brain huh? So potentially this technique could create a full human brain in a lamb? So with human mental capabilities perhaps? That's just too sick. Imagine being that.

I was watching some youtube videos of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 the other day, and witnessing the images of the people born with mutations as a result of the radioactive fallout (mostly children, they probably don't get very old), made me feel very sad and down and just feeling very sorry for them. Those children, often abandoned by their parents, have to live not only with that, but also with having a mutated body with one leg that's half a meter longer than the other or a tumor bigger than a baseball somewhere on their body... or no mouth and nose, just a big hole in a face. Imagine being born that way. You would wish that to happen to nobody ever, it's just too horrific. Yet it happened, and still happens. It's part of our reality. A reality, in the case of the victims of Chernobyl, created by humans by tinkering with nuclear technology.

Now back to the DNA discussion and the sheep with the human brain. I don't at all pretend to know how reincarnation works, but I have some ideas about it how it might function. With that knowledge, and seeing the technology heading this direction, I 'm not be able to discard the possibility of a human (like) soul or part thereof being reincarnated in such an artificially DNA modified half sheep half human body from the realm of possibilities.

Now, being born as a sheep, that's just a to a sick, horrific, disgusting and revolting an idea to me to contemplate. With humor perhaps, but I can not think of any sick jokes involving sheep at the moment. I mean imagine being that. Your biological mother is a sheep. Come on. That pretty much makes you the sickest joke this reality ever came up with.

It somehow makes me think of pigs. Perhaps because they're told to be very intelligent. That always struck me as pretty horrific.

Wait, thought of a joke. What if this is just a front for an operation by tptb to not, as we are led to believe, create replacement parts for our broken bodies, but to create parts that break our bodies? A human species with the mind of the sheep perhaps? Much easier to control you know... Oh wait...

I'm sorry if I come off overly emotional in my writing. Perhaps I do, and am, I don't really know.

EDIT: I wanted to add that I'm all against this DNA tinkering. The processes, and therefore the risks, aren't even fully understood by todays scientists, while the potential risks that are known are pretty frightening to say the least.

 

[Charles]

Now back to the DNA discussion and the sheep with the human brain. I don't at all pretend to know how reincarnation works, but I have some ideas about it how it might function. With that knowledge, and seeing the technology heading this direction, I 'm not be able to discard the possibility of a human (like) soul or part thereof being reincarnated in such an artificially DNA modified half sheep half human body from the realm of possibilities.

There is no artificially DNA modified half sheep nor is there any DNA tinkering as you placed in your EDIT. Not in the articles that have been mentioned in this thread.

There IS tinkering howoever, but it is on a cellular level (human stem cells are forced to settle within a sheep body). Sadly, the night marish scenario that you envision, wherein human reincarnation happens within such a sheep, could very well be true.

One would also expect bizarre phenomena with simple human to human transplantation. And this is exactly what seems to be the case …

On May 29, 1988, a woman named Claire Sylvia received the heart of an 18-year-old
male who had been killed in a motorcycle accident. Soon after the operation, Sylvia
noticed some distinct changes in her attitudes, habits, and tastes. She found herself acting more masculine, strutting down the street (which, being a dancer, was not her usual manner of walking). She began craving foods, such as green peppers and beer, which she had always disliked before. Sylvia even began having recurring dreams about a mystery man named Tim L., who she had a feeling was her donor.
As it turns out, he was. Upon meeting the “family of her heart,” as she put it, Sylvia
discovered that her donor’s name was, in fact, Tim L., and that all the changes she had
been experiencing in her attitudes, tastes, and habits closely mirrored that of Tim’s
(Sylvia179). Some members of the scientific community and of society, as a whole, may brush this off as being merely a strange coincidence. However, some believe that
episodes such as this one offer evidence of a concept known as cellular memory , which is beginning to gather more and more attention in the scientific community as the technology of heart transplantation improves and affects more people throughout the world (Bellecci 1).

This so-called cellular memory does not directly proof the link between DNA and something like reincarnation, but it does go in the same direction …

Here is another amazing but real-life example.

…several years ago, an eight-year-old girl received the heart of a ten-year-old girl who was murdered. Shortly after receiving her new heart, the girl began having recurring nightmares about the man who had murdered her donor. She believed she knew who the murderer was. Her mother finally brought her to a psychiatrist and after several sessions, the girl’s psychiatrist “could not deny the reality of what the child was telling her.” They decided to call the police and, using the descriptions from the little girl, they found the murderer. According to the psychiatrist, “the time, the weapon, the place, the clothes he wore, what the little girl he killed had said to him. . .everything the little heart transplant recipient reported was completely accurate” (Pearsall 7). Needless to say, the psychiatrist was eager to find any available explanation for this particular patient’s experience.

I am speechless.

More on this cellular memory can be found here:

_http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/StudentJournal/volume2/kate.pdf

 

[The Mechanic]

Hi Charles, thank you for your input about cellular memory. A lot of stuff to think about.

Now back to the DNA discussion and the sheep with the human brain. I don't at all pretend to know how reincarnation works, but I have some ideas about it how it might function. With that knowledge, and seeing the technology heading this direction, I 'm not be able to discard the possibility of a human (like) soul or part thereof being reincarnated in such an artificially DNA modified half sheep half human body from the realm of possibilities.

There is no artificially DNA modified half sheep nor is there any DNA tinkering as you placed in your EDIT. Not in the articles that have been mentioned in this thread.

I disagree with you here. In the second article posted in this thread by Adam, which I quoted partly in my post, it says:

Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.

The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.

Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus.

He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.

The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor's bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep's foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant.

So yes, there is information about artificially DNA modified sheep in the articles mentioned. Seems like Professor Esmail Zanjani is creating chimeras, human animal hybrids. I don't know on which grounds you conclude there is no such sheep.

There IS tinkering howoever, but it is on a cellular level (human stem cells are forced to settle within a sheep body). Sadly, the night marish scenario that you envision, wherein human reincarnation happens within such a sheep, could very well be true.

I don't really grok why the DNA tinkering being 'on a cellular level' makes any difference. DNA tinkering is always on a cellular level, because that's where the DNA is, in the cell. The tinkering with the DNA of sheep embryos is clearly being done with the goal to have lambs being born (which then grow into sheep) with a very abnormal physiological makeup. Doesn't that take the results of the DNA tinkering to a higher level than the cellular? I mean, a human heart is different from a sheep heart not only because of different DNA residing inside the cells, but also because the DNA causes the heart to grow a certain way and to develop characteristics that make the heart human as opposed to sheep.

 

[Charles]

I disagree with you here. In the second article posted in this thread by Adam, which I quoted partly in my post, it says:

Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.

The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.

Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus.

He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.

The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor's bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep's foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant.

So yes, there is information about artificially DNA modified sheep in the articles mentioned. Seems like Professor Esmail Zanjani is creating chimeras, human animal hybrids. I don't know on which grounds you conclude there is no such sheep.

No that is not true TM. Where is the DNA manipulation?

There's way more confusion it seems as I originally thought. I hold a PhD degree in molecular biology. That's why I consider it as my duty to jump in whenever related matters are discussed and if need be. But I forget at times, that lots and lots of other people did not receive the same basic education within this field as I did, while I often assume that they did.

So it was not such a bad idea to jump into this thread after all. Initially it was to show the disinfo of the article (the title remember) and to keep the discussion sharp, so that any confusion does not cloud the matter. It is not only important to use the right language in our search for truth. It is also very important to keep these things apart, in case we want to arm ourselves as in know thy enemy.

I don't really grok why the DNA tinkering being 'on a cellular level' makes any difference.

So, no it is not DNA tinkering on a cellular level that was disclosed in the articles cited within this thread. It is tinkering on a cellular level, wherein cells of different species are forced to grow up together. But the DNA within each type of cell has not been tinkered or tampered with, ergo there was no DNA manipulation within these cells.

If you change the DNA within a cell, than you have tinkered with the DNA. And that is called genetic engineering, or DNA manipulation. This has not been done with this sheep, nor has it been done with the man who received the stem cells of the two children.

Hmm, I don't know how I can make it any more clear right now, sorry ...

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Is it possible to alter DNA by tinkering on the cellular level? For example, radiation makes people mutate, or be born mutated. Is this mutation a result of alterations at the DNA level? If so, you could say that messing with radioactivity is equivalent to "manipulating DNA". Even if you're not directly and physically manipulating DNA, you're manipulating something that changes the DNA. So would the same be true for cellular tinkering, does this affect DNA, and as such, could be referred to as "manipulating DNA" (even if indirectly)?

For example the C's have suggested that our learning can change our DNA. If true, we could manipulate our own DNA indirectly by learning, without having to directly go into the DNA using scientific instruments and physically change it that way.

 

[anart]

One would also expect bizarre phenomena with simple human to human transplantation. And this is exactly what seems to be the case …

As far as cellular memory being the cause of these experiences, it might be worthwhile to also consider spirit attachments. I'm not wholly discounting cellular memory, but from these two particular examples, an energetic attachment could also explain it - although it seems possible that the transplants provided a 'pathway' to the attachments. Just another possibility.

 

[Zadius Sky]

If true, we could manipulate our own DNA indirectly by learning, without having to directly go into the DNA using scientific instruments and physically change it that way.

Even if you can change your DNA directly either by stem cells or other methods, you will have no idea what the results will be. However, as SAO said, learning can change our DNA because our soul growth would parallel to our DNA changes, and our DNA changes would become natural/evoluationary rather than being manipulated.

I used to have thoughts about receiving stem cells due to my hearing loss, but now I perfer learning.

for what it is worth...

 

[Charles]

Is it possible to alter DNA by tinkering on the cellular level?

Not that I know of. But it could become one of the long term consequences of creating such chimera's wherein cells of different species are growing and living, and doing their thing side by side and make up an entire body/ entity. Hybridoma's wherein separate cells, each with their own nucleus that carries the genetic material, fuse together do arise in a human body. Two come to my mind right now : one is the result of a CMV infection. The other is a natural process, wherein during the activation of osteoclasts, several fuse together before the fused giant cells start chopping away big tubular like pieces of bone (in contrast to osteoblasts which continuously build bone). But even with such fusions of otherwise separate cells (called hybridoma's) the genetic material does not mix up and it stays in separate nuclei.
As a scientist I have learned about the subtlety, and finess of life, and I can imagine the potential outcomes. Therefore I would refrain from over reaching as shown with the article of the sheep.
I have read a lot around the work of Popp on biophotons. It seems that each living body really sort of 'sings' its own specific symphony until the moment of death, and then all these biophotons escape te body, almost like the death of a star. This can be measured with extremely sensitive camera's. To continue with the matter we are discussing, what sort of symphony will be sung when two cells of entirely different species are forced to sing their usual song within the same body as with the sheep? Will we have some sort of cacaphony? Clearly not, as the sheep are still alive. So will it start (by processes of resonance) to sing a new symphony? And could this have a repurcussion on the DNA on a long term? I do see such as a possibility.

For example, radiation makes people mutate, or be born mutated. Is this mutation a result of alterations at the DNA level? If so, you could say that messing with radioactivity is equivalent to "manipulating DNA". Even if you're not directly and physically manipulating DNA, you're manipulating something that changes the DNA. So would the same be true for cellular tinkering, does this affect DNA, and as such, could be referred to as "manipulating DNA" (even if indirectly)?

Again SAO, not that I know off. With all else I fully agree. Mutation is a change at the DNA level. A purposeful, guided and directed change of the DNA is genetic engineering. Messing with radioactivity, or mutagenic chemicals does change our DNA, but for the purpose of clarity I would not start calling this genetic engineering. I would call it something like population control, or using us, or other DNA based life forms as guinea pigs yes, or simply the result of plain arrogant stupidity.

For example the C's have suggested that our learning can change our DNA. If true, we could manipulate our own DNA indirectly by learning, without having to directly go into the DNA using scientific instruments and physically change it that way.

Yes, and see above as to the song that is being sung within your body. I consider it as a possibility that there is a feed back, back to the DNA. But I haven't found any scientifically controlled experiments that proof something similar.

 

[Charles]

One would also expect bizarre phenomena with simple human to human transplantation. And this is exactly what seems to be the case …

As far as cellular memory being the cause of these experiences, it might be worthwhile to also consider spirit attachments. I'm not wholly discounting cellular memory, but from these two particular examples, an energetic attachment could also explain it - although it seems possible that the transplants provided a 'pathway' to the attachments. Just another possibility.

I fully agree Anart. Cellular memory is just a name that this phenomenon was given by surgeons and scientists. It gives the impression that it is scientific and well explained. But fact is that it does not provide a good explanation for the phenomena at all. We are talking here about the passing along of memory, preferences, manners and wat not from the donor of a heart towards a recipient. In the link that I provided and towards the end, other theories are also mentioned. And some sort of spirit attachment seems very possible.
_http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/StudentJournal/volume2/kate.pdf

Most donors of organs die in a very sudden and abrupt way that causes trauma, of people whose life was perceived as not finished yet. And maybe that is why their soul sticks very close to our 3D world. It could also be possible that some sort of "imprint" lingers on, in or around the donated organ that is still alive, while the soul could very well be gone.
Parallel to these theories are the claims from surgeons who say that the immunosuppressive drugs that such people have to take are psychoactive, resulting in a heightened receptivity. But receptivity of what precisely ?