Microchimerism

Guest: J. Lee Nelson, MD, Member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington  Any woman who’s borne a child will tell you the experience changed her deeply – physically, emotionally, psychically. The changes go much deeper than you might expect, though. Scientists have discovered a biological phenomenon called microchimerism in which mothers retain some of their children’s cells long after birth – they’re present in her brain and other parts of the body. The question is why? What purpose, if any, does these left-over fetal cells have?