Roxanne Khamsi

Because as I was alluding to, our immune cells require mutation in order to make new antibody shapes.

So every time we get sick, you might be able to hear I'm coming over a cold.

So this happened in me recently.

I got some kind of bug from my kid who's in daycare.

And I'm sure, because I know how the immune system works, that my immune cells were essentially doing that lottery thing.

They were pulling that lever, reshuffling their DNA inside them, and coming up with new antibody shapes to fight this pathogen.

So my point, going back to the aging question, is that if we slow down mutation...

in the body, can we be specific enough so we can slow down mutation where we don't want it, but then keep it where we need it, keep it in the immune cells that are doing DNA changes in order to come up with antibodies that are new?

Because that's what we need to truly survive.

We're now grasping that spontaneous mutations in the body are affecting our health, and we're going to just feel so much more empowered when we get a handle on this.

Welcome to Science Writer.

Welcome back.

Thank you so much, Ira.

It's great to be back.

So I was taught the same thing.

I was taught that the DNA I inherited from my mother and my father is the same in all of my cells.

And what I discovered about eight years ago was that's not the whole picture and that scientists right now are uncovering that each human body is a landscape of genetic diversity and that our DNA is dynamic.

It's not static.

In fact, scientists estimate that if a person reaches 100 years old, a single white blood cell will have around 3,000 mutations that are not found in the rest of their body.

So this is the new understanding of genetics I really feel is important, that our DNA changes over time.