Roxanne Khamsi
speaker
252 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 9 Jun
Roxanne Khamsi’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So some of it happens to just be time.
Like over the course of our lives, we are more likely to pick up mutations that cause these
large populations of mutant blood cells to start growing within us.
And so by the time somebody is 70 years old, there's about a 10 to 20% chance that you have a substantial number of these mutant blood cells in your body.
But there's also some interesting research looking at how things like getting good sleep might reduce your risk of these mutant blood cells rising in your body.
And they've actually also tried to study what happens to astronauts in space, whether that extra radiation that they're
exposed to might also contribute to their risk of these mutant blood cells.
I think this is one of the most provocative things I've learned.
So we tend to think about mutation as something bad, right?
We've talked about cancer.
We've talked about all sorts of genetic diseases.
But there is a necessity of mutation happening in our bodies.
So if we don't mutate, we can't defend against the viruses and bacteria that try to infect us.
People that can't mutate their immune cells have a disorder called hyper-IgM syndrome, and they're at extreme risk of opportunistic infections.
They have a basically compromised immune system and require all sorts of treatments, bone marrow transplants.
So we are very lucky, you and I are very lucky, that our immune cells mutate to defend ourselves against bacteria and viruses in our environment.
Yes, they do change your DNA.
So I want to back up for a second and say even getting sick changes the DNA of your immune cells because your immune cells are essentially playing the lottery.
They're trying to figure out if they can rearrange their DNA, whether they can come up with a new antibody, a new kind of
shape of antibody that will bind and neutralize that virus or that bacteria that's trying to make you sick.
Showing 161–180 of 252 · page 9 of 13
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