Expert: Sridhar Acharya Malkaram - 11/4/2010

Question
Hello, if you have a hereditary disease and you donate bone marrow, would you pass this disease into a new family order.

Answer
The bone marrow transplant in the recipient will not genetically alter his sex cells (gamates), so any disease associated with the donor will not pass to the next generations of the recipient.

This is because the transplanted cells form only a part of the recipient's body, and the genome of all his other body cells won't change.

However, the recipient himself may be affected if there was any disease in the donar, that is specifically linked to the functioning of bone marrow cells, like production of defective blood cells.