Q 01/05

After a donor stem cell transplant, which lifelong trait of the patient can switch to match the donor's?

A) Eye color

B) Blood type

C) Fingerprints

D) Skin tone

Answer · why

B) Blood type

Blood type switches because the donor's stem cells take over the job of making every red cell, so a type O patient given type A marrow ends up type A.

Q 02/05

Timothy Ray Brown, the Berlin patient, was the first person cured of which infection by a stem cell transplant?

A) HIV

B) Ebola

C) Polio

D) Zika

Answer · why

A) HIV

HIV became undetectable in his body after doctors treating his leukemia picked a donor with a rare genetic variant that stops the virus attaching to c...

Q 03/05

The lowercase 'i' in iPS cells, the reprogrammed stem cells first made in 2006, was a nod to which Apple product?

A) iMac

B) iPhone

C) iPod

D) iTunes

Answer · why

C) iPod

The iPod was hugely popular at the time, so the discoverer borrowed its small first letter. The full name is induced pluripotent stem cells.

Q 04/05

Planarians, which regrow a whole body from a sliver using stem cells called neoblasts, are what kind of animal?

A) Starfish

B) Salamanders

C) Jellyfish

D) Flatworms

Answer · why

D) Flatworms

Flatworms of this kind have been called immortal under the edge of a knife: a piece as small as 1/279th of the animal can rebuild a complete body in a...

Q 05/05

Dolly the sheep, a 1996 landmark for stem cell science, was cloned using a cell from which part of a ewe?

A) Mammary gland

B) Thyroid gland

C) Salivary gland

D) Adrenal gland

Answer · why

A) Mammary gland

A mammary gland cell supplied her DNA, which is why the scientists named her after the singer Dolly Parton. She showed that a specialized adult cell c...