In a first known to medical science, an Australian girl has spontaneously switched blood types to that of her liver donor. Faced with liver failure, the nine year old received a transplant. Nine months later it was discovered that not only had her blood type changed but that her immune system had switched to that of her donor after stem cells from the new liver migrated to her bone marrow.

What doctors obviously want to know now is whether the same kind of transformation can be replicated in other transplant patients.