Chimera
The news that researchers want to create human-animal chimeras has generated controversy recently, and may conjure up ideas about Frankenstein-ish experiments. But chimeras aren't always man-made—and there are a number of examples of human chimeras that already exist.
Chimera Investment Corporation (NYSE: CIM) is an internally managed Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), founded in 2007 and headquartered in New York City. Our primary investment focus is on residential mortgage loans, asset securitization, and mortgage-related securities. Learn more about us and our portfolio. Chimera, in Greek mythology, a fire-breathing female monster resembling a lion in the forepart, a goat in the middle, and a dragon behind. In art the Chimera is usually represented as a lion with a goat’s head in the middle of its back and with a tail that ends in a snake’s head.
A chimera is essentially a single organism that's made up of cells from two or more 'individuals'—that is, it contains two sets of DNA, with the code to make two separate organisms.
One way that chimeras can happen naturally in humans is that a fetus can absorb its twin. This can occur with fraternal twins, if one embryo dies very early in pregnancy, and some of its cells are 'absorbed' by the other twin. The remaining fetus will have two sets of cells, its own original set, plus the one from its twin. [Seeing Double: 8 Fascinating Facts About Twins]
These individuals often don't know they are a chimera. For example, in 2002, news outlets reported the story of a woman named Karen Keegan, who needed a kidney transplant and underwent genetic testing along with her family, to see if a family member could donate one to her. But the tests suggested that genetically, Keegan could not be the mother of her sons. The mystery was solved when doctors discovered that Keegan was a chimera—she had a different set of DNA in her blood cells compared to the other tissues in her body.
A person can also be a chimera if they undergo a bone marrow transplant. During such transplants, which can be used for example to treat leukemia, a person will have their own bone marrow destroyed and replaced with bone marrow from another person. Bone marrow contains stem cells that develop into red blood cells. This means that a person with a bone marrow transplant will have blood cells, for the rest of their life, that are genetically identical to those of the donor, and are not genetically the same as the other cells in their own body.
In some cases, all of the blood cells in a person who received a bone marrow transplant will match the DNA of their donor. But in other cases, the recipient may have a mix of both their own blood cells and donor ones, according to a 2004 review paper in the journal Bone Marrow Transplantation. A blood transfusion will also temporarily give a person cells from someone else, but in a bone marrow transplant, the new blood cells are permanent, according to the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California.
More commonly, people may exhibit so-called microchimerism—when a small fraction of their cells are from someone else. This can happen when a woman becomes pregnant, and a small number of cells from the fetus migrate into her blood and travel to different organs.
A 2015 study suggested that this happens in almost all pregnant women, at least temporarily. The researchers tested tissue samples from the kidneys, livers, spleens, lungs, hearts, and brains of 26 women who tragically died while pregnant or within one month of giving birth. The study found that the women had fetal cells in all of these tissues. The researchers knew that the cells were from the fetus, and not from the mother, because the cells contained a Y chromosome (found only in males) and the women had all been carrying sons.
In some cases, fetal cells may stay in a woman's body for years. In a 2012 study, researchers analyzed the brains of 59 women ages 32 to 101, after they had died. They found 63 percent of these women had traces of male DNA from fetal cells in their brains. The oldest woman to have fetal cells in her brain was 94 years old, suggesting that these cells can sometimes stay in the body for a lifetime.
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Chimera Investment Corporation (NYSE: CIM) is an internally managed Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), founded in 2007 and headquartered in New York City. Our business objective is to provide attractive risk-adjusted returns to our shareholders over the long-term, predominantly through dividends and preservation of capital. We have $3.6 billion in total capital consisting of both common and preferred stock. Since inception, we have declared $5.3 billion common and preferred stock dividends.
Investment Strategy
Chimera Investment Corporation
We seek to maintain a diversified investment portfolio focusing on investing in residential mortgage loans, Non-Agency and Agency residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) and Agency commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS).
Our income is generated primarily by the difference, or net spread, between the income we earn on our assets and our financing and hedging costs. We are commonly referred to as a hybrid mortgage REIT because we invest in both non-Agency and Agency mortgage assets. This model provides flexibility in portfolio asset allocation and liability management.
Our Portfolio
Residential Mortgage Loans: A significant part of our business and growth strategy is to engage in securitization transactions to finance the acquisition of residential mortgage loans. In those securitizations we retain the subordinate RMBS, which typically receive interest income but no principal until the securities senior to them are paid off. This helps mitigate reinvestment risk as principal may not be received for several years after the loan collateral is securitized.
Non-Agency RMBS: We invest in both investment grade and non-investment grade Non-Agency RMBS issued by third parties. We believe this portfolio will provide high risk-adjusted returns over the long-term.
Agency RMBS: We invest in RMBS issued or guaranteed by Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (Agency RMBS). These securities provide dual portfolio functions by providing both spread income and a source of liquidity for the company.
Agency CMBS: The Agency CMBS we acquire are primarily Ginnie Mae Construction Loan and Ginnie Mae Permanent Loan Certificates. These assets typically have prepayment protection. The borrowers on the underlying mortgage loan generally are required to pay a prepayment penalty if they prepay during the first 10-years of the loan. This prepayment protection generally makes these assets longer duration and thus easier to hedge interest rate risk compared to Agency RMBS.
Funding Strategy
We borrow money, or use leverage, to finance the acquisition of mortgage assets and enhance potential returns on our investment portfolio. We use several funding sources to finance our investments including asset securitization, repurchase agreements (repo), warehouse lines, convertible debt and equity capital.
Chimera Cat
A key element to our funding strategy is securitization which provides long-term stable financing and structural leverage to potentially enhance returns and mitigate risk. In our securitizations, we generally create senior and subordinate notes. The senior bonds are sold to a third party and we retain the subordinate bonds which include the first-loss bonds that are usually subject to the risk retention rules. In most securitizations, we retain a call option, which, depending on market conditions, we may exercise to liquidate the original securitization trust, receive the remaining collateral and securitize the remaining collateral in a new securitization to reduce the related financing costs or to increase the structural leverage.
Example Securitization*
*A significant portion of the RMBS we acquire through securitization is subject to the U.S. credit risk retention rules which materially limit our ability to sell or hedge such investments as needed, which may require us to hold investments that we may otherwise desire to sell during times of severe market disruption in the mortgage, housing or related sectors, such as those being experienced now as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.