So Claires blood can't be used to heal Hiro because it would cause the cancer to get bigger.

Doesn't this imply that Claire could someday get tumors all over her body and not heal from them, but not die either?

ewwww. that's just gross.

i doubt it does as she would already no doubt be covered in tumours from her experience with radioactive man in season one.

I figure she just can't get cancer to begin with because of her blood.

That's my thought exactly

Cancer forms when healthy cells mutate instead of dying like they should, but with Claire, the cells should neither mutate nor die (or if they die, be replaced instantly with healthy new cells). Also, that's a horrible mental image i am now stuck with, Claire, but all lumpy and crap, it's not a good look.

Hilarious mental image: Achieved!

I think maybe Claire's power works in multiple levels. It does not only cause rapid cell proliferation, but to heal her power may also use her genome as a template to guide the regeneration. And so her power may possibly be able to distinguish between "self" material (ie. naturally occurring substances/in her own body) and "NOT-self" materials (ie. viruses, bullets, other foreign materials), like the way the normal immune system would but maybe in a more advance manner.

So if tumour cells arise inside her body, her power would be able to recognize that the genome of such cells does not conform to the genome of the rest of her cells when her power first manifested. Thus it would recognize these cells as "NOT-self" and allow their destruction (whether by the immune system like normal people, or by her superpower), or restore them according to the template. Thus Claire herself cannot get cancer. (That may also explain the suspension of aging, when the telomeres become shortened over time, her power recognize these as "NOT-self" cells and restore them to the original length of telomeres.)

When her blood is introduced to another body, since the template genome the power is "keyed" to is not in that body, maybe then the "recognition" function switches off. Thus the blood cannot distinguish what are normal healthy cells and what are harmful foreign materials/mutated cells. Therefore, it would indiscriminately promote the proliferation and regeneration of everything, even if they are tumour cells.

/signed when it comes to the explanation about someone elses body.

When it comes to claire no replacement is needed because her cells are rapidly regenerating so that no cells can die or get destroyed(the original length can't change and so a aging can't take place either).

When cells however gets indeed destroyed through injuries, new cells emerge immediately(as you explained above) to prevent any further destruction of further cells.

The recognition part you wonderfully explained, takes indeed partially place in sylars or peters (when he had a copy of the power) cases.

It was said by the writers themselves before, that the originators like Claire or Adam can't age but the ones that got only a copy of the power (like Peter/Sylar) still can and will because the power is only borrowed in their cases.

As HRG explained within the show, Claires blood would just lead to a faster death when it comes to Hiro.

Not sure if a mixture of her blood with mohinders antibodies would work differently though but it seems that they won't try to go that route and try it out.

As far as we know through the show so far:

- claires and adams blood heals
- the mixture of claires blood with mohinders anti-bodies ressurects additionaly to the healing if used in a certain timely manner.

Mohinder's antibodies was just to counteract the mutated strains of Shanti.

Hmm... It never occurred to me to think of Claire's power as working on a sub-cellular level (ie. that her cells themselves have super-repairing power)... I don't know why, but for some reason I just automatically assume that her power only extends as far as the cellular level (ie. her individual cells are just as "mortal" as regular cells, but they have a superpower to multiply extremely rapidly and without any limits so that they don't stop dividing at a certain point like normal people, and therefore all parts of her body are infinitely replaceable... and such factor that cause her cells to behave that way is presumably transferrable by blood)... So I think your idea is interesting...

I have never figured out how the "injecting Claire's blood into Mohinder to strengthen his antibodies" thing works, since the strain 138 wasn't even in his body for him to make antibodies against... Personally I think it would make more sense if someone was infected (Niki) with 138, and then they use Claire's blood to keep themselves alive and augment their immune system while their bodies make antibodies against the strain. (Like how Mohinder naturally developed antibodies to the original strain of the Shanti Virus presumably due to exposure to his sister's infection, except 138 is so lethal that the person must be kept alive because the body can defeat it) But then that's what the writers wrote as cannon, so I'll just suspense my disbelief on that part and quit trying to understand it...

Mohinder didn't inject himself with Claire's blood, he just mixed their blood together and stirred. As for how Mohinder had antibodies in the first place, I'm as in the dark as you.

Oh really? That makes even less sense then, what Mohinder the biologist did...

Then I guess I'll just have to put this in the same bin as the "Her nucleotides are degenerating" way back from Season 1 lol...

Exactly. Why on Earth would virus anti-bodies give blood the power to raise the dead? An anti-body for a virus fights the virus, and that's about all it does. It makes no sense that Claire's blood would only be effective on living recipients on its own, but would somehow gain the power to resurrect dead people when supplemented with anti-bodies for a virus, and thankfully, it was never indicated on the show that this was the case.

With regards to the argument that HRG was not "really" dead when he was resurrected by the blood, let it be recalled also that virtually the exact same thing was done with Maya as well at the end of Season II, and that in both instances, the character in question was shot in a likely-fatal area, collapsed to the ground and assumed the blank, lifeless stare which is an age-old television convention for death. Since there isn't any vital-sign equipment attached to the majority of these casualties at the time of their deaths, the program has to have some kind of visual signal that the death is complete- the "character slumps to the ground, goes limp and stares with blank, lifeless eyes" sequence is synonymous with death more or less wherever it appears in visual fiction. HRG and Maya both did this and were both resurrected by the blood, and as such, at the very least, the writers surely had to realize that viewing these episdoes would give the overwhelming majority of viewers the clear impression that the blood can raise the dead.

I agree that Maya was absolutely dead when she was injected, but perhaps Mohinder did something else to Claire's blood besides mixing it with his own? Maybe he isolated the curative agents in it, or concentrated it somehow, giving regenerative powers beyond what Noah, Bob and the Company discovered..

The serum he gave maya was one of these he had prepared for nikki.

That's why sylar also points out that if claires blood gets mixed properly it can defeat the virus and even raise the dead. Then he kills maya and tells to mohinder to try it out on her first and if it works on her he will use it on himself aswell.

Maya gets ressurected and sylar takes nikkis antivirus serum and flees from elle.

Then he takes the serum and gets his powers back.
Since it was the same serum they used for the ressurection and the regain of powers/defeat of virus in one, it looks as if a mixture of claires blood with something else is needed for a ressurection to be made.

That is possible but it's more likely Mohinder's antibodies did nothing for resurrecting Maya except make her immune to Shanti in the process.

Thanks for all the responses, and sorry for that mental image! LOL