Genetic Engineering Questions

[Pyrotex]

Is the way the Hulk heals rapidly really possible? If so how?...I watched something on tv about people who sometimes view the world in slow motion when adrenaline is in their system...

Hey JK, still asking, hunh? :hihi:

 

The Hulk has lots of reality problems. Transforming from a normal human to a ton of green flesh involves violating the Law of Conservation of Mass. Where did the extra ~1800 pounds come from? No can do.

 

Superhealing is another reality problem. Healing takes place at the speed of complex molecules and the molecular transport systems at the cellular level. You can't speed these things up. Molecules vibrate and fold and move at their own particular speeds and frequencies. There's no fast-forward button.

 

Now, "slow-motion" sensing is another thing. It does take place, and it's not that uncommon. It doesn't take an oriental mystic or a samarai or a little yellow pill to do this. It has happened to me at least three times in my life, when my adrenaline levels shot through the roof. In two of those occassions, it enabled me to save my life, or at least avoid serious injury.

 

However, I'm unaware that anyone can call forth "slow-motion" sensing on command. You can't just snap your fingers and do it.

[JulianKeller]

What are the effects of caffeine on the body (positive and negative)? Can the body be made to exhibit these effects without caffeine?

 

Can regeneration in the human body be sped up? If so how?

 

Regeneration (biology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

What's extracellular matrix? and what does it have to do with healing/regeneration?

 

Could it be possible to move salamander or amphibian stem cells into a human so that a wound can be healed faster or heal a wound which normally wouldn't heal?

[freeztar]

What are the effects of caffeine on the body (positive and negative)? Can the body be made to exhibit these effects without caffeine?

 

This thread touches on the pros and cons of caffeine (check the wiki too):

http://hypography.com/forums/medical-science/9047-coffee.html

Can regeneration in the human body be sped up? If so how?

Yes, but not by much. Certain vitamins aid in production of new cells. Having healthy doses of the vitamins, compared to someone with vitamin deficiencies, should speed up recovery but there are other factors (genetics, type of wound, etc.).

What's extracellular matrix? and what does it have to do with healing/regeneration?

The wiki should explain it all, let me know if you still don't understand.

 

Extracellular matrix - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Could it be possible to move salamander or amphibian stem cells into a human so that a wound can be healed faster or heal a wound which normally wouldn't heal?

 

No. You would have to find the genes responsible for regeneration and splice them into the human genome. Even then, it probably wouldn't work, for reasons that Pyrotex mentioned earlier in this thread.

[CraigD]

Is the way the Hulk heals rapidly really possible?

Comic-style super healing (“regeneration”, in comic/gaming lingo) isn’t biologically possible, assuming that it’s just ordinary healing, sped up many times. This is because ordinary healing involves cells responding to hormonal clues to divide and replace missing cells, and the mechanics of cell division are limited by the biomechanics of cells. I’m unable to find a good reference to the theoretical maximum rate of cell division, but the typical rate given, in a wide variety of plants and animals is about 18 hours per division. Though the healing mechanism has some tricks to accomplish some important “first aid” steps by using special cells that are always present in the blood (ie; fibrin and platelets), the result isn’t good-as-new, functional tissue, but just essentially a plug to prevent bleeding

If so how?

The only way I can imagine comic-style super healing working is to pretty much reengineer how cells and tissues work.

 

The best example we have in nature of a “organism” that can almost instantly “heal” is a colony of single cell and microscopic multi-cellular organisms (eg: a biofilm or a pond scum), that, if “injured”, quickly flow back together and re-establish the cooperative communication between their component organisms. Leading biological theories suggest that complex animals started as colonies of genetically distinct microorganism, so, with super-advanced genetic engineering techniques, it’s perhaps not completely improbable that one could reproduce the whole of a couple of billion years of evolution using this approach, to create an animal that superficially resembled a human being, but had an almost totally different physiology that included Hulk-esque super-healing, super-strength, rapid shape changing, etc.

 

Create an animal like the Hulk by subjecting a normal human to radiation or any of the other common comic superhero origins (eg: radioactive spider bite, genetic mutation) is, to the best of my knowledge, simply impossible. Animals appear to have, via evolution, come pretty close to the best physical performance possible with the biological material that any collection of genes is capable of generating.

[CraigD]

Now, "slow-motion" sensing is another thing. It does take place, and it's not that uncommon. It doesn't take an oriental mystic or a samarai or a little yellow pill to do this. It has happened to me at least three times in my life, when my adrenaline levels shot through the roof. In two of those occassions, it enabled me to save my life, or at least avoid serious injury.

I’ve had similar “slow-motion” experiences, mostly involving out-of- or marginally-under-control cars. (Like many Americans, my youth was a bit reckless - I think I came to my senses only after the state of Virginia was nearly successful in locking me up for 20 years)

However, I'm unaware that anyone can call forth "slow-motion" sensing on command. You can't just snap your fingers and do it.

About a decade ago, I stumbled upon a technique, which while not as quick as snapping your fingers, seems to be able to reliably and repeatedly reproduce the “time-slowing” state of perception I recall experiencing in dangerous situations.

 

When my kids were in their adolescence, they were curious about fighting, but intimidated by sparring with me, so we agreed to the rules that I would be defensive only, limited to open hands and light pushes, not tripping or grabbing. As the kids grew in confidence and size, the sport grew more challenging, and, despite the worst injuries I received from it being bruises, jammed fingers, and an occasional black eye or bloody nose, frightening, apparently enough to trigger the time-slowing physiological and psychological response – which was damn handy in avoiding their increasingly effective attacks!

 

In addition to the sense of slowed motion, it seemed I was also able to see events slightly before they occurred.

 

With repetition, it became apparent what was actually occurring. Although my kinesthetic and situational awareness, smoothness, and anticipation was unusually good (in other words, I was making good moves), the rate at which I was able to perceive, think, and act during an attack was not significantly greater than normal. Rather, in the lull following an attack, I was remembering what had occurred a few seconds before in a detailed, slowed-down manner. This also explained the oddity of seeing into the future. My mind assembled these memories into an account, but got the sequence wrong.

 

The scientific literature contains (although I’m unable to search up a supporting reference) multiple experiments involving staged crimes and stage magic tricks that show that ordinary people often do not correctly remember sequences of events. I believe this phenomena explain the “slow motion” effect commonly reported as occurring during stressful situations.

[GAHD]

 

 

No. You would have to find the genes responsible for regeneration....

http://hypography.com/forums/medical...ow-organs.html

"SCIENTISTS have created a “miracle mouse” that can regenerate amputated limbs or badly damaged organs, making it able to recover from injuries that would kill or permanently disable normal animals."

...and splice them into the human genome.

...that one might be a little harder, but I hear retroviral genetherapy is becoming fairly routine, even if deletrious events can occur in some cases.

[JulianKeller]

Gene Therapy

The success of gene therapy depends on the efficient insertion of therapeutic genes at the appropriate chromosomal target sites within the human genome, without causing cell injury, oncogenic mutations or an immune response. Plasmid vectors could be used for this purpose. Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) offer a way to cause a site-specific double strand break to the DNA genome and cause homologous recombination. This makes targeted gene correction a viable option in human cells. Plasmids encoding ZFN could be used to deliver a therapeutic gene to a pre-selected chromosomal site. This approach to gene therapy could be less problematic to the alternative viral-based delivery of therapeutic genes.

 

 

After reading that article, is it possible to isolate specific genes that affect characteristics (like catlike balance, smelling senses like a dog, sonar pulses like a dolphin/whale, regeneration incase of injury like the miracle mouse/salamander/newt/frogs)?

 

Is it possible to isolate the specific genes which make 'abilities' specific to animals or people? Then would it be possible to replicate those genes then transfer them into a new person/animal giving them that trait?

[JulianKeller]

How would one gain these through gene therapy and then be able to maintain them without gene therapy after a while?

 

Enhanced: strength, speed, agility, reflexes, durability, stamina and coordination

 

Accelerated metabolism

 

Enhanced senses: eyesight (can zoom in and focus on objects from great distances) and hearing.

 

Eidetic memory.

 

Very high I.Q