Genetic Engineering Questions

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Genetic Engineering Questions

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Published by JulianKeller 06-25-2008

Is it possible that we can genetically engineer a living person to have a trait that he or she would not normally have?

Is it possible to break down the code of the cells in an area then introduce the hundreds or thousands more cells locally that either produce a new trait, organ, organelle, possibly limb?

What does Locally mean? (I heard most of this stuff on a science show)

Is this possible?

Make a sac where Fibrode is made organicly in the arm or forearm by introducing the genes to the area and 'growing' it.

Do the same in the wrists to make Spinneretts in the arms.

An also introducing muscles underneath the arm skin to change into the muscles *the ones in the mouth that help shoot saliva* to put pressure on the fibroid so it goes out of the sac and out of the spinneretts shooting possible distances?

An yes I am sorry to say this is inspired by Spiderman. But I am curious about it.

Is it possible to make an anabolic steroid that would make a person rapidly grow skin and muscle mass when angered but return to normal when tired out or not angry anymore? (kinda like the Hulk)

An to insert those glowing jellyfish genes that make them light up into human skin through genetic engineering? and be able to control when they turned on or off? and if it's possible to do one or both of those then how?

By Pyrotex

on 06-25-2008

Re: Genetic Engineering Questions

Quote:

Originally Posted by JulianKeller

Is it possible that we can genetically engineer a living person to have a trait that he or she would not normally have?

Perhaps. First, let's understand that DNA (our genes) is NOT a set of blueprints. DNA does not code for arms, legs, trunks, etc. There ARE no genes for a trunk, so you cannot take the "genes for a trunk" from an elephant and put them in a human. What DNA does code for is chemistry. In particular, most of that chemistry is coding for proteins. So, you could in theory take the genes of a firefly that code for luminiferase and splice them into human DNA, causing your skin to glow in the dark under the right conditions.

Quote:

Is it possible to break down the code of the cells in an area then introduce the hundreds or thousands more cells locally that either produce a new trait, organ, organelle, possibly limb?

Yes and no. It all depends on the particulars. If you have enough stem-cells (and they are genetically compatible), then you could put them into a person and perhaps persuade them to grow into a new muscle or a new kidney. But stem-cells would NOT be able to become a new KIND of organ that humans don't have.

Quote:

What does Locally mean? (I heard most of this stuff on a science show)

I can't say--I didn't watch the show. But my guess is "within a single kind of tissue"

Quote:

Is this possible?: Make a sac where Fibrode is made organicly in the arm or forearm by introducing the genes to the area and 'growing' it. Do the same in the wrists to make Spinneretts in the arms.

Possible in the sense that it is plausible--yes. You're not breaking any "laws" of biology or chemistry. But no, it's not possible to do even with the technologies we hope to have in the foreseeable future. DNA codes for proteins, and proteins fold into one or more configurations, and those configurations DO things, like make a new chemical, or destroy a particular enzyme, or enable a cell membrane to expand, or whatever. And it is THIS that we do NOT understand at all.

There is NO way at all (that I have ever heard of) of starting from "spinneretts" and calculating BACKWARDS as to what new proteins you'll need, in what sequence, and how they should be folded -- and what enzymes you'll need, blah, blah, to make the spinerettes grow and function -- AND THEN what new DNA you will need to make the proteins and activate the enzymes. That's the unsolvable trick, you see. Given any organ or feature, we can't even come close to knowing how to calculate backwards to the DNA that will give us that organ or feature.

Quote:

...And yes I am sorry to say this is inspired by Spiderman. But I am curious about it...

And I don't blame you one bit. I'm curious about it, too.

Good questions.

Last edited by Pyrotex; 06-25-2008 at 03:12 PM.

By JulianKeller on 06-25-2008

Re: Genetic Engineering Questions

YouTube - evilkaanevil's Videos

The link is Spider Tech and it's broken into five pieces. Please let me know your thoughts on it. Thank you

By Pyrotex

on 06-25-2008

Re: Genetic Engineering Questions

Quote:

Originally Posted by JulianKeller

...The link is Spider Tech and it's broken into five pieces. Please let me know your thoughts on it. Thank you

That was fun! I watched just the 1st part. Very entertaining.

However, they give the impression that giving a person the senses and abilities of a, say, spider, are DOABLE. This may be misleading. Remember, they're made to entertain. The video makers are careful to point out that these Spider-Man senses and abilities don't violate any laws. This is probably true.

That does NOT mean that they are POSSIBLE, in the sense of actually DOABLE.

Example: let's take the eagle's eye, which see 5 times as much detail as a human eye. Let's say we know the stretch of DNA in an eagle that gives it this awesome ability. And that we can snip it out of an eagle embryo and insert it into a human's DNA at the right place. What will happen?

We DON'T know. It could cause total blindness, or eyeball defects, or loss of color vision, or failure of the retina to connect to the optic nerve, or damn near anything, even death of the human. We have NO way of knowing how that eagle's DNA is gonna react to the chemistry of a human body. Humans have different proteins and enzymes and catalysts than an eagle.

I wish I could be more of an optimist, but our state of knowledge of biochemistry at the molecular level is in its infancy. Maybe in 500 years, somebody can give you better answers. And maybe you'll still be around in 500 years!

By CraigD on 06-25-2008

Spider-goat vs. Spider-man

It’s not too hard to insert foreign genes into egg cells (ova) or single cell animals to give the animals very unusual traits. The most common application of such genetic engineering is getting bacteria to produce some hard-to-get, valuable substance, such as human insulin. While these applications involve microscopic animals, occasionally it involves something bigger, such as engineering goats to make spider silk.

We discussed this in a couple of threads a while ago, such as Cloning, recombinant DNA, insulin, and spidersilk goat's milk and Obtaining Spider Silk from Goats.

A few genetic engineering rules of thumb:

It’s far easier to insert a gene in a egg than into an adult multicellular animal. The movie version of Spider-man would have been more plausible if Peter Parker’s pregnant mom had gotten bitten by the frankenspider.
Getting a body to secrete individual unusual proteins is the easy part. Getting the proteins to do work with specialized organs to do something dramatic – like spin spider webs – is much harder, possibly impossibly so. If I was a mad scientist in charge of making a mutant superhero/villain, I’d try for something like “glows under florescent light man”, “sweat smells really nice/nasty man”, or “tears are a good solvent man”.
If you have to get an organ to do something, try to get it to do something as close as possible to what it already does. For example, nanny goats already secret buckets (albeit little, goat-size not big cow-size) of milk each day, via a highly evolved delivery system, so tweaking their mammary glands to add some tiny bits of spider silk protein to the milk. A more plausible Peter Parker would be one who uses the best squirting systems already available in a human body, say by having him spit webbing out of his mouth – except then he’d likely be known as something like “nasty, sticky loogey man”, and be way less popular with the ladies.

While we’re on the subject, we should bring up the real showstoppers with Spidey: even if you somehow can get spider-quality web-spinners on a human (remember that the original comic version didn’t have built-in ones, but made artificial ones via his mad engineering skillz), super-size them to climbing-rope strength, and give them super-uick-setting epoxy glue stickiness, it’s nearly impossible to get much better than Silly String-like range of a few meters. While there are ways to throw a strong line 100+ m, such guns mass on the order of 10 kg/shot, so for Spidey to do his classic web-slinging, he’d need a loaded mass of many hundreds or even thousands of kg, and bulky gear to carry it.

Great classic comics are great and classic, but not necessarily practically possible.

By JulianKeller on 06-26-2008

Re: Genetic Engineering Questions

I call this next segment of questions, Engineering Superpowers.

(Was such a good title couldn't let it go to waste.)

Is the way the Hulk heals rapidly really possible? If so how?

How could an organism project any type of energy in a controlled manner? (This also covers my Cyclops Segment)

What's the deal with Superhearing, is that at all possible?

Appreciate you guys helping me out with the Spidey questions. Figured I'd give my other fanboy questions a shot.

Last edited by JulianKeller; 06-29-2008 at 09:01 PM.

By JulianKeller on 06-29-2008

Re: Genetic Engineering Questions

Is it possible to put this trait into a person so they grow bones and can "pop" them through their fingers at will like the frogs?

By JulianKeller on 06-29-2008

Re: Genetic Engineering Questions

As per this article about a frog who pops claws.

'X-Men' frogs sprout claws on demand - Science - MSNBC.com

By Moontanman on 06-29-2008

Re: Genetic Engineering Questions

Quote:

Originally Posted by JulianKeller

There already is an animal that can project energy in a controlled manner and it is used as weapon to capture prey. Any one want to guess what animals they are?

By Pyrotex

on 06-30-2008

Re: Genetic Engineering Questions

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moontanman

There already is an animal that can project energy in a controlled manner and it is used as weapon to capture prey. Any one want to guess what animals they are?

Ouuuuu! Ouuuuu! Mister MooMan! Ask me! Ask me!

It's birds, right? No. No! That's not right. It's... it's... it's... on the tip of my tongue... I can see it... energy coming out like gallons of Elmer's Glue and... No. That's not it... Kinda like lightening, right? Am I close? No. Wait... don't tell me... don't tell me... I've almost got it...

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