Department of Biological Sciences - University at Buffalo
Discuss!
Ah the possibilities. It is all well and good to enhance the strength of the muscle fibers but then you are limited by tendon strength and tendon attachment to bone. You increase the tendon strength by using a tendon specific virus to graft in the gene for blyssal fiber found in molluscs, which is approximately 10 times stronger than human tendon.
This will grow and supplant collagen usually found in tendons as they grow and are repaired. Then your limited by bone strength and nervous system. A gene found in fruit flies that increases axon diameter roughly 5 fold would increase nerve conduction velocity.
Skeletal strength could be enhanced possibly with mineral depositing bacteria though the control method could be problematic. All this was taken from my first year biotechnology degree text book which was written in 1980. Thats just my 2 cents worth
Edward: Interesting point. So if an athlete were about to use his “new” muscles he woul need to enhance his tendons and bones too.
The author says that in about 10 years or so, gene doping will be used world wide. What do you think?
What do you think about enhancement by genetherapy? Right? Wrong?
With these things is right and wrong really the deciding factor? I would have thought needs and wants came first. Does an athlete NEED to win? I’m sure they think so. And yes it will happen the question is when? how prevalent?
And how much of this will spread into the normal population, the new plastic surgery as it were. Feel free to PM me I’m a final year biotech student so this is as close to my field of possible work as i’ve seen yet.
This would be cool, but I think this would Turn out to be something like GATACA.
Ah and IGF is quite a wonder. They are trying to okay a empty virus shell with the FDA that would allow for you to “add” more genes to your body. http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/02.11/muscle.html
Not trying to, already done, matching a virus to the tissue type is the most difficult part. All that needs is a database. All the remaining steps are well and truly standard practise in most biotech labs. It could all be done today on people with no trouble if you had volunteers willing to take the risks and lab technicians who had the equipment and suitably “loose” morals.
Also for examples of gene therapy as its called you may want to look into muscular dystrophy and individuals lacking functioning immune systems some have been fixed already.
[quote]Edward wrote:
Ah the possibilities. It is all well and good to enhance the strength of the muscle fibers but then you are limited by tendon strength and tendon attachment to bone. You increase the tendon strength by using a tendon specific virus to graft in the gene for blyssal fiber found in molluscs, which is approximately 10 times stronger than human tendon.
This will grow and supplant collagen usually found in tendons as they grow and are repaired. Then your limited by bone strength and nervous system. A gene found in fruit flies that increases axon diameter roughly 5 fold would increase nerve conduction velocity.
Skeletal strength could be enhanced possibly with mineral depositing bacteria though the control method could be problematic. All this was taken from my first year biotechnology degree text book which was written in 1980. Thats just my 2 cents worth[/quote]
Not quite there yet. That’s a good idea and a nice scifi tale, but we don’t know everything we need to know to get that done. Although reporter genes like luciferase are easily inserted into the genome in order to monitor an experiment in vitro and can be done in vivo, there is a WORLD of difference between that and inserting a functionally specific gene from one species into a very specific and DIFFERENT functional role in another species. Particularly when specifically controlled and directed usage of the blyssal fiber is desired. In addition, the specific machinery at tendon insertions are developed and integrated at birth and I don’t think you want to be messing around with embryology as well as genetic splicing. Thus, the method of inserting a directed, controlled fibrous protein into a genome is practically not possible right now. Furthermore, we don’t know if there would be immune reactions, or whether the blyssal fibers would even integrate into the tendon structure effectively at all.
Also, mineral depositing bacteria? Wtf? No. Mineral deposits are big problems people face with age and occupation, as well as whatever physical abuse you may have had (self)inflicted over the years. Mineral deposits should be avoided at all costs.
Not to be rude, but a biotechnology text written almost 30 years ago is beyond obsolete. For that matter, most texts written even 7-8 years ago are becoming obsolete as we speak. Too many things have changed from our original (mis)understandings of them, and too many things have been discovered. You’re much better off just working on bone density via weight training and normal training protocols.
Besides, if I remember correctly, tendon strength is significantly stonger than muscle strength (we use only a fraction of our tendon strength, something like 30% if I read correctly). Also, tendons do adapt to become stronger, although it is a much slower process that could be outstripped by muscle growth.
[quote]Edward wrote:
Also for examples of gene therapy as its called you may want to look into muscular dystrophy and individuals lacking functioning immune systems some have been fixed already. [/quote]
Not true. Well, partially not true. We’ve made huge strides and some of what you said is true. But, if we’d made gene therapy accessible for curing most of the MD cases, don’t you think it’d be front page news? Don’t you think we would be seeing TV commercials?
Most conditions are multifactorial and driven by multiple gene failures, and this is a huge reason that gene therapy has not been achieved.
Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding. When my finals finish I’ll have a look for the original source of the info I gave earlier and see if it still checks out today.
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/G/GeneTherapy.html
Look on this site for reference to a study done in 2003 on 15 french children with severe combined immune deficiency syndrome, 1 died of leukemia but the remainder live healthy normal lives. If I find the actual study I’ll let post it.
Its good to have people correct my viewpoint I’m a student after all. Thanks for pointing out my mistake.