Prospective Future Projects
2012- Present
When my passion for science met with my first true science class, a beautiful brainstorming notebook was born. I carried this notebook everywhere; my curiosity and motive spans beyond the classroom environment. Keep in mind the list below are rough sketches or abstracts of thought.
Future Ideas
General;
Stratified transitional epithelium- apply to human skin to prevent stretch marks, or stretch in space/black holes? Make collagen to prevent dry breakage.
Sickle Cell Anemia— Muscle tissue & blood, have strong membranes.. stratified?
Cholesterol plaques when hit, the top breaks off, and it is sticky. Red blood cells attach and stick to it forming a clot. Can enzymes or white blood cells break down STILL cholesterol for those who have committed to being healthy again?
Asthma— improve cilia in the trachea to remove dust and allergens?
Stress causes a lot of diseases. Create some sort of strict homeostasis factors on cortisol and adrenaline.
Hair follicles produces melanocyte stem cells (melanin) to pigment the hair and skin. When they die, the hair begins to gray. How to prolong melanocyte lifespan/ make permanent? Is there a purpose essential to living as to why they die?
Add melanocyte production to darken health scars on dark skin? Would it cause melanoma? Scars turn red because of vessels..
Gliding joints in the hand there are fluid filled sacs to prevent scraping or damage. There a surgery to insert fluid filled sacs in the hand. Why are there not any for the foot?
Cancer treatment— injecting the infants with genetically engineered T-cells - known as chimeric antigen receptor, or CAR-T cells - taken from healthy donors. T cells are a white blood cell that kills cancer cells, not always effective. Engineer it. Give it a boost in its evolution!
Mangalitsa pig has wool coat like sheep. Genetic variation OR defect? Can we apply this to animals before they're born, or EVEN AFTER?
Water ice from the moon's poles could be sent to astronauts on the International Space Station for drinking, or as a radiation shield. Splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen makes a spacecraft fuel, so ice-rich asteroids could be become interplanetary refueling stations.
Diseases are constantly changing. Vaccines are made to keep up with them, but new vaccines are needed to prevent the new and innovative diseases from harming people. Create vaccines that can do the same as the diseases. Make them grow, and predict how the disease would grow. Put a little bit of the disease in the vaccine, as many vaccines do now. Make the vaccine grow with the disease, to then weaken it. The vaccine tells the disease oh I am a part of you, but it is actually opposite of it, to then destruct it.
Bio printing of skin. Make new limbs and attach it to body and hope body will accept it. Use the same person's DNA for it. Body accepts small amounts of skin for healing burns. If central nervous system is off then you're dead. You could grow limbs the same amount of time that hair grows. Try to replicate that growth. But, hair is dead skin cells, so try to make it keratinized, with all the epithelial tissue and dermis tissue alive. For veterans/soldiers!! Provide dermis and let upper layer grow over.
Organ rejection: This is because the person's immune system detects that the antigens on the cells of the organ are different or not "matched." Mismatched organs, or organs that are not matched closely enough, can trigger a blood transfusion reaction or transplant rejection.
Photosynthesis: Human Skin;
To regrow limbs, there would be a huge amount of energy needed. Apply photosynthesis to the limb area.. but how?
Relevant Links:
Why fingertips might grow back but entire limbs won't
Fun Futuristic Ideas;
Create lens over the eye that works like phone camera to broaden view. Adjustable. Comfort of contacts.
Skin (melanocyte) color change for military. Could be used to replace or blend in with uniforms. Helpful for spies so they can change their race. Each melanocyte has the same amount of melanin in it. Add more or remove melanocytes for different colors and study how the eye perceives the bending of light into color perception.
Night vision contact lens, study sheep eyes (they can see in the dark, and are the most anatomically similar to human eyes)
Use vibration to do surgery, instead of solids, because everything has a certain energy/frequency to it. Upside: less invasive. Downside: Radiation poisoning? If you used sound waves in surgery, couldn't that help in hard to reach or sensitive areas such as the brain? What would this do to neurotransmitters and energy flow?
Is there a gene for aggression? Because, dogs are bred to be less aggressive throughout generations.
Everything has gravity from the density of its mass. Why not make a spacesuit or object that changes gravity depending on its setting? Like those weightless tubes. It would make the object have a force toward, like a magnet, but it wouldn't be a magnet. Replicate or delete cells in a small concentrated area.
Myelin Sheaths and Electric Currents;
Fix myelin sheaths to be able to send signals from nerves. This could help those with cerebral palsy and paralysis. In an electric circuit, whether it be with our nerves or a lightbulb, we need connectors. The connectors for a current to be sent and received are the myelin sheaths. Also, just like with Christmas lights, if one bulb (nerve) cannot receive an electric signal for any reason, the rest of the bulbs (nerves) in the string of lights will also not receive an electric signal.
Possible solution: Myelin sheath damage could somehow be classified as an injury that needs to be healed. Something could travel around the body to identify these faults, and hopefully fix them. Neutrophils could be that something.
Neutrophils (type of phagocyte) patrol the body looking for invasive pathogens. Find a way they could identify the injury as an invasive, broken/dead pathogen on their list. However, this could be dangerous, because they may want to “eliminate” the injured “pathogen”.
Engineer them to prevent that destruction response, and emphasize the detection response.
Our heart, muscle and nerve cells use electrolytes to maintain voltages across their cell membranes and to carry electrical impulses to other cells. They keep up the current. If I can mimic that into a permanent fixture, then boom.
Regulation (Hormone Imbalance, Tumors, Cancer);
Psoriasis and Keratosis Pilaris are caused by overproduction of keratin and collagen. (Perhaps endometriosis is linked to keratin overproduction, as keratin does surround and protect the organs.) So many diseases are linked by this similarity and could be cured by the same breakthrough. So, what is keratin, and why is it produced? What regulates how much is produced, and how could we control that? And, perhaps we need to look at all auto-immune diseases and see if there is a genetic component/correlation. Psoriasis can be caused by sensitivity to gluten, and homeopathic medicine shows that those with colon cancer, endometriosis, and psoriasis often have celiac disease. Is genetically modified gluten causing this? Many Homeopathic doctors and nutritionist believe this to be the case.
Keratin is a tough protein produced by keratinocytes— a type of specialized cell that makes up a major component of your skin, hair, and nails. Keratin forms the waterproof barrier that separates your internal organs from the environment, and helps minimize fluid loss through your skin.
With our current knowledge, no one really knows why keratin builds up (don't worry— we’ll figure it out). However, we know what “calms, slows down, and in some cases may prevent” the overproduction of keratin.
Hot water (from showers) strips away natural oils, and brings blood circulation to your skin (which is why your skin turns red when hot). With the circulation comes inflammatory building blocks, which dairy can cause as well, to create more itch and even a rash. Vitamin A and D are important for keratin regulation. The sun’s ultraviolet light affects the keratin production. Soaps that moisturize the skin with oil or fats are good for the skin, especially if the body believes it's lacking natural oils/protection.
The body feels the need to protect itself— that's why it orders the production of Keratin to protect the organs. When there's an overproduction of keratin, not caused by stimulation or the outside, it's most likely because the body feels like it's not getting enough protection, perhaps in that region, or in general. There is either lack of communication, or miscommunication, most likely with the pituitary gland (in brain).
Sebaceous glands are exocrine glands in the skin that secrete an oily or waxy matter, called sebum, to lubricate and waterproof the skin and hair of mammals. Since the Sebaceous glands aren't doing two jobs (protecting the skin through water proofing and moisturizing), the keratin responsibility through overproduction.
Cancer-like characteristics seem to be a reoccurring theme in these diseases, seen through the overproduction of keratin, hormones, etc.
Cancer is an often rapid-growing, malignant growth/tumor resulting from the uncontrollable division, creation, or duplication of abnormal cells.
Finding a way to regulate this, and have control, is the key to cure all cancers and many other related diseases. First, let's look at the basics. The endocrine system is made up of a network of glands that release hormones, that in turn regulate many bodily functions. Hormones are chemicals that carry messages from one cell to another through your bloodstream. Hormones regulate the activity of body cells. So, how could we regulate these glands, that are in charge of secreting hormones?
Hormone release can be triggered by the stimulation or simulation (tricking the body or brain of certain events). An example of this is radiation, a stimulus/energy, which can cause cancer if it is strong enough. The radiation could mess with the signals sent, received, or created by the glands (specifically the pituitary gland). Think of it as an intercepted message. Another example is ultraviolet light (essentially vitamin D) acting as a stimulus that affects keratin production.
The pituitary gland is often called the master gland because it controls several other hormone glands in your body, including the thyroid and adrenals, the ovaries and testicles. It secretes hormones from both the front part (anterior) and the back part (posterior) of the gland.
What causes the overproduction of hormones? Tumors.
Technically, it is said a benign tumor is not a malignant (“evil, or with ill-intent”) tumor, which is cancer. It does not invade nearby tissue or spread to other parts of the body the way cancer can.The exact cause of a benign tumor is often unknown. It develops when cells in the body divide and grow at an excessive rate...which sounds just like cancer to me. {The human body does not accommodate to our terminology. Our terminology was created for a basic understanding of what we call “classifications/conditions”. The flawed part of science is that many fail to see issues as in a “gray area”, but rather it’s viewed as either black or white. This is why I'm going to become a scientist— let's change perceptions, while curing these issues, and spend less time on having them fit cookie-cutter terminology made with the initial intent to generally describe but not alienate a concept.}
When old or damaged cells die, they are automatically replaced with new, healthy cells. In the case of tumors, dead cells remain and form a growth (a tumor). Great. So let's figure out a way to clean/cleanse of the dead cells.
Dead cells are "bite-sized chunks" for phagocytes to eat. The phagocytes engulf the apoptotic bodies and recycle the contents as nutrients. Any cell that dies in our body is handled by the immune system. Bone marrow provides the cells of the immune system (which includes phagocytes).
Neutrophils (type of phagocyte) patrol the body looking for invasive pathogens. During infection, they are released in large quantities but are short-lived cells.They form about 60% of the white blood cells.
This ties us back to the solution created for the Myelin Sheath and Electric Current section; Neutrophils should be engineered with the capability to be sent to a specific area, with enough strength to target and eliminate tumors (dead pathogens).
So let's recap: Non-cancerous tumors and outside stimulation end up causing hormone imbalances/overproduction, which ultimately leads to cancer. Wow. Death (of cells), in a twisted fate, creates more life (of cancer). So when they say life goes on, it does, but that doesn't mean the quality of life is good at all.