Gaming's Burning Questions!

QUESTION: Can you gene-splice your way to superhuman abilities?

ANSWER: Turns out that Andrew Ryan was way, way ahead of his time. “Gene therapy is a relatively young field that has shown some promise for the treatment of hereditary diseases,” says College of the Holy Cross chemistry professor Dr. Jude Kelley. “The simple idea is to replace a faulty gene with a more functional one.” OXM’s own “Ask Dr. Gamer” columnist, Dr. Frederick Chen, concurs: “We’ve only recently mapped the human genome, so manipulating it is still a ways off. Superpowers will probably have to wait until after we fix congenital defects, chronic illnesses, and cancer.”

So, wait — you mean once we knock out Alzheimer’s, ALS, and the real nasty stuff, Cyclone Trap plasmids are just a matter of time? Not so fast. “Gene splicing toward superpowers would require replacing normal genes with superpowered ones,” explains Dr. Kelley. “You would need to either borrow or create genes that grant superpowers. Real-life genetic mutations usually do more harm than good, so we don’t have the raw material we would need for these genes.“

Give this field of research some time, though, and “it’s not too farfetched to think of gene therapy granting everyday people what would seem like superpowers to us today,” says Dr. Kelley. “These would be things like immunity to diseases, slower aging, resistance to toxins, things like that.” Being poison-proof sounds cool — but spider-walking on walls and shooting fire from our fingertips isn’t on the agenda.

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