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**Wulfman** · 13 December 2009, 18:54

the basic idea is old - actually known since whippets became fancied in the UK. the heterozygous variant with one mutated myostatin gene was significantly faster than the normal ones. when you then crossed two of the faster dogs, you regularly got something not quite so fast (see picture, and imagine that dog in motion).

mice actually look funny if you play around with their myostatin:

same for cows:

poor kids, would hardly call them super.

mfg
wulfman

**Elie** · 13 December 2009, 20:26

I would like my kids to grow normally thank you. But the research is most certainly interesting.
It could help people who cannot develop muscle at all.

**KRSESQ** · 13 December 2009, 20:40

One drawback is that these kids have almost zero body fat so they're at risk of abnormal brain development because they don't get the important fat-soluable vitamins. This is one possible explaination for Jethro Bodine.

(If it can only be controlled...)

Kevin

**Dr Mordrid** · 13 December 2009, 22:46

Apparently control and fat solubles are exactly what they're working on.

It does have great potential for medical treatments as noted in the article.

The pics of Liam Hoekstra are at age 3. I can just imagine him when he's eligible for football

Are Liam and the German kid technically X-Men? If they spread their mutation what would be the implications? Should they be allowed to compete (or breed), or do we discriminate against them as they did in comics with the Mutant Registration Act?

Now add bionic augments like implantable optics with telescopic, near-microscopic and night vision as part of augmented reality. Some of these sensors and the displays are already here, and the others are very close. MIT and others are working on putting them in contact lenses, but logical progression would have them ending up in implants.

Are you threatened by the possibility of this?

Unbreakable a near reality? And if you add human growth hormone etc. do you get a Hulk?

The mind boggles.....and regulation will be damned near impossible.

**Dr Mordrid** · 14 December 2009, 08:01

Answering my own question as far as Unbreakable goes.....

Muscle and bones......WFT's next?

MIT Technology Review....

Monday, May 11, 2009

Studying Extreme Genomes

Tales of human outliers, including an unbreakable man who inspired new treatments for osteoporosis.

By Emily Singer

In the late 1990s, a surprised radiologist in Connecticut came across a real-life version of Bruce Willis's character in the movie Unbreakable. The patient came to the hospital after a motor vehicle accident. But rather than revealing broken bones, the x-rays revealed an extremely high bone density. (Bone-density testing later confirmed it to be the highest ever recorded.) In 2002, Richard Lifton, a geneticist at Yale who specializes in genetic analysis of human outliers--people with extreme phenotypes--discovered that a mutation in a gene called LDL-related receptor protein 5 was responsible for the man's high bone density, a condition shared by about half of his family. (While mutations in this gene can sometimes lead to health problems, Lifton says that this family's only complaint was that they couldn't float in water because their bones are so dense.)

Lifton's team went on to study the molecular pathway affected by this mutation--and just seven years later, drugs targeting one of these molecules is in late-stage clinical testing for osteoporosis, a progressive disease of brittle bones that leads to fracture and a substantially increased risk of disability and death among the elderly.

While the unbreakable man's case is unusual, Lifton's approach isn't. Anyone familiar with the history of human genetics knows that many of the field's most significant early discoveries came from studies of families afflicted with rare diseases. Uncovering the genes involved in those diseases has in turn shed light on more common medical problems, such as high cholesterol, Parkinson's disease, and autism.

As genetic technologies have improved, so has the scope of these investigations. While researchers once had to undertake painstaking pedigree studies to pinpoint the region of the genome affected in a particular family and then sift through the most likely genetic candidates in that region, rapid advances in DNA sequencing in the past few years have significantly broadened the number of genes that can be searched. Scientists are now beginning to sequence individuals' entire exome--the gene coding region of the genome--searching for mutations in genes never suspected to play a role in particular diseases. Lifton, whose research has focused in large part on the genetics of hypertension, is now sequencing the exomes of a number of people referred to his clinic with severe early hypertension. Expect to see a growing number of studies along these lines.

Which prompted this ad....

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