aring633

Thank you, Endy, for responding. I will look up human chimeras immediately! Yes, my character has control over his immune system as well. This is crucial to him being able to easily engineer himself (he can suppress the immune system and have no rejection issues), but in translating his experiments to someone else, he's working on an immune suppression drug that alters the immune system to recognize all his altered DNA (he adds a specific marker or something to make it seem harmless to the human body - still working that out). Except the twist is that when he injects the wrong DNA, he loses his abilities to control his body. So I'm planning on having his immune system kick in to create tension and that "ticking time bomb" affect in the book. When you ask about DNA utilized and which cells are involved, I feel I'm missing a big something in my understanding. I thought DNA was pretty much the same in every cell...except of course it would have to be different to express the cell type. Darn. I have to remedy that in my book. I didn't differentiate between cell types. Specifically, he's trying to cure Huntington's disease (a mutation on chromosome 4). What I don't know (now that you've brought it to my attention) is what cells this DNA mutation is in. All of them? Just the brain? I want to say that I posted to this forum back in July when I was writing the first book in the series, and I got a great reply that sent me in a fruitful direction. Thank you all for reading this and contributing!

I am a fiction author currently writing my third book in a series about a boy who can control his autonomic nervous system. Although realize this is a fantastic concept, I've tried to root the idea in as much "real" science as possible. My current plot line has the boy experimenting with genetic engineering to cure a genetic disease. Since he has control over his entire body and its processes, he injects naked DNA into his cells and is able to get the DNA to integrate without using retroviruses or other methods. Problem is, he accidentally injects the wrong DNA, that of a female. My question is, how would this new DNA express itself? Would his eye color or body change in any way? Or would the expression limit itself to changes in proteins and hormones only? My research (limited by my pathetic knowledge of biology) indicates his testes would slowly turn into ovaries (in a working sense), he would begin to produce female hormones rather than male, maybe body hair growth would change...but I'm unsure what else would reasonably occur, say, in a few weeks' timeframe. I realize this is all theoretical, but what do you think? Thank you so much for your help. Andrea Ring www.andrearing.net Author of the System Series

Hi everyone. I am an author, currently working on a young adult series about a boy who has total control over his autonomic nervous system (he can control his heart rate, flood his system with adrenaline, heal himself, grow nerves, etc.). In this universe, there are a select number of people who share his abilities, but this boy is the only one who can regenerate nerves in the central nervous system. Of course, I have to take liberties with fact to make these things "true," but I'm trying to base my explanations in science as much as possible. In explaining why this boy is different from his peers (why he can regenerate, say, nerves in the spinal cord as opposed to just a nerve in his finger), I'm leaning towards saying that he is genetically coded to produce a certain protein. That protein allows him to grow CNS nerves. Am I even on the right track? I've done research on the brain and the nervous system, but I am willing to do more. Any help you can give me, or resources you can point me to, would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Andrea Ring Link removed