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- Jan 24, 2006
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Because you probably don't know how DNA gets to be proteins, I'm going to explain it to you, beleive me when I say this is important to the topic suggested in the title.
What happens is you have 21 strands of DNA in your chromosones, in each strand is the genetic information for many different things, including our friends the proteins. When your body wants to create a certain protein it has its mechanisms unwrap the piece of the DNA strand that it wants from the histones it's wrapped around, they then pull the two tightly-wrapped strands away from each other. They then make a copy of the bit of genetic information needed as RNA and re-wrap the DNA back into place. The RNA then enters into a ribosome and to make a long story short, is built from the ground up from perhaps thousands of amino acids.
Now on to the cosmetic virus bit. There is this particular enzyme (a type of protein) call taq, it is an reverse-transcriptase, which means it can turn RNA back into DNA. If you understood that fully you should be reeling from the possibilities, if not, read on. You could create synthetic RNA for, say, green hair, and then insert that into taq and create a virus to insert the taq and have it overwrite someone's current DNA for his/her hair colour. Then any new hair s/he grew would be green, permanently. If you think of the possibilities you'll see you could theoretically do much, much more than just changing hair colour though.
Have fun speculating on the advances of science!
What happens is you have 21 strands of DNA in your chromosones, in each strand is the genetic information for many different things, including our friends the proteins. When your body wants to create a certain protein it has its mechanisms unwrap the piece of the DNA strand that it wants from the histones it's wrapped around, they then pull the two tightly-wrapped strands away from each other. They then make a copy of the bit of genetic information needed as RNA and re-wrap the DNA back into place. The RNA then enters into a ribosome and to make a long story short, is built from the ground up from perhaps thousands of amino acids.
Now on to the cosmetic virus bit. There is this particular enzyme (a type of protein) call taq, it is an reverse-transcriptase, which means it can turn RNA back into DNA. If you understood that fully you should be reeling from the possibilities, if not, read on. You could create synthetic RNA for, say, green hair, and then insert that into taq and create a virus to insert the taq and have it overwrite someone's current DNA for his/her hair colour. Then any new hair s/he grew would be green, permanently. If you think of the possibilities you'll see you could theoretically do much, much more than just changing hair colour though.
Have fun speculating on the advances of science!
