{"id":93160,"date":"2019-07-05T09:03:19","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T16:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/using-epigenetics-to-explain-how-captain-america-and-the-incredible-hulk-gained-their-superpowers"},"modified":"2019-07-05T09:03:19","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T16:03:19","slug":"using-epigenetics-to-explain-how-captain-america-and-the-incredible-hulk-gained-their-superpowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/using-epigenetics-to-explain-how-captain-america-and-the-incredible-hulk-gained-their-superpowers","title":{"rendered":"Using epigenetics to explain how Captain America and the Incredible Hulk gained their superpowers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MvdbKGB7JbI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>When I was kid I used to watch the Incredible Hulk on TV and wait for Bruce Banner to fly into a rage, his muscles inflating like balloons, pants torn to shreds while his entire body turns green as he transforms into the Hulk. As I grew up, and learned more about the advances in genetics, it never occurred to me that cutting-edge genome-editing techniques could explain the scientific principles behind the Hulk\u2019s metamorphosis or his fellow Marvel Comics star-spangled hero Captain America. In a recent Stanford Report story, <a href=\"https:\/\/med.stanford.edu\/profiles\/sebastian-alvarado\" target=\"_blank\">Sebastian Alvarado Opens in a new window<\/a>, a postdoctoral research fellow in biology, creatively applies the concepts of epigenetics to illuminate the process by which average Joes become superheroes.<\/p>\n<p>As Alvarado notes in the <a href=\"http:\/\/news.stanford.edu\/news\/2014\/august\/marvel-heroes-alvarado-081214.html\" target=\"_blank\">piece Opens in a new window<\/a> and above video, over the past 70 years scientists have developed tools for selectively activating and deactivating individual genes through chemical reactions, a process termed epigenetics. Similar to flipping on a light, switch gene expression can be \u201cturned on\u201d or \u201cturned off. \u201dWe have a lot of genome-editing tools \u2013 like zinc finger nucleases, or CRISPR\/Cas9 systems \u2013 that could theoretically allow you to epigenetically seek out and turn on genes that make your muscles physically large, make you strategically minded, incredibly fast, or increase your stamina,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of Captain America, the process of deliberately switching on and off genes could offer a real-world explanation as to how scrawny Steve Rodgers gained extraordinary, strength, stamina and intelligence after being injected with \u201dSuper Solider Serum\u201d and then blasted with \u201dVita-Rays.\u201d When it comes to Bruce Banner, a little more creative license is required. Alvarado\u2019s theory is:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was kid I used to watch the Incredible Hulk on TV and wait for Bruce Banner to fly into a rage, his muscles inflating like balloons, pants torn to shreds while his entire body turns green as he transforms into the Hulk. As I grew up, and learned more about the advances in [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}