5

                       Medicine and Biotechnology

                              Brain Scans


We know more about outer space through the use of optical and radio telescopes and recent space flights than we do about a mysterious terrain closer to home: the human brain. This land has its own mountains and valleys and mysterious interior, locations as exotic and forbidding to the new age explorer as a remote planet.
  Although it makes up but 2 percent of our body weight, the brain consumes 20 percent of our energy. This strange electrochemical world provides the power to think. And thanks to recent technological developments, we can now in many ways see where we think. By means of an expensive assortment of technologies called a cyclotron, scientists have produced radioactive isotopes. (Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have different mass numbers.) When injected into a human vein, radioactive isotopes allow another modern medical technological miracle -- the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner -- to see what is happening inside the brain as it happens.
  Long a believer in direct experience, I became part of a control group to explore this most important territory. It couldn't have been accomplished without the help of Dr. Donald Calne, of the division of neurology at the University of British Columbia's Health Sciences Research Centre, and Dr. Brian Pate, director of the PET program. Their usual scans are conducted to assess and analyze damage done by such diseases as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
  First I received a slow injection of the radioactive isotope fluorodopa. It takes about twenty minutes for the radioactive material to collect in the brain cells. Outwardly, the subject should appear and feel normal. Inside, the lights are changing, but only the computer can see them. The procedure itself is painless, almost boring.
  The PET scanner looks like an expensive, oversize, horizontal hair dryer. Similar to a radio telescope that "sees" the stars, the PET scanner has the power to see what is optically invisible. In this manner it differs from the Computed Axial Tomography (CAT) scanner, which is in most major hospitals today, or from the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner. The CAT sees if the shell is cracked; MRI checks the white and gray matter. Both of these see inside the cranium but cannot discern if the brain is actually functioning. They see the territory but cannot determine if there is actually life there.
  The brain is "sliced" electronically and the resulting picture appears on the various video monitors. In my case, these monitors were located both in the room that contained the PET scanner and in an adjoining room where other research staff were controlling the computer and monitoring the results. Brain activity shows up as colored or illuminated areas. This is made possible by the brain's use of the body's glucose, which has been made radioactive.
  Medical staff can now compare healthy brains with diseased or damaged brains. They can see what is happening inside the head without resorting to surgery. Surgery may be the only recourse for a person who is brain-injured, but now doctors have a clearer path to get to the damaged portion. The PET scanner also paints a clearer picture of brains damaged by disease.
  X rays were a big advance, enabling us to see into the fleshier portions of our anatomy. Now we can literally see ourselves thinking. As we come to understand more fully exactly what we are seeing through the PET scanner, the implications will be tremendous.


                                 The Gamma Knife


We have learned more about the human brain during the past decade than in all previous history. First, the CAT scanner revealed details of the cranium. The MRI scanner showed us the gray and white sections of the brain. Then the PET scanner revealed the electronic activity in the brain. Quantified Signal Imaging (QSI) moved us onto new ground, adapting an older technique, the Electroencephalogram (EEG), to produce a map of our thinking processes.
  Now the gamma knife performs neurological surgery without the scapel. Credit for developing the first prototype twelve years ago in Sweden goes to Borje Larsson of the Gustaf Werner Institute at the University of Uppsala and to Lars Leksell at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The gamma knife showed that a directed energy source could be an effective treatment for brain tumors. The Presbyterian-University Hospital in Pittsburgh is home to this latest bit of medical-science technology. The only two other units outside Sweden are in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Sheffield, England.
  This unit converts cobalt-60 in a new technique called stereotactic radio surgery. In effect, it sends an electronic knife into the brain to dissolve dangerous tumors. Length of treatment can be as short as fifteen or twenty minutes. Most treatments do not require general anesthesia and cause no immediate side effects.
  The gamma knife, which has met the exacting standards of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is safer than many existing procedures. It eliminates risky, open-skull operations. Television monitoring is used during the procedure and two-way voice contact between the physician and patient is maintained at all times. Patients usually leave the hospital the day after the operation.
  Because more than fifteen hundred patients have already received treatment at the Karolinska Institute with no deaths, the gamma knife is not considered experimental. Of five hundred patients at the Karolinska Institute who were suffering from arteriovenous malformations (AVM), 87 percent had their AVM completely obliterated by this treatment. Another 11 percent had theirs partially altered. Tumor growth was prevented in 90 percent of other cases. A wide range of brain problems can now be treated with this procedure.
  At the Presbyterian-University Hospital, the patient's head is placed within a large helmet-like device. The attending physician adjusts the radiation through small openings called collimator ports. This allows a great deal of energy to be directed to the intended target inside the brain. Every ten years or so a robot reloads the unit with the radioactive cobalt-60 material.


                                 Low Vision Correction


More than ten million Americans and one million Canadians have visual defects that cannot be corrected medically, surgically, or with glasses. Approximately 25 percent of this group have a form of impairment called low vision. In the United States there are about 2.5 million people with this problem. Now comes new hope: a form of "intimate TV" in the shape of wraparound glasses that carry their own TV camera.
  Specialists at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute and at NASA will employ space technology to develop a device designed to improve low vision. The first phases of the project are expected to run for at least five years. Arnall Patz, professor of ophthalmology and director of the Wilmer Eye Institute, says, "As soon as it is perfected, the final version of the enhancement system will be distributed widely to eye institutions throughout this country." It is anticipated that rights to the device will be licensed to a Canadian company shortly thereafter.
  The enhancement will not restore lost sight but will help patients make best use of their remaining vision. The system is expected to benefit patients with central vision loss, the part of the vision normally used for reading. When the device is worn, the patient will see the world on two miniature color television screens where the lenses of eyeglasses are usually located. Lenses and imaging glass fibers will be embedded on each side of the wraparound section. The lens will form images of the scene in front of the patient on the surface of the fibers. These fibers, similar to those used to carry long-distance telephone signals, carry pictures back to miniature solid-state television cameras carried in a belt or shoulder pack. These images will be processed by a small battery-powered computer system in the pack and then displayed on the television screens. Development of this product centers on how images must be altered and enhanced for the person with low vision. The designers say the device will be lightweight and comfortable. And the glasses won't be odd-looking. Young people might even find them "cool": The outside of the television screens will appear similar to the mirrored lenses in some sunglasses.


                                 Eyes, Teeth -- What Next?


A few years ago I had a plastic lens surgically implanted in my right eye, which had the very poor vision rating of 20/300. My vision improved almost instantly to 20/30 and within a few months to 20/18. I began seeing better with one eye than I ever had with two eyes and glasses. A year later my ophthalmologist performed the same operation on my left eye with similar results. Within months, vision was 20/20 and has improved since then. My driver's license was renewed without the "corrective lens required" restriction. The federal Ministry of Transport (MOT) renewed my helicopter and my land and sea aircraft pilot's licenses, and I passed the necessary flight test with an approved MOT check pilot.
  Thanks to medical expertise and a piece of plastic about the size of a pinhead, I went from white cane to control column. The eye operations seemed simple: each had taken thirty minutes and was less trouble than having teeth cleaned by a hygienist. They were less troublesome than a root canal.
  After this successful personal test of current high-tech ophthalmologic medicine, I looked around to ask, "What's next?" The answer: surgically implanted titanium dental "pilings." The pilings implant went like this. After a full mouth and jaw inspection, the dental surgeon gave me a wraparound X ray, similar to having your jawbone structure photographed by a panoramic camera. With that information in hand, the surgeon, the dentist, and a nursing assistant proceeded to slit an area of the gum vacated by two lower left molars years ago. They drilled two vertical holes into the jawbone, inserted two titanium pilings covered with protein, screwed them into place, put plastic covers on the top, and stitched up the gum. There was some pain the first evening, but none after that. The gum was sensitive for a few days. The slight swelling disappeared after ninety-six hours. A week after the operation, the stitches were removed.
  I was instructed to return in four months to have the gum slit open again, piling covers removed, and new ceramic teeth screwed into the tops of the titanium posts. In the interim, the protein covering the titanium pilings would trick the bone into thinking the titanium implants were another part of the jawbone and would build up natural bone around them, giving complete structural support to the new teeth. They were better in some ways than regular molars. In the X ray of the completed project, it looked like two large nails had been driven into my jawbone, a picture reminiscent of the cranium operations of early Aztecs that I had seen in National Geographic.
  Why did I try this new procedure? I'm in my seventies. The dentist said it would minimize teeth trouble and save the remaining rear molar. I would also have a balanced set of lower teeth and could continue to eat well for a few more years. Most dental surgeons limit the operation to the lower jaw, as the bone structure there is stronger and more extensive.
  Today more than three million body implants of various kinds have been conducted in North America and the success rate has been surprisingly high -- about 80 percent in teeth implants and from 70 to 90 percent in many other implant operations that are now almost standard.
  Then came the bad news. I fell into the 20 percent failure category. My body rejected the implants. I'm too healthy: My immune system would not tolerate the intrusion. The surgeon slit the gum, removed the titanium pilings, and stitched me back up. The gum healed within a week.
  Now, let me see. What could I try next...


                              Positive Identification 


Since James Watson and Francis Crick first conceived of the DNA helix as a microscopic spiral staircase, we have learned more about our physical structure at the molecular level than in all past history. Governments in the United States, Japan, Europe, and elsewhere are rushing to interpret the human genome, those strands of life that identify all the genes in the human body. That is a big project. There are more than ten trillion cells in the human body. They all contain DNA, which tells us how we grow, look, and sometimes die.
  No two people, except identical twins, have exactly the same DNA pattern. Positive identification is relatively easy. The smallest sample of blood, hair, skin, or bodily fluid can distinguish us from everyone else on earth. I now carry a holographic representation of my DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) code. Any part of me is recognizable forever in the hologram. My DNA code was provided by Lifebank, the world's first private DNA identity storage center.
  The implications are many. For example, there need be no future "unknown soldiers." Anyone can be identified, from the smallest shred of bodily tissue available for forensic scientists. Disaster victims can be identified if any body part has been located. Original samples remain the property of the people they were drawn from (or their next of kin).
  Working with physicians and hospitals, Lifebank arranges for a collection of a DNA sample from your baby at the moment of birth. Blood samples can be taken from older children and adults at a doctor's office. Using state-of-the-art techniques, the sample processed through DNA profiling is identified and stored at Lifebank. The owner of the DNA report receives a "passport" with the registered DNA identification number, which allows immediate identification.
  Acting solely as a repository for such DNA codes, Lifebank conducts no tests and maintains no extensive data files. It provides parents with the knowledge that, at any time in the future, they can identify their child -- under any circumstances. Samples are coded to guarantee confidentiality and are deposited, under tight security, in a storage facility where they are protected against extended power interruptions or natural disasters.
  Unlike more traditional methods of identification, DNA profiling is virtually 100 percent accurate. Although there is controversy over the procedure in some quarters, it has already been accepted in more than a hundred trials across North America. A report from a congressional study released in August 1990 said that DNA fingerprinting is "reliable and valid" enough to be accepted as evidence in criminal trials. The writers of the report from the Office of Technology Assessment also called for technical standards to insure that all laboratories can produce the same results.
  It certainly beats the heel-printing practice at maternity hospitals. Poor prints, identity bracelets, and fingerprints all have demonstrated shortcomings. "Fingerprints can be changed, for instance," says Lifebank research scientist Dr. Christine Dietzel. "They can be changed with plastic surgery. Heel prints can be smudged. Bracelets can be lost or switched. DNA can never be altered. It's inherent to the individual."


                                 The Mosquito-eater 


In most of Canada and the United States, mosquitoes are an accepted nuisance. As one who has had malaria in Cuba and dengue fever in Haiti, I can attest to the serious problems mosquitoes present in semitropical and tropical areas. Although my hallucinations during dengue fever were colorful and wonderful, the more serious diseases such as yellow fever and encephalitis carried by these insects can be deadly. There has been no proof yet that mosquitoes can transmit the HIV virus, but even that possibility cannot be ruled out.
  A simple new device may help reduce the incidence of mosquito-borne diseases. It may be the world's most effective mosquito exterminator. A small suction fan draws insects into range with an ultraviolet light lure, and when they reach a fine mesh "killing field," a self-cleaning, spinning nylon thread acts as a garrote. Called the "Dynamic Flying Insect Exterminator" (DYNEX), the device was conceived and developed by James Woodruff of the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTER) in Honolulu. The prototype unit contains a small model fan about eighteen inches in diameter, but the unit could easily be built up to nine feet across for outdoor use.
  Unlike previous insect exterminators, DYNEX simplifies removal and recycling of expired insects. After being killed and diced by the whirling nylon, dead insects drop into a small drawer at the bottom of the "cage." Accumulated insects can be used as fertilizer or food for birds and fish. DYNEX creates no startling noises as high voltage zappers do. The unit handles bugs of varying sizes but does not affect honeybees and butterflies. The ultraviolet bulb is easily replaced. It's really three appliances in one, as it also serves as a light and an air circulation fan.
  The unit contains built-in safety features. The spinning thread will not harm the hands of children or adults. The mosquito-eater is environmentally friendly. No pesticides are used and the Science Congress says the unit is virtually silent and can be used indoors and out. The simple design also lends itself to inexpensive manufacture.


                                 Biocomputers 


Biocomputers will change the face of medicine before the start of the third millennium. Scientists have now sucessfully bonded a human neural brain cell, grown in tissue culture, to a Motorola 68000 microprocessor. This is the first step in a process that will allow direct interconnections between humans and the inorganic. The implications are clear: humans are no longer evolving along an exclusively organic carbon-dated path. I can see the day when children will be bionic from birth.
  These new discoveries are occurring at the Playfair Research Unit of the Toronto Western Hospital. This team of medical researchers includes Dr. William Tatton, vice-president of research at Toronto Western and founding director of the Playfair Neuroscience Unit, and Dr. John K. Stevens, professor of biomedical engineering at Playfair. Their three-dimensional imaging techniques modeling the human nervous system are said to be one billion times more sophisticated than any other circuitry. They are trying to incorporate these techniques into a system that may be the answer to spiraling medical costs.
  By the late 1990s biocomputers will have mapped the human nervous system, which appears to be by far the most sophisticated communications system yet found. Eventually we will be able to send specific messages via human dendrites to specific cells when instructed. These internal body communications will tell the body to accept implants, for instance, thus "turning off" the body's normal rejection system in this particular area. They could also instruct the body to release more (or less) of certain body chemicals to correct imbalances or specific diseases. Messages can be directed to a specific site or a specific disease.
  Just as industries have realized that they must spend more on research and development if they are to stay in business, so too some hospitals are arriving at the same conclusion. Without solutions to the rising cost of health care we might find outselves burdened with hospitals financially unable to operate (no pun intended).
  The research is being directed to reduce the economic burden of ill health. Many brain disorders hit people when they are young, destroying their productive years. These patients then require other people to spend their lives caring for them. The cost over the years is tremendous. Almost any breakthrough releases millions of dollars for other, yet unsolved problems.
  The first goal is to build a sixth generation supercomputer capable of changing three-dimensional geometry to silicon-based circuits that simulate brain circuits. A further goal is to produce biochips, where the cell and the chip come together. Then will come the use of living membrane processes to replace the silicon interface. This is all part of the new emerging field of bioware. It is showing that the human nervous system is a similar but much more complex system than any microcomputer network. The complexity of what Playfair is attempting is shown by the fact that ten million or more eye cells handle more computing in one second than the present model of Cray Supercomputer could simulate in one hundred years.
  The long-term results? One day we will be able to program our body to fight illness, disease, and physical injury. It is revolutionary -- and evolutionary!


                              Biotechnology and Religion


For the past 2000 years, especially in the Christian world and increasingly in the Middle East, religion has made an indelible impact on the human race. In Asia today there are stirrings of a new immaculate incarnation that is spiritually free of any sexual connotation: robot religion. Like the European cathedrals of the Middle Ages, new monuments of worship are materializing. The new head office of the Bank of Asia in Bangkok is built in his/her/its image -- a robot.
  Our view of religion is about to change because of technology. The oft-repeated phrase "only God can make a tree" is no longer true. With the mastery of genetic manipulation, humans will start designing their successors. With this will come increased diversity. Some may want artificial gills for living in the sea. Some may want to fly like birds. Impossible? A man in the Gossamer Albatross flew across the English Channel on mere muscle power.
  Totally new subspecies will be created, eventually appearing as aliens to other new subspecies. Many will be bionic. In prehistoric times, our human ancestors climbed down from the trees. Some climbed back and stayed there. Others stood upright and took a different route, and we are the result. Another fork now beckons along the evolutionary road. Some will try to stay where they are, as some simian ancestors did in the past. Others, many others, will take the new fork in the road. We don't know where it will lead, but it will be different.
  Researchers in Indiana and Nevada have succeeded in transplanting bone marrow from adult humans into the embryo of a sheep. What does this mean? At one year old, the test sheep was producing both sheep and human blood cells. This is another major step in the field of biotechnology, in which certain genes can be transferred from humans, animals, birds, reptiles, insects, and even certain plant species into other organisms.
  Researchers are using gene transfers to aid in the prevention of fatal or disabling genetic disorders. Sheep in Scotland have for some time been producing Factor VII and Factor VIII, the blood-clotting component that prevents people with hemophilia from bleeding to death from small wounds.
  What will development in biotechnology do to our morals, our philosophy of life, our sexual habits, our creativity, and the economic dominance of certain cultures? We do not know -- but the impact will be severe, shocking, impressive, and delightful. The growing shortage of diversity in living things will be replaced by an overabundance of new species, some made by biohackers -- bright young kids using equipment currently available on hardware, supermarket, and drugstore shelves. The world will never be the same.
  The mechanical world removed us from farming in the country to working in cities, doubled our longevity, and gave us homes that were warm and dry. The biotech world will change things in ways we can no more dream of than yesterday's illiterate farmers could have imagined the cities, computers, airports, or luxury hotels of today.
  We do know that biotechnology will continue to be one of the major fields of technological development in the 1990s. The U.S. government has approved the registration of patents on new life-forms, even though under an older piece of legislation, the Anti-slavery Act, humans could not be owned. If they were now cloned, that concept might not fit under the old legislation. It hasn't been tested in court -- not yet.
  One form of clone, a "medical" mouse, has already been patented. Other patent registrations have been applied for and are now being processed. In many ways it is irrelevant whether the United States or any other major power approves of new life-forms. The reality of today's world is that if the United States doesn't, some other country will. The potential economic advantages inherent in such developments will prove irresistible.
  Cyborgs, clones, chimeras, and other life-form mixtures will arrive whole, or in part, before the third millennium. Will we be able to accept this massive change in philosophy, religious outlook, and technology? Countries that can accomplish and handle such change will rapidly advance. As for countries that can't -- remember the Luddites?


                              The Cyborgs Among Us


In the Agricultural Age muscles and stamina provided a living. The Industrial Age demanded some muscle along with some intelligence. But the Communications Age can forgo the muscle. It demands brainpower. Some people will become stronger intellectually when they can do things with information that the majority, at least for the moment, are unable to access or process. Enter the cyborgs.
  There are more than two million cyborgs in North America today. Every day they go about their business in all parts of the continent. Their appearance and performance probably give no hints about why they are different. But they are cyborgs -- living organisms who have had one or more vital facilities replaced by pieces of technology. From people with nylon hip joints to those with prosthetic appendages or surgically implanted eye lenses, like mine, they are part of a growing and in some ways superior segment of Homo sapiens.
  Until recently, people became cyborgs only because of accident, age, ailments, or other disabilities. An even more subtle movement is taking place. We are designing our own successors. No one in centuries past has ever experienced the accelerating change of the past decade. We are creating a new species.
  Recently I filed patent registration applications for CyberSight, an application of intra-ocular implants that goes even further than the bionic lenses in my eyes. Imagine a television/computer screen containing an ocean scene of someone snorkeling. From that computer runs a thin fiber-optic cable, smaller in diameter than a human hair. It is plugged into the eyebrow of a young woman. She is able to see, in another room or building, or even overseas, the picture appearing on that computer/TV screen. She is a cyborg with electronic-assist.
  She is receiving assistance similar to that felt when you first drove a car with hydraulic steering. New knowledge can be fed directly to her implanted intraocular lens by cable or radio waves. The plug-in model is a small medical "snap-fastener" implanted along with a transducer or radio receiver. Either can be implanted separately.
  Consider this scenario. A firefighter enters a burning warehouse. (Even insurance companies recognize the danger; firefighters pay a much higher insurance premium than police officers.) He sees and feels the heat. Fortunately, this firefighter is a cyborg. He radios the fire department command car to bring up the blueprint of this warehouse and the list of contents -- those are now part of the Geographical Data Interface (GDI) being created by progressive municipalities. That data appears as an overlay on the reality background of his normal vision. The cyborg notes that explosive and toxic materials are in one corner of the warehouse and calls for increased water power to be applied to that quadrant of the blaze. Other fire crew immediately start to remove or isolate such material. Building sensors may be sending information about conditions in areas not yet covered by other firefighters. The cyborg will check on these from signals he receives directly from the sensors. This cyborg-firefighter gets much higher pay than the rest of the crew. No one minds. They know his superior ability is saving their lives.
  Or this scenario. An undercover police officer is lounging on a street corner in a seedy end of town. Just down the street, he notices a character he dimly remembers. Through his body-pack radio he calls police headquarters and gets switched to records. "What was the name of that guy who drowned those three people in a swimming pool in Surrey two years ago?" "Boyd, Harold Boyd," replies Records. "Send me the mug shot." It flashes on his internal eye screen while he casually looks around. "It's him. Send back-up fast. I'm on the southwest corner of 9th and Alder."
  The ability to see what others do not would, of course, be of tremendous advantage in many segments of global business. If computer transmissions could be sent, as they are today, via radio waves not only to your PowerBook or other laptop but directly to an implanted receiver, so that the transmission appeared as an overlay or double exposure on your current vision, the possibilities in cross-cultural training, say, or underwater archeology, would be amazing.
  Consider the possibility of a video camera that could take pictures similar to X rays. The video camera could transmit images at the speed of light to someone with CyberSight who would see immediately what the X-ray pictures looked like -- no matter where he or she was!
  We now have sophisticated home barometers or "weather stations" that indicate slight variations in barometric pressure, temperature, and humidity. Such sensors, highly miniaturized and implanted in humans, could provide an early indication of a hurricane or earthquake. Wrapped in a tiny plastic package, almost any sensor could be implanted with a high chance of success.
  Infrared food machines have already been developed for testing degree of ripeness and spoilage. Next, sensors implanted into cyborg fingers could instantly determine, with a high degree of accuracy, the stage of a particular fruit or vegetable at the moment. The savings in spoilage could be monumental.
  Your fingers could also contain sensors to measure pulse, blood pressure, heartbeat, menstrual cycle, chemical imbalance, toxic blood, and perhaps even manic-depressive stages, schizophrenia, and brain tumors. Such detection devices exist today. Tomorrow they will be shrunk in size to be implanted in people. Such people would be more capable than most nurses or even doctors in many circumstances. The pay scale for such superhumans should match their abilities, convincing many to have such implants.
  Farfetched? Most future scenarios are, the first time you hear them.


                                 Plant Diversity


The world is awash with purveyors of doom and gloom, pointing out that species of some sort are disappearing every few minutes. The doomsayers leave the rest of the population suspended in horror with the image of a shrinking world. A decreasing diversity of crop seeds, for example, is predicted to lead to a monocultural corn or bean that someday will be the victim of a new disease, and we will all starve in an age of pestilence and famine.
  Exactly the opposite is more likely to happen. Consider crop diversity. With conventional thinking, a lost species of plant or animal was gone forever. Although we should of course not deliberately eradicate any species nor encourage obvious polluting or environmentally dangerous actions, look at what is happening as laboratories and research centers around the world are experimenting with creation. Genetic manipulation has already accomplished feats impossible in the past. The abilities of one species, both animal and plant, have already been transferred not only into another species of the same family but across species lines. In what may be called the breakthrough of the age, the gene that causes the glow in a firefly has been transferred to a plant. There are now tobacco plants that glow in the dark.
  We may be losing plant and animal species now, but we will not be losing diversity in the future. Indeed, the question will be what to do with the over-abundance of diversity. Within this decade, supermarkets will provide not only foods you never tasted before but foods that didn't exist before. And if this seems far out, remember that some extinct species may be resurrected via DNA revitalization. Today's fantasy is tomorrow's reality. The science in Jurassic Park may be questionable today, but the notion behind it will one day seem as ho-hum as the thought of a man on the moon.


                                 Human Antifreeze?


Two hundred years ago, if you had suggested that virulent diseases could be eliminated with injections of a modified version of the disease itself, the Western world would have considered you a practitioner of witchcraft. Yet in 1798 Dr. Edward Jenner proved that his vaccine could prevent smallpox. Today that dreaded disease has been virtually eliminated. Other vaccines have markedly reduced the incidence of cholera, typhoid, tetanus, diphtheria, polio, influenza, and rubella. Vaccine therapy works on the principle of stimulating the inherent healing powers of the body to conquer infection by increasing available antibodies to attack invading bacteria or viruses.
  Since you don't get drowned today for practicing witchcraft, I am going to suggest that someday an injection will be developed to prevent or delay the human body from freezing in the cold. And once injected, the body will be protected for life. Here is why I can be so bold. Among the fish that can stay year-round in the cold waters of the North Atlantic are two unique species: ocean pout and winter flounder. These fish can stay in water that is below freezing, although such cold is a sure killer for all other fish. Even the hardy Atlantic salmon moves out when temperatures approach the freezing level. Scientists studying the winter flounder have discovered that this dowdy flatfish has within its dull body an antifreeze protein that lowers its blood's freezing temperature by retarding the growth of ice-crystals.
  With gene manipulation now being practiced in laboratories around the world, it is just a matter of time until that thermal gene will be transferrable to many other organisms. New trails are being blazed in Memorial University's Marine Sciences Research Laboratory in St. John's, Newfoundland, where scientist Arnie Sutterlin is working to make such a development a reality for local hard-pressed fishermen. He wants to make Atlantic salmon able to survive and thrive in icy Newfoundland winter waters, just as the winter flounder can.
  According to fish physiologist Garth Fletcher of the same institution, the flounder's liver is responsible for this biological magic. So the answer was simple: find the antifreeze gene. Thanks to the wonders of biotechnology, the project is well under way. The gene has been implanted in Atlantic salmon eggs. Now not only are scientists trying to make salmon grow larger, more rapidly, at lower cost, but they also want them to grow where they have never grown before -- in freezing water. Such gene-manipulated eggs would hatch into salmon that would have the antifreeze gene in every body cell.
  Malaysian-born Choy Hew, a fellow scientist in Newfoundland, had been working on flounder protein structure involved with the then-unknown antifreeze gene in 1981. He learned that scientist Peter Davis of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, had also successfully isolated the first of the flounder's forty antifreeze genes. The total package started to come together. Later, an intestinal bacterium known as E. coli was injected with the flounder's alien gene. Generations of nonunion bacteria, working twenty-four hours a day, produced millions of copies of the desired gene.
  Today Fletcher and his colleagues believe that 10 percent of his gene-manipulated salmon have "taken" the gene. If the gene can be transferred naturally as they reproduce, a new, more sophisticated salmon will ply the North Atlantic. This has not yet been proved, but the process has come a long way in a relatively short time. Nature might have taken a billion years to isolate and transfer the antifreeze by accident.
  Biologist Kenneth B. Storey of Carleton University in Ottawa has recently found another animal -- the painted turtle -- that regularly freezes in winter and thaws out in the spring with no harmful results. It appears that the turtle knows how to dehydrate by removing from its cells the freezing water that would normally puncture and fatally damage blood cells. When warm weather returns, the shrunken cells absorb the thawing water and revive.
  Storey believes that someday this knowledge may make it possible to refrigerate human transplant organs for weeks or months. He does not believe it will be possible to freeze a whole human body because of the complexity involved. But then twenty years ago, he couldn't have imagined what he is doing now.