Bridge Cheese!

In the past couple days, my previous optimisms regarding getting into an awesome PhD program in Immunology with Computational Biology opportunities have turned to a rather danker pessimism. I rarely allow myself to be pessimistic, because when I do I start wanting to do rather illogical things to distract myself from it.

Right now I'm thinking it'd be lovely to move to Norway, somewhere up in Trollheim, and become a goatherder. Goats are nice, they'll eat pretty much anything you throw at them, and they even make milk and cheese (I believe you have to shake them to obtain the latter, though). The primary advantage of doing this in Norway instead of the Ozarks would be that I'd have no neighbors, and those that might be over the next mountain would be far too busy eating fish and enjoying socialized health care and education to care about me genetically engineering the goats.

I'd need 2 phenotypes, 1 with hooky fur and the other with loopy fur, but if I was successful, I'd have VELCRO GOATS!!! Not only could I harvest their wool for useful uses, but they've be velcro uses.

Now, what sort of uses would a velcro goat possibly have, you ask?

Well, for structural elements, of course. Specifically a bridge. A bridge over a fjord. Made out of velco goats. Sure, it'd be a loud bridge with all of the bleating and whatnot, and goats' eyes are damn creepy, but still, it would be a bridge made of goats over a fjord! Not only would it be biodegradable and able to consume the next Trollheimstadt's municipal recycling, but it would output bridge cheese!!!

Skäl!

Like this. Note that goats would be occasionally rotated to ensure an even distribution of goat happiness as I suspect the goats on the bottom of the cantilever are likely to be somewhat less happy and as such may not make quite the same quality of cheese.

Luciferase Shampoo

I just attended a departmental seminar where the guest lecturer presented data showing that transcutaneous vaccination works from DNA vaccines. Apparently, if you abrade the skin to remove the stratum corneum and rub on a transfection plasmid with your desired DNA (best to use a fusion protein, methinks) that has been stuck inside liposomes, the hair follicles will take up the DNA and use it. This apparently produces antigens inside the body and activates dendritic cells to take it up, process it, and go activate T cells to start a humoral immunity response. This has been demonstrated in mice.

Previously I had had no idea that mouse hair follicles are much smaller than human hair follicles. Nor did I know that ~80-90% of hair follicles on a human scalp are usually in growth phase at any given point. DNA vaccines have so far been shown to work best when they're applied to skin in which the hair follicles are in anagen (growth) phase. Therefore, it stands to reason that the human scalp would be a convenient portal for localized transfection.

As such, I need volunteers for 2 experiments.

1) Balding. There are demonstrated links between testosterone and alopecia. It is thought that testosterone is somehow acting upon hair follicles in middle age to cause them to somehow stop growing. But if we could make a fusion gene for the testosterone receptor coupled to nonfunctionality, we could theoretically block that signal and prevent testosterone-associated baldness at the scalp. However, in the interest of transparency, it should be acknowledged that there is a small chance that the testosterone knockout genetic construct will get into more places than just one's scalp, but also possibly other rapidly dividing cells. Other rapidly dividing cells include those in the skin and gut epithelium, where a loss of testosterone receptivity wouldn't do much, but also Sertoli cells, which could indeed cause infertility. However, as Leydig cells produce testosterone itself in response to luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone, systemic testosterone shouldn't be affected and no loss of virilization should occur.

2) Luciferase Shampoo. I don't know about you, but I think I'd look quite nice with glowing bright red hair. If adding the luciferase gene to a liposome and getting that to hair follicles could result in expression of luciferase, then great, we'd be able to get glowy hair! However, there is a very real possibility that doing this would only result in glowy hair follicles, which could still be kind of cool (light tends to shine through and off of my blonde hair, so in effect it might look like a translucent pink cloud, like fiber optics).

Formula:
1. Luciferase transfection vector inside liposomes.
2. CaCl2
3. HEPES buffer
4. Glycerin (might as well make functioning shampoo whilst we're at it, no?)
5. Fragrance (anyone know how to synthesize the scent of melting lemon drops?)

But first, I need volunteers! Mad Science Law #9 may be waived if I get volunteers. Or maybe I should just get the DIY-Bio people to do this for me.