Most everything that humans have dared to imagine in the distant past has eventually become commonplace in the daily hustle-and-bustle reality of the modern world. Among the benefits of a first-class education is the ability to dream further than generations passed and continue the chain of creating newer worlds.
Several weeks ago, the topic of regenerative medicine came to my attention in the form of a CBS News story about a man who used a special powder to signal his finger to regrow bone, flesh and nail at the tip of his finger in four weeks. Doctors theorize that in coming years regrowing entire limbs or damaged lung or heart tissue may be as easy as applying a powder or Band-Aid to the afflicted area. Experiments have been launched globally, and this radical revolution in medicine could be just the beginning.
Imagine a world where we grow back the limbs of our amputated soldiers, make fresh the hearts of those who have suffered heart attacks and rejuvenate our elderly and disabled. Let's cut off a body part every time it starts to get old and wrinkled and spoiled with arthritis until we are 70-year-olds living in 30-year-old bodies. If you don't like the scar on your pinky, just cut if off and grow a new one. The body would be made eternal, age just a factor of experience. It is very easy to get ahead of the realities of today, however, while dreaming of the fantasies of the future.
Tomorrow may be a world free of significantly more medical aches and illnesses, but we still live in the world of here and now. Since discovering a future where almost any damage to my body could be easily reversed, I have found it far too tempting to forfeit caution to the wind. As a smoker, the threat of lung cancer has always deterred me from smoking in excess and motivated me to quit slowly. But when doctors talk of a tube they can put in your throat to make it grow back as good as new, why live in moderation?
This changed equation, however, is as dangerous a pitfall as drug abuse was during the '60s. As I hung off the precipice of prudence, I remembered one key component of medicine: Everything has side effects, especially at first discovery. Even if cigarettes or drinking in significant excess will no longer be dangerous to our bodies directly, we will still have no idea what happens 10 hours, much less 10 years after we use this science of regeneration on the human body. Common sense suggests at least something will happen.
The moral of the story is this: Yes, our grandchildren probably will be able to smoke and drink heavily and burn off their noses and cut off their hands with little to no consequence, but our generation is going to be the experiment that creates that reality. Let those in real need perfect this developing science. As for me, I have learned better than to jeopardize what is important to me on prospect and promise. While most lab rats contribute to the good of the planet, it is rarely a good idea to be the rat.
I would like to point out that powers of regeneration have generally been associated with lizards or starfish; neither animal requires a powder. We have watched the birds fly, and now we have airplanes. We have dreamed longingly of the bottoms of the oceans where unknown creatures dwell, and now we submarine to the furthest depths. Our SONAR is far more advanced than that of the bats. It seems to me that humankind has started a trend of perfecting and adapting the attributes of other animals for ourselves.
So what comes next? Perhaps by combining regenerative medicine and nanotechnology we can begin growing back our limbs right upon injury. Perhaps next we will somehow obtain chameleon-like powers to camouflage at will. It would seem that over time the human imagination is one of our only defined limits. And so we dream on.
