Joseph M. Rosen, M.D.
April 17th , 2003
Engineering 005

Summary of the Course:
Re-designing Humans
 Form and Function (Sci Am March 2001)
 Technologies – surgery, robotics, virtual reality and genetic engineering
 Applications – walking, senses and internal organs and outward appearance
 Re-Design vs. Re-Evolution – changing future generations – Genes for Beauty

Genotype is a function of the human genome:
Critical discovery April 25,1953

DNA is the template for RNA to make proteins: human genome = DNA

Human transformation – re-designing humans:
Phenotype definition:
Nature and Nurture in Humans
Phenotype is the expression of nature and nuture in a species or individual
Nature is what we inherit from generation to generation - genotype
Nuture is our expression of civilization, culture, clothes, environment,surgery

Limitations of surgery, genome and robotics:
Lamarck and Nanosurgery:
Operating on the Germline
Surgery on the genotype to alter form and function

Recent ability to make major changes in evolution:
DNA and the Human Genome
Genetic engineering could allow surgery to alter future generations
This would dramatically alter choices for human evolution in both form and function

Nature’s information code for life’s expression:
Nanosurgery to change future generations by human choice
Each cell has the potential to clone an entire person
Hidden genes to express Wings, fins and other parts ?

Wings
 Lets Walk first before we Fly

“ flying squirrel”
 Built to Last

Lets ‘not’ age

Anti-Aging:
Re-designing Humans
 Human purpose –
The Selfish Gene
 100 Years Young
 Person Designed for a Healthy Old
Age

Mike McKenna thesis work –first virtual humans :
How do we walk – making avatar – virtual creatures

Mike McKenna thesis work –first virtual humans :
Using Virtual Reality to teach us about Walking so we can
Last

If Humans were built to last:
Flaws and Fixes

If Humans were built to last:
List of Flaws – Walk this Way
 Bioweapons can effect the will of the nation through terror and the economy
 blowback risk to the enemy

If Humans were built to last:
List of Fixes – Walk this Way
 Bioweapons can effect the will of the nation through terror and the economy
 BW have a potentially unique outcome –can change policy and military strategy

Re-Designing Humans
Other Systems



What other systems need to be modified to remain young
Getting A Head

Vision

Hearing

Trachea
 Esophagus
Get a Plumber
Male
Female

If Humans were built to last:
Flaws and Fixes-Plan a Head

If Humans were built to last:
Call a Plumber - Male

If Humans were built to last:
Call a Plumber - Female

Deformities versus Beauty:
Re-Think role of Surgery
 Cosmetics –
Operating on Normal people to make them
‘beautiful’
 Curing Aging,
Fatness, Culture
 Some Cultures change their phenotype (shape)

Plastic surgery to alter the human form - skin:
Surgical Recontruction for deformities is not Cosmetic

Human transformation – re-designing humans:
Phenotype alteration through the clothes we wear

Human transformation – re-designing humans:
Phenotype alteration through the masks and modifications

Human transformation – re-designing humans:
Phenotype alteration through scarification and modification

Cosmetic Surgery Next