The Hulk and Captain America: The real science behind Marvel Comics

 

Fantastical takes on science have always been a grounding element of the origins of comic book super heroes. Can the bite of a radioactive spider really turn you into an amazing super-being? Can a gaseous compound really allow you to change size? Or are these origins more fantasy than science?

 

Sebastian Alvarado, a postdoctoral research fellow in biology at Stanford University, has some ideas as to how normal humans can transform into awesome super beings like The Hulk and Captain America.  The key to these transformations lies in genome-editing and epigenetics. 

 

Alvarado's effort to bring these superheroes' origin stories into closer agreement with modern science is part of his work with Victory Hill Exhibitions, which produced the interactive Avengers-based exhibition, called Marvel's Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N., in Times Square in New York City.

 

Made in America 

 

 

Captain America's origin is like a faerie tale, if faerie tales involved ninety-pound weaklings and fraught with the military tension of World War II. Deemed too frail and sickly for service, Rogers is instead selected as the primary subject for the "Super Soldier Serum," an experimental formula developed to make possible the mass production of the perfect soldier. Rogers is injected with the formula and bombarded with 'Vita-Rays' a process which transforms him into a broad shouldered paragon of military perfection.

 

According to Alvarado, while scientists haven't figured out what goes into the miracle cocktail that is the Super Soldier Serum, they have identified the genes that are involved in peak physical human shape. "We understand the genes that increase muscle mass. We know about the genes that increase oxygen carrying load in your blood. We actually have a lot of tools to specifically manipulate those individual in genes." Alvarado cites genome-editing tools like zinc finger nucleases, or CRISPR/Cas9 systems. Theoretically, these techniques could be used that could theoretically allow you to epigenetically seek out and turn on genes to make your muscles physically large, make you strategically minded, incredibly fast, or increase your stamina.

 

"But that isn't enough," says Alvarado. He points to the Vita-Rays which are used in both the films and the comics to activate the Super Soldier Serum in Steve Rogers. Drug-delivering capsules can be designed to release their contents only when subjected to certain wavelengths of light. Current designs involve ultraviolet light in the activation and release process, but are analogous enough to the Vita-Ray process. 

 

"Of course, at this point, these types of things have been explored mostly in lab mice," Alvarado said. "But it's fun to speculate."

 

Not easy turning green 

 

 

The details of Hulk's origin have changed over the years, but the basics have remained the same. An accidental exposure to gamma rays ought to have killed brilliant nuclear scientist Bruce Banner, but survives instead. The catch? He transforms periodically into an super-strong, nigh-invulnerable behemoth referred to as The Hulk. Writers and artists have depicted this transformation in various ways, but the most popular incarnation makes pain and anger a trigger.

 

Alvarado said that explaining the Banner's metamorphosis into the Hulk would require a bit of creativity by stretching some of the known principles of science. When gamma radiation hits DNA, it breaks the double-stranded, helix strucure. These fragments could repair themselves in a process known as chromothripsis. Alvarado likens the effects of the gamma irradiation on Banner's DNA to a kind of 'chromosomal shattering.' "So I would imagine that some sort of hidden mystery in the reassembly of these genes underlies why [Banner] can become Hulk," says Alvarado.

 

However, attempting to repair such a massive 'chromosomal shattering' could become sloppy, and new instructions might be keyed into the genetic code. Alvarado suggests that the reassembly of Banner's DNA led to the inclusion of a handful of epigenetic switches. Instead of the switches being activated by light — or Vita-Rays for that matter — the hormones produced when Banner is angry or hurt might be what activates those genetic switches, reconfiguring his DNA in a matter of seconds and transforming him into the big, green Hulk. 

 

As to the Hulk's skin color, Alvarado theorizes that one of the metabolites in hemoglobin is responsible. "Bruce Banner's transformation into the Hulk would be incredibly traumatic to his body, and maybe his green skin is the result of a whole-body bruise," Alvarado said. "When you get a really bad bruise, you see a little bit of purple but you also see green. One of the reasons you see green is because one of the metabolites that form from destroyed blood cells and the catabolism of hemoglobin is biliverdin, which is green." 

 

However, not everything about the superhuman physique can be explained. Alvarado joked: "If there's one mystery science just can't solve is how [the Hulk's] pants stay on after every transformation." — TJD, GMA News