Most of you would be familiar with Stan Lee’s superhumans – The Unbreakable, The Electro Man, The Hammer Head and numerous more. People who can withstand tremendous amount of electricity that could easily roast a normal guy, someone who feels absolutely no pain, or a guy who can run 50 marathons in 50 states, in 50 days without fatigue are the real-life superhumans. These are the guys with peculiar irregularities in their DNA which is worth billions of dollars for the pharmaceutical companies. If the bio-medical scientists are able to understand and extract these aberrations to engineer new drugs, then it can be a life saver in the critical situations. Scientists have already come up new anti ageing pills that claim to increase your health span.
According to a report presented on
Bloomberg, Steven Pete was born with the gift that most of us could only wish for. Pete has an incredibly high threshold of pain passed down to him as a combination of subtle mutations from his parents. He can not feel the burn of the fire, and can walk on glass pieces without feeling a thing.
Timothy Dreyer is another superhuman who has a bone structure similar to that of the Incredible Hulk. His bones are so dense that he could literally walk out of the car accidents. His condition is termed as sclerosteosis.
Pharma companies across the globe are studying these mutations and working on ways to create wonder drugs as we speak. Also for the medicine business, this is an opportunity to increase their worth to billions.
Currently, there are only about a hundred people having sclerosteosis and the research is going on to use this mutation against osteoporosis. Similarly, Steven Pete’s insensitivity to pain could provide a major breakthrough for the pain relief industry and which is estimated for a US$18 billion industry.
The researchers have already created a medication that is derived from the gene of another superhuman. It is a cholesterol-lowering drug that will soon be available in the US markets.
But, these heightened abilities and resistive powers also have some side-effects. Due to Pete’s superhuman strength of enduring pain, he once chewed his own tongue as a baby and as he grew up his left leg suffered permanent damage from his injuries, which unfortunately he never felt. Dreyer’s bone condition has led to hearing loss because of the huge cranial pressure.
Researchers are trying to take out the best from these mutations and utilize them without the side-effects. The superhumans out there would feel content as their genetic contribution will help the fellow humans facing critical condition.
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