Can I be super intelligent?

By altering DNA of humans can they become super-intelligent ?

• Can you alter the brain-structure of humans, by altering the DNA of an egg-cell in the womb of a women ? Can you create with this technology super-intelligent people ? Or is altering DNA-structure no guarantee for success ?

• Answer:

  no, probably not. "intelligence" is not a trait that can be pin-pointed to the action of any gene or set of genes. there is a set of genes (i can't remember precisely which at the moment...) that controls the size of the brain. it does this by signalling neuron progenitor cells to switch their mode of cell division at a certain time, thus controlling the amount of neurons produced. turning this switch just one cycle later would double the number of neurons produced! studies were conducted with rats, messing with this gene. they produced rats with significantly larger brains (more gyrification, actually), however they were severely mentally retarded! So to answer your question, yes you can alter brain-structure by altering genes (i took a class about brain development last quarter and there are A LOT of different genes that control different aspects of how the brain is developed, but we don't understand all of the processes completely!), but it won't make the baby smarter, usually any changes have severely detrimental (if not lethal) consequences.