Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related How to make Clark immune to kryptonite

Okay, here's one for you scientists and pseudo-scientists out there.

a) Why does kryptonite hurt, and eventually kill, Clark? Is it radiation? Or something else?

b) Given your answer to a), how would you then go about making him immune to its effects? (lead shielding is not one of your options <g>)

Yvonne
(Strenuously denying, since it seems to be the fashion these days, that this question has anything to do with fics in development )

It's definitely been treated in the comics as a radioactive substance. And even though it has no apparent effect on normal humans, the comics have allowed it to affect humans given a long term exposure. Lex used to wear a Kryptonite ring which eventually gave him cancer.

I've always treated Superman's exposure to Kryptonite as an instantaneous and severe form of radiation sickness.

As far as immunity, I'm not sure that someone can actually build up a tolerance for a radioactive substance. Especially since they tend to be cumlative in their effects. Pre-crises they 'mutated' all the kryptonite on the planet so it no longer had any effect on Superman. He hadn't changed, the kryptonite did.

So, in my Lois and Clark/Superman world, I don't see Clark ever achieving immunity to his second greatest weakness.

Tank (who knows he doesn't have to name Superman's greatest weakness to this crowd)

Something tells me he isn't likely to achieve immunity to his greatest weakness either.

You could always use some Star Trek'ish gobbledygook and have Dr. Klein invent some pill that reduces or eliminates the effects of K. Just use the phrase, "subspace phase thingy" or something like that when you describe it. Or not.

I'll admit immediately that I have absolutely no knowledge of anything in the comics, but I am a scientist, so I am going to give this a shot.

(shameless plug) I actually came up with a cure that makes Clark immune to Kryptonite in one of my stories, Medical Miracles.

You could have Dr. Klein invent something. It's kind of what I did in my story. I spent a long time thinking about this and trying to make it believable. Who knows if I succeeded.

I believe it is a type of radiation it emits. It's something that doesn't seem to bother humans, but Clark is succeptable. I really think it is all related to his alien differences. I am of the impression that Clark's physiology CAN NOT be that different from a human's for him to look so much like a human and also for him to be able to have sex with Lois at all. I really think it just has to be a minor change in the genome that makes Clark super -- something that makes him almost the same species as a human -- kind of like different breeds of dogs.

If you believe that, then it might be logical to believe that something in Clark's body chemistry that gives him the superpowers might also make him sensitive to the radiation from the kryptonite.

After a lot of thinking about this problem, I approached it the simplest way. If it is true that Clark's powers come from the sun, it is possible that the only difference in his physiology from a human's physiology is some kind of solar transducer -- something that senses a difference between the light wavelengths emitted from red sun and a yellow sun and tells his body to become super. It could be a complex pathway -- like phototransduction in the eye or growth factors, but it also could be something incredibly simple. What if just one enzyme in his body acted as that transducer?

So red sun + enzyme --> no powers, but
yellow sun + enzyme --> powers.

Then I wondered if that enzyme might be inhibited by the radiation that the Kryptonite emits.

If it is activated by two different types of radiation, why couldn't it be inhibited by the radiation from Kryptonite, rendering him powerless, and eventually killing him.

Then, thinking about enzymes, I realized that they can't really make a reaction happen. They only catalyze a reaction.

So what if Clark has something in his blood or body that makes him super. A component that, when activated, makes him Super. What if it is a protein that is present in everyone's blood, but with the enzyme catalyzed reaction, it makes Clark invulnerable?

So normally, his body might work like, Xfactor + yellow sun (in the presence of the yellow sun enzyme) --> Superpowers, but in the presence of Kryptonite, the enzyme is inhibited, and somehow, instead of the sunlight reacting with the Xfactor, the Kryptonite will be there to react with the Xfactor creating a complex with the X, (KyX), which could inhibit his powers, but not kill him. As he is exposed to more radiation (exposed for a longer time), the source of the Xfactor will be completely exhaused, and it will eventually kill Clark.

So that is my theory of how Kryptonite poisoning kills Clark. I know it is simplistic , and it is probaly a lot more complicated in "reality", but I think my explanation is plausable, given the fact that I believe Clark is basically human with the added Superpower thing.

If you believe my explanation, there has to be a way to block the enzyme blocker. however, finding that blocker is much easier said than done. It could block the spot on the enxyme the radiation reacts with, or it could block the radiation before it even gets to his body -- like in his skin, creating almost a lead shield around his body from the inside. From there, you could have Dr. Klein discover just about any common chemical that could perform that task -- in my story, I chose hydrogen peroxide. Just make it believable, and it will work. After all, Kryptonite is made up, why can't your cure be made up, too ?

Gosh, I really look like I think about this way too much. (shhhh, Laura, they probably already know you're a nerd. ) This stuff fascinates me. I spent a lot of time on this for my story last year -- at a point, with the pages and pages of equations I had written, one of my professrs came upon one of the pages when I was working on it in the atrium outside the class I was teaching, and he was shocked to see D + Ky (RYS) --> KyD + Ky (RyS) --> Ky2D + Ky --> DEAD CLARK. Needless to say, he was quite frightened .

Hope this sort of answered your questions and I didn't totally go off on a tangent.

- Laura

Uh ?

EDIT: This post ended up being fairly long, so I'm going to stick in the reader's digest version:

(a) There's a chemical in Clark's body that absorbs sunlight. By happy coincidence, it gets an extra kick out of yellow sunlight. Kryptonite radiation zaps this chemical, causing pain, loss of powers, and eventually death.

(b) With the magic of genetic engineering (and probably years of painstaking research using the extremely advanced resources of STAR Labs), we might be able to alter Clark's very DNA so that, instead of using the chemical that reacts to Kryptonite, he uses a simiar one which is not affected by Kryptonite. After that, assuming we didn't kill him while we were tinkering with his geneic make-up, he should be immune to Kryptonite poisoning.

Full original post follows:

I tend to go with something like what Laura said, except that instead of an enzyme, I think organelle. See, Clark is solar powered. The sun recharges him. That means his body needs a way to absorb sunlight and turn that into energy.

Thinking about that, the first thing that comes to mind is a plant. Plants make energy from sunlight. How? They have a special little doohickey in their cells specifically designed for the task. There's a chemical called chlorophyll which is capable of absorbing sunlight.

(Quick detour into subatomic physics... Electrons, more or less, orbit in levels. The more charged an electron is, the further it orbits from the positively charged nucleus. When an electron drops a level, it emits the energy in the form of a photon. That's how lightbulbs can turn electricity into light. Chlorophyll works with the opposite process. A photon will hit an electron in a chlorophyll molecule. The electron will absorb the photon, thus gaining its energy and essentially becoming supercharged.)

Once the chlorophyll absorbs the light, it goes through a complicated series of chemical reactions which ultimately "recharge" a molecule of ATP.

(Quick detour into basic cellular biochemistry... All known cells use ATP as their basic unit of energy. Whenever a cell needs to do something that requires energy, it uses up the charge from an ATP molecule, reducing it to an ADP molecule. ATP has 3 phosphate groups, which are very good at storing small charges. The TP stands for Tri-Phosphate. When the charge is used, there's no longer enough energy to hold the third phosphate in the molecule, so you end up with ADP and a floating phosphate. In an emergency, a second, less charged phosphate can be "burned off," leaving AMP. Extra charges can be stored in the form of sugar molecules, which have enough power to energize about 30 ATP molecules. Extra sugar can be further condensed into fat, which is stored in seperate specialized cells.)

As I said, the whole process requires not just the chlorophyll, but an entire self-contained portion of an individual cell. Such specialized self-contained areas are called oganelles, since they basically function as the cell's equivalent of a bodily organ. The one in question is called the chloroplast.

Animals, which don't process sunlight, don't have chloroplasts. Instead, their cells have a different organelle called a mitochondrion which preforms more or less the same function (except that it's powered by sugar rather than sunlight).

(Incidentally, the genes for mitochondria are carried by the mother. I'm not sure exactly how it works, since clearly men need mitochondria, too, but mitochondrial DNA is, IIRC, the reason that scientists can currently only clone females.)

Now, we know that Clark gets his energy from the sun and that so long as he is getting yellow sunlight, he doesn't need to eat (or, if he does, he doesn't need to eat frequently). Away from a yellow sun, he loses his powers and needs to eat.

This fits in fairly neatly with the way plants work. They take in sunlight as their primary power source (although they do need water and certain nutrients as well, in order to grow new cells), but, away from sunlight, they process stored sugar.

It seems to me, then, that the most logical explanation is that, for some reason, Clark has something that serves more like a chloroplast than a mitochondrian. It's a part of his cell which is not only capable of processing sugar from food, but is also able to produce power from sunlight. I don't know if it works at all when exposed to red sunlight, but under a yellow sun, it produces enough energy to not only power his entire body but also give him super powers.

Why does a Kryptonian have an organelle which reacts to a type of sunlight not found on their homeworld? Who knows? Maybe it's a bizarre coincidence. Maybe they normally absorb red sunlight to supplement their food intake (as a sort of hybrid plant/animal), but, as it happens, they get even more power from yellow. Why this results in the specific super powers we've seen is also anybody's guess.

In any case, Kryptonian animals are the only ones in the known universe who have that particular organelle. That organelle is the only one that uses Chemical K, the Kryptonian version of chlorophyll.

Time for a quick lesson in molecular physics. Molecules are in constant motion. They float aroun, bouncing off each other. The hotter they are, the faster they move. (Theoretically, there's a point called absolute zero at which they become so cold that they stop moving. That temperature has been calculated to be approximately negative 271 degrees celcuis.) The thing is that every molecule, while bouncing around, vibrates at a unique and specific frequency, based on its exact physical characteristics (size, shape, etc). If you hit a molecule with a wave of energy tuned to that exact frequency, it resonates, moving much faster. Essentially, you're heating the molecule quite a bit.

That's how microwave ovens work. They're tuned to the frequency of water. Other molecules aren't really affected by microwaves, at least not very strongly, but food tends to contain a lot of water. Heat that water, and it'll bounce around, heating everything nearby. That's why microwaves can cook food so quickly. It's also why microwaved food cools off more quickly. The heat is all in the water, and a lot of it escapes in the form of steam. The other thing about microwaves is that it's very easy to overheat things. Heat the water too much, and you can burn what you're cooking, or even cause it to explode.

So, what happens when you hit Chemical K with a radioactive wave moving at its resonance frequency? It becomes hot. Very hot. It starts bouncing around really fast. Eventually, it probably breaks apart. It may even break other things in the process.

Guess what frequency Kryptonite radiation just happens to be?

Let's look at what happens now. Clark is exposed to Kryptonite radiation. All of the Chemical K in his body starts bouncing around really fast. This is very painful. It's also very disruptive to the process which allows him to have the energy required for super powers. A little longer, and some of the key things needed to make that energy are destroyed. it'll be a while before his body can repair that damage. Longer still, and some of his cells can't make power at all. They start to die. As more and more of them die, he becomes sicker and sicker until, eventually, there's just too much damage for his body to handle. Bye-bye, Clark.

How do we stop this from happening? It seems difficult. In the pre-crisis comics, teenaged Clark had a friend in Smallville named Lex Luthor. Lex looked into this very subject. He even found a cure. Before he could tell his friend Superboy, however, there was an accident and the lab blew up. Lex always blamed Superboy for the accident, and never forgave him. It's unfortunate, but it does tell us that it's possible to come up with a cure.

How? Well, clearly, a cure isn't possible as long as Clark's body depends on Chemical K (aka Kryptophyll). Obviously, then, the only thing to do is to find a different molecule that can preform the same function. That's going to be tricky, since many complex chemical reactions like this (which require a certain exact outcome) depend on molecules being a certain shape. Take a sugar molecule and twist it a tiny bit and you end up with Splenda (tm). It looks like sugar. It tastes like sugar. Chemically, it's almost identical to sugar. Try eating it, though, and it turns out that it's pretty much completely undigestable.

Try hard enough, though, and, with a little luck, you just may find something that works. Doing so might require that you change more than one molecule (not just Kryptophyll, but also a certain enzyme that works with Kryptophyll and maybe another molecule or two).

Let's say you find a way to make it work. You have to change three molecules to do it, but it works. Now what? Well, you need to get the cells to stop making Kryptophyll and that other stuff and start making Kleinophyll, Bernardase, and Labratose.

How's that going to happen? Chemicals in cells are produced by protiens. Protiens are specialized and extremely complicated molecules which are designed to preform specific tasks. Each protien is basically capable of preforming one single task. If a cell needs that tast preformed, it will make that protien. So, first you need to somehow design protiens to assemble Kleinophyll, Bernardase, and Labratose.

That's not going to be easy. Think of it like this. You've got a set of legos. There are 20 kinds of blocks. Each block fits against the others in a unique way which changes depending on which other blocks you put next to it. You can only build them in chains, one after the other, but, once you've made a complete chain, that chain will fold up, based on the exact configuration of blocks, to form sheets. Those sheets will then fold on each other to form a complex 3-dimensional shape. You need to assemble hundreds of those blocks in such a way that they'll fold up on each other into exactly the shape you need. That shape will have a slot which exactly fits around a certain molecule, another slot which fits around a second molecule, and the right parts in between to then bring those two molecules together in exactly the right way to produce a third molecule.

Normally, if you wanted such a thing, you'd find a protien that already served that function somewhere else (perhaps in another animal) and bring it over. Here, however, we're almost certainly working with chemicals that aren't used anywhere in the world.

Luckily, we have Dr. Klein, and he has the resources of STAR Labs. That just happens to include an incredibly advanced supercomputer capable of figuring out just how to put the blocks (which are called amino acids) together to form the protien you want. So, with a lot of hard work and some trial and error, he actually can do it. Eventually.

Okay, good. We now have the protiens we want. Now we have to get Clark's cells to stop using the old ones and start using the new ones. Well, the way cells know what protiens to make is DNA. DNA is a long molecule which has the code for every protien the body is capable of making. All we have to do is cut out the little strip with the code for the old protiens and stick a strip with the new code in its place.

So, we'll use some handy genetic engineering tools to create the DNA code for the new protiens. Then, we'll find a certain kind of germ called a phage. Phages work by invading a host's cells, cutting out portions of their DNA, and inserting new codes that tell the cells to make more phages. This naturally kills the host cell, but not before it's produced a lot of phages. Those phages then move on to other nearby cells and repeat the process. Certain phages are better known to us as viruses. Nasty little buggers, but, as it happens, quite handy for what we need to do.

So, first off, we need to find a Kryptonian virus. Oh. There's one. Thanks, Mindy.

Okay, now we need to tinker with it a bit. Basically, we pull the same trick on it as it pulls on us. We just modify its DNA so that while it's busy cutting and pasting bits of Clark's DNA, it snips out the bit for the old protiens and sticks in the bit for the new ones.

Done with that. Hard part's all over with. Now comes the dangerous part. We call Clark over, and infect him with our phage. Preferably, we infect some of Clark's cells outside his body first, under controlled conditions, so that we know everything works like it's supposed to. Assuming it does, we can then infect Clark himself.

Our phage goes to work, happily mucking about with Clark's DNA. The new code gets spread from cell to cell, with the help of the spreading virus. Clark feels kind of weird for a while. Luckily, we've done our job right and the phage doesn't make him sick. After a few days, the work is done.

Ta-da! Kryptonite no longer affects Clark! Yay! Of course, if someone happened to find something that produced radiation at the frequency of Klienophyll, we'd be in trouble. The odds of that are pretty slim, though, especially if we're smart enough to get rid of all our notes once the work is complete. Or, at the least, put them in a very very safe place. Destroying notes is, after all, dangerous in its own right. If something happens to go wrong down the line, we may need to refer back them...

In any case, odds are that if Clark survives the infection, he'll be just fine for the rest of his life. His kids, too, if he ever has any. Cool, huh? And it only took the good doctor a several years of dedicated research to do it, too.

Paul

WOW, Paul!!!

Wow, people! I'm impressed. And grateful! Haven't had the time to completely digest everything here yet, but it all looks awfully promising.

Thank you. Anyone else got any similarly creative ideas?

Yvonne

Great explanation, Paul. I can never hope to be Dr. Klein when you are around .

This is exactly the gist of what I said, only presented in a different way. Paul looked at it from a molecular cellular biology perspective, and I looked at it from a hemodynamic/enzyme kinetics/protein biochemistry perspective. And Paul said it in a much better way than I did.

However, if Clark's body works like a plant, that really doesn't explain how his body works in the presence of a red sun. Unless he has the chloroplast-like organelle and also something that works in a red-sun environment. Maybe some kind of transducer? Has it been established that Kryptonite does or does not affect them on their own planets?

I had always assumed that it doesn't affect them when they are under the presence of the red sun, and tend to think that there has to be kind of an "off switch" that is activated by the red sunlight and stops the response to the kryptonite. Either that, or maybe the radiation in the Kryptonite is dependent on the yellow sun. Maybe it only radiates under the yellow sunlight and the radiation is not emitted under the red sunlight.

I am also kind of wondering what the phenotype of that gene would be -- how would he look if he had the choloroplast organelle in his cells. Would he look human at all? I suppose you can say anything because it is fiction -- even that only some of his cells exhibit that phenomena.

The one thing about your solution is that any genetic engineering has the possiblility of being very harmful. Messing with DNA of any kind (I've seen the affects on mutated rats -- you think you are only removing the gene for an ion channel and it ends up messing up so many bodily functions). You have to be EXTREMELY careful with any genetic engineering -- especially if used on something other than a research animal. I don't know if Clark would be willing to suscept himself to those consequences, or if Dr. Klein would be willing to try it, knowing Superman's entire life could be ruined. I really don't know if the consequences are worth it -- especially since it can't really be tested in any kind of control. Is the chance of Kryptonite poisoning really worth it?

Your ideas are great, Paul! I am so envious. Plus, you have such a great way of explaining them to make people understand -- unlike me who goes into crazy techie talk immediately .

One tiny thing that I probably shouldn't even bring up -- absolute zero is -273.15 degrees C.

- Laura

Laura, the origin of kryptonite is that it's supposidly pieces of the former planet Krypton which was changed due to the nuclear reaction that blew up the planet. Those pieces that came to earth were sucked along in the wake of the tiny rocket as it sped away.

Red Kryptonite came from a batch of green K that passed through some weird cloud of gas as it wander through the galaxy. After being changed by the gas it just happened to find its way to earth (Imagine that!).

The other types of kryptonite had similarly far-fetched origins (ex: Jewel Kryptonite was supposidly pieces of the Jewel Mountain from the planet Krypton). This, of course, is all pre-crisis explanations.

Therefore, since there was no kryptonite until the planet blew up, the chances of a kryptonian being put in a situation with both a red sun world and kryptonite, would be rare, and I don't think has even been brought up.

Tank (who doesn't remember for sure, but thinks that post-crisis explanations were similar)

Actually, it does. After all, chloroplasts absorb red and violet light strongly, and barely any green light. So perhaps a red sun is deficient in certain wavelengths of light than that of a yellow sun, so Clark's organelles would be able absorb energy from a yellow sun but not that of a red. But in all intents and purposes, Clark should look different from a human being. Unless the wavelengths of light that Clark absorbs do not fall within the visible light range.

Oh my goodness, a non-evasive method of detecting a Kryptonian from a human being just occured to me. Usually, in fan fictions (I don't read the comics) we read about about Clark being afraid to go through blood tests because something unusual may show up, or that Clark's exposed because he was physically exposed to Kryptonite. All we have to do, is to scan Clark with different wavelengths of light and compare them to those of a human being (those infra-red goggles come to mind) and he should stand out. Imagine Lois doing a stake out with Clark at night and uses night goggles to improve visibility and looks at Clark, then realises that Clark looks different from everybody else who's emitting infra-red radiation... assuming Clark's organelles in the skin are absorbing infra-red radiation........ hmmm... a potential revelation scene here.......

But if we use this to explain Clark's superpowers, we have a huge problem: and that is the whole concept of super-powered decendants. The organelles from a cell come from the mother. The father only donates genetic material that is in the nucleus. Case in point: the mitochondrial DNA that's found in the mitochondria in our cells comes only from our mothers. In theory, we can trace our lineage through our mothers to figure out when the "Mitochondrial Eve" walked this
planet. But I digress. The point I'm trying to make is this: if we use the organelles theory, Clark's children will never be superpowered, while Zara's children (if she mated with a male human) would be. So we could have this situation, if your mother is super-powered, you would be, but if your dad is superpowered, you won't be. However, since some of the proteins that a mitochondrion (and chloroplast) are coded in the nuclear DNA, a descendant could have say increased immunity, better eyesight, better hearing...etc, regardless whether you had a super-powered father or mother.

--metwin1--

Thanks, guys. Glad you liked my explanation. I was afraid I was just rambling on too much...

Well, my thought was that it wouldn't really make much sense to have a light-sensitive pathway that didn't work at all in the native enviornment. It takes a lot to make sugar out of light. If Kryptonians can't do it at all under a red sun, then it would be very unlikely that they could do it under a yellow one. So, I figure maybe under a red sun they do both. They eat, but they also process red sunlight. As it happens, though, yellow sunlight works even better for them than red...

Not sure if that makes sense, but it's the best I can come up with.

Tank already covered the question of red sun + Kryptonite, as I was hoping. I didn't think it had happened in the comics, but I figured Tank would know better than I would.

Under my theory, Kryptonite radiation would still hurt a non-powered kryptonian, just as it continues to hurt Clark even after he's lost his powers.

As for what Clark's skin would look like if he had something like a chloroplast... I don't know. It's a huge coincidence that he looks human. Many fans are willing to take the much bigger leap of saying that he is genetically compatible with a human. If you're willing to go along with all that, why not have a pinkish tan chloroplast? Sure, they're green in earth plants, but plants evolved under a yellow sun.

I do realize that genetic engineering is very dangerous. Given the theory of why Kryptonite does what it does, though, genetic engineering seems like it would be the only possible solution. Given the lack of test subjects, there's not really much you can do to lower that risk, either, other than experimenting on Clark's cell samples (draw some blood or take some skin samples with the aid of Kryptonite).


Would it actually work? Depends on the writer. Would Clark be willing to take the risk? I don't know. Could make an interesting story...

Thank you. I haven't worked with it in quite a while. I did look it up to double-check, but dyslexia must have gotten the better of me again (switching the 3 and the 1).

Of course, that's only a theoretical limit. I've heard that scientists actually did manage to get a small area down to that temperature, and that there was still some movement. I don't know the details, though, and it's only secondhand knowledge, at best.

Metwin1, you make some interesting points. Lois with IR goggles does sound like a fun story. You wouldn't even have to have read this thread. Clark absorbs sunlight. Of course he'll look different. Cool.

As for super-powered descendants, I had thought of that as I was writing my earlier post. There are ways around it if you assume that L&C will need some help to concieve. Strictly speaking, if my theory is right, then you're right. Clark's kids wouldn't have most of his powers. I don't think that's a limitation that should be imposed on writers, though. I think, if you're gonig to have kids, super-powered ones are more fun. So, maybe Kryptonian mitochondrial DNA is passed along from the fathers, too. Or maybe Doc Klein, while helping L&C, can do something to give them powers, too.

I think there was something else I wanted to add, but since I can't remember what it was, I'll just post this.

Glad I was making sense, at least. Yay, freshman bio! <g>

Paul

Absolute zero, aka 0 Kelvins, and equal to -273.15 C is not an approximation. It is a limit, like the speed of light is a limit. And even theoretically, matter can never be cooled to that point. There simply is no way to completely stop all the sub-microscopic movement.

But they have gotten pretty close -- a few millikelvins from 0K.

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. . . don't mind me, I'm starting to prep for my classes. Can you tell?