Photosensitizers are chemicals that absorb photons and use that energy to promote electrons to higher energy states, and typically those activated electrons produce free radicals that react with other substances in the cell. That’s not particularly scary: your eyes contain proteins, opsins, and a chemical, retinal, that also absorb photons and use the energy to cause a conformational change in retinal. But photosensitizers are also used in cancer therapy. Load up a tumor with photosensitizers, then shine a laser on it, and all the free radicals do a bang-up job of destroying the cells, exactly as you want.
That’s probably not what you want to have happen in your retina. Photosensitizers can be used there, too, and they can act as extra light absorbent pigments that might eventually, you hope, transfer their energy to signal transduction pathways. You couldn’t pay me enough to let anyone try that kind of experiment on my eyes, though.
But someone has been crazy enough to try. Gabriel Licina has been doing the kind of citizen science I’d normally approve, except in this case, he’s putting risky drugs in his eyes for a small and temporary enhancement. That’s crazy!
He’s using a solution of a photosensitizer called Chlorin e6, which is normally used in cancer therapies as described above. A lot of the media reporting on it is getting all squicky about him “injecting” it into his eyeball, which is not true: he’s just applying it as eye drops. The media seem less freaked out by something else that bothers me a lot: for the photosensitizer to be effective, it has to get to photoreceptors in the retina, which just applying to the surface of the eye won’t do — so he adds DMSO.
DMSO is a useful but dangerous chemical: it passes right through cell membranes, carrying along whatever is in solution with it. Everything in that vial of solution is getting transported into his eyes and his bloodstream. I’ve used it in some fixatives, and I’ll tell you, a solution of DMSO plus nasty chemical is something you treat with respect and fear. I wouldn’t touch it with my hands, let alone put it in my eyes.
Apparently, Licina’s experiment worked, the Chlorin e6 was absorbed into his retina, and he experienced enhanced night vision for a few hours. The military is probably quite happy to hear that, especially since they didn’t have to pay for it, and didn’t have to pressure any ‘volunteers’ to submit to it.
Lawyers might be unhappy. Who is Licina going to sue if there are long term detrimental effects?
This was a high risk, low payoff experiment. Don’t do these sorts of things! He has put his vision at risk, and all for a few hours of slightly better vision in the dark and a relatively worthless ‘publication’ on a website that might inspire a few more stupid young people to do chemistry experiments on their eyeballs.
I should also point out that this experiment is one that could not be done in a real university — it fails ethically, has potential side effects that would need to be studied in animal models first, and would never pass a review board. But apparently, to some people, the fact that ethical scientists would never do that is a point in its favor.
I recall in undergraduate organic chem lab a classmate was working on a prep using DMSO and cyanide. She splashed some on her hand and then went to the lab instructor to ask if she needed to do anything about it.
When did this happen? lab instructor asked. A few minutes ago. You’re not dead yet? You’ll be fine.
D
M
S
O
Crypto-wonder drug in vogue.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K2M_fQnVqew#
[cynic here:] Oh Yes, the Military-Pharma-Complex very much wants enhanced night vision from just a few eye-drops rather than those expensive nightvision techy things that always needs batteries and tricky fiddling.
[rationalist here:] Interesting demo that he did there: “proof of concept”. stop there. Now, Gabriel Licina (and/or DARPA), figure out how to do the exp more ethically and safely, good luck.
I was given the ever-so-fun task of updating the MSDS binders at my last job. As such, I went into every. single. cabinet. and cataloged everything. Under the main sink in treatment, in a back corner, there was a yellowed plastic bottle labeled DMSO, maybe 500mls worth. I picked it up, and turned it to look for an expiration date (it hadn’t been used in at least 25 years) and that’s when I discovered that DMSO damages plastics. The bottle literally shattered in my hand and the liquid cascaded down my arm, across my shirt, and onto my legs. Yummm garlic taste (blech). I got to a computer, looked up the MSDS on it, read that skin contact can cause redness and a burning sensation (check and check) and ran myself to the shower.
Not. Fun. Stuff.
You might or might not know a small story from Newton’s life — he also experimented on his own eyeballs. If I understand correctly, during his study of optics, he took a small, smooth stick, inserted it between his eyeball and socket, put pressure in various places, and recorded the images that resulted.
When sensitive people touch it with their hands, someone competent told me, they taste it on their tongue.
As you say, it goes straight through cell membranes, into the bloodstream and out of it.
DMSO has shown some ability to treat arthritis, but I heard a horror story of someone treating themselves with it. They mixed up a bathtub full of the stuff and too a soak. They neglected to very thoroughly clean the tub first, and ended up with a bunch of soap scum in their blood stream. I hear they lived, but were very, very sick for a while.
Then there’s the ever-fun party trick of putting LSD and DMSO in a squirtgun and dosing people unawares. Despite voluntarily taking LSD on occasion, that’s the sort of thing that would inspire me to murder the instigator, and claim temporary insanity afterwards.
I really should have wiki’d DMSO. I first heard about it from SpoonyOne’s “Water gun wars” in a Shadowrun campaign. The PCs used it to pump their enemies full of disabling drugs via water guns, leading to a bizarre arms race. Didn’t realize it was a real thing.
Among chemistry graduate students, DMSO + cyanide is called “liquid death”. DMSO is one of the best solvents for carrying out reactions with sodium cyanide though, which is why it’s used.
DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) on its own is not that horrible, save for the occasional mild skin irritation. The much bigger risk is if something nasty is dissolved in the DMSO. Fun fact, in your body DMSO is metabolized to dimethyl sulfide which you then exhale. DMSO is a great way to get drugs (medicinal or otherwise) into your body without needing to swallow pills or get injections, but the next day you have rotten cabbage breath.
Oh and @1 kc9oq
Someone should probably have been fired for that. Using cyanide without full personal protective gear? Long-sleeved lab coat, proper gloves, face protection at least. There’s no excuse for having open skin while using cyanide, especially in DMSO.
That reminds me of the rumors I used to hear about certain professors. One has reputedly dripped some curare venom on his eye muscles to restrict his nystagmus. The other injected melanin RNAi into his skin to get rid of his dark spots.
Rowan @4
Heh. Soon after I started my last science term of employment (I’m an IT geek now) I and a couple grad students were given the task of cleaning out a retired, long-time professor’s lab. (this was about 1992 or so, and said prof had been my department head when I matriculated in the 70’s)
Among the finds such as canned sterile syringes from the 60’s (like a canned ham with a key spotwelded to the bottom of the can) in the dark recesses of a metal chemical cabinet there was a 1KG bottle of picric acid, which had been sitting there for decades, had a cracked lid, and was crusted with teensy white crystals all over it.
We beat feet, and as I recall, the fire department’s hazmat folks eventually called in the bomb squad to dispose of it. I do know they brought in the truck with the funky trailer used to contain bombs, to haul it off.
in the dark recesses of a metal chemical cabinet there was a 1KG bottle of picric acid, which had been sitting there for decades, had a cracked lid, and was crusted with teensy white crystals all over it
That’s when you don’t even exhale … just do ninja feet backwards until you are out of the area, set up barricades and call the bomb squad.
Back in the70s, we used picric acid in some common hospital lab testing. It had a nasty habit of building up and then blowing up in the waste drains. Exploding toilets!
Picric acid is not _that_ dangerous. It’s fairly stable and was even used in weapons during the WWI. Though you definitely do not want to hang around it for too long.
I suppose that depends on how you calibrate your dangerousness meter. puts it towards the “may detonate spontaneously” end of the spectrum.
Fun additional reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
Picric acic CAN be stable, but not if you have it combining chemically with metals and sublimating and recondensing as crystal. Just flicking the crystals can detonate it. If you are going to keep it for any length of time it needs to be sealed in liquid and glass: no metal.
Considering it was the largest contributing explosive to the largest human-made explosion before the atomic bomb, the Halifax Explosion, I would suggest that it is rather dangerous.
It’s true that it doesn’t suffer from shock explosion as easily as other common explosives from the time, but when dry, sublimating or combined with chemicals, it’s quite dangerous. It’s also rather more powerful than TNT, which ultimately replaced it because it really wasn’t that safe after all.
Heh. When I worked for a government agency that had plant geneticists on staff, a lab cleanup turned up picric acid there too. I believe the bomb squad was involved in that one too.
And what sorta evidence do we have for this enhanced night vision? It’s not like people haven’t deluded themselves before.
brucej – either my husband went to that same school, or this is an incident that has happened more than once.
I used to run a neuropharmacology lab that used DMSO extensively in its protocols, along with a lovely array of other chemicals like LSD, PCP, picrotoxin, and various barbiturates. Paranoia about skin contact was considered a useful survival trait.