Stacey Burling, Inquirer Staff Writer Posted: Sunday, September 14, 2014, 3:51 AM

It's getting harder to find the line between science and science fiction.

One of the hot research techniques these days, "optogenetics," uses gene therapy to deliver light-sensitive proteins to specific cells. Then researchers use light to control the cells. The field got its start in the brain, where scientists have demonstrated the technique by making contented mice fly into a rage - a remarkable, if slightly creepy, achievement.

Brian Chow, a University of Pennsylvania bioengineer, has bigger ambitions than that.

He wants to develop optogenetic tools that help scientists unlock the secrets of all kinds of cells by triggering discrete cellular activities on demand, say the expression of a gene or the activation of a protein.

Scientists have never had that kind of control over specific cell functions before. Drugs affect large numbers of different kinds of cells. Electricity can be used in a small region, but not just one cell type. Brain imaging studies have let scientists see which parts of the brain were active during certain activities, but they couldn't tell what role they played.

Optogenetics - the combination of optics and genetics - lets researchers see exactly what specific cells do, and control when they do it.

"It just fundamentally allows us to answer questions we have not been able to answer in the past," Chow said.

"The promise of it is demonstrating causality as opposed to correlation."

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