A British artist’s plan to create a mouse with Elvis Presley’s DNA as part of a larger project to exploit ‘celebrity genes’ has set off an international ethical debate.
One of Koby Barhad’s latest projects, called “All That I Am,” involves a plan to breed a mouse that would reflect Elvis’s genetic signature, from DNA collected from a strand of Elvis’s hair, purchased from Ebay.
Barhad, an MFA student at London’s Royal Art College, plans to identify the genetic signatures of particular traits present in Elvis’s DNA, through DNA tests. Then Barhad wants to add that DNA to mouse genes. After the mice are bred, they would be placed in postmodernistic cages, each reflecting a phase of Elvis’s life.
The project has not gotten to the breeding stage yet, and might not ever, due to ethical and legal concerns regarding blending animal and human DNA.
View the original article here:The tale of the Elvis-mouse hybrid