Splice Movie Synopsis
Elsa and Clive, two young rebellious scientists, defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. Named "Dren", the creature rapidly develops from a deformed female infant into a beautiful but dangerous winged human-chimera, who forges a bond with both of her creators - only to have that bond turn deadly.
Parahuman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A parahuman or para-human is a term used to describe a human-animal hybrid. Scientists have done extensive research into the combination of genes from different species, e.g. adding human (and other animal) genes to bacteria and farm animals to mass-produce insulin and spider silk proteins. Note that individual genes can be transplanted between species without the transplantation of whole cells.
Xenotransplantation - Profits vs. Risk
From insulin to organ transplants research into crossing human genes to animals (xenotransplantation) have been the forefront of biotech corporations-lives can be saved and profits made from a cure for diabetes while the waiting list and demand for donor organs rises. Weighing out the risks involved from viral contagion, these corporations are risking a pandemic from these short lived experiments. Patients with organ transplants from pig liver or baboon heart lasts, at most, a month. H1N1, a flu virus transmuted from pigs (first thought to come from Mexico, now believed to have originated from asian swine) started a global pandemic. Diseases are just the beginning, as science find ways to advance anti-rejection drugs for transplants research will evolve into parahumans - animals with human genes to create "spare organs" for the organ donor market.
So far, the WHO has instituted guidelines for future xenotransplantation research to reduce risks of future diseases.Other government agencies have followed suit. Right.
Will the 21st century be the harbinger of a nightmare future of epidemics, organ factories and parahumans? We can only await the fruits of these xeno-research for better or worse. Splice gives a contemporary glimpse, a fictional but thought provoking future (H.G. Wells' "Dr. Moreau", Shelley's "Frankenstein" , "Species" comes to mind... ) of things to come...
related links:
Xenotransplantation:How Bad Science and Big Business Put the World at Risk from Viral Pandemics
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