Name:
Mitch Dushay
E-Mail:
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Concept:
As one who has dedicated his life to Science, I have firm belief in
technology. Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997, and human stem cells were
isolated from embryos in 1998. Human cloning is not ethical or even
possible today, but this may change. It may be possible to devolve human
cells from a mature differentiated state back to stem cells in the future.
For that reason, I propose to place samples of my cells in a -80°C
freezer. Not merely sperm bank-type specimens, these may be the germs of
full-blown Mitch clones. The combinations to the locks would be held by
trusted colleagues at the NIH until the technology is available and the
time is right. My preserved brain will sit on top of this freezer in a
crystal jar.
In addition to the freezer and jar, my crypt will contain a
comfortable seat and a mail slot. Visitors will be encouraged to sit down
and drop a note. An inscription will describe how I kept up with people
with postcards. I hope family and friends all over the world will continue
to send postcards posthumously and thereby refresh my memory. Future clones
thus will have mail waiting for them at incept; welcoming them into the
world, giving them a sense of who they are, where they came from, and
adding meaning to their lives.
Bio:
Mitch Dushay was born in Syracuse, New York in 1959. He graduated from
Brown University in 1982, studied at SUNY Buffalo, and received his Ph.D.
in insect behavioral molecular genetics from Brandeis University in 1992.
Postdoctoral work in insect immunity took him from UC Riverside, to
Stockholm University in Sweden, to Notre Dame, to the University of
Maryland and so forth. His papers have been published in scientific
journals such as Genetics and PNAS.