Becoming Immortal: Combining Cloning and Stem-Cell Therapy

Preface

Preface Expecting to relax during a routine flight home, I casually glanced through the contents of the airline’s magazine and practically suffered a heart attack. The first feature article was entitled, “How to Live Forever”!1 Believing for a moment that Becoming Immortal had been scooped, I tore through the magazine only to find that the article concerned achieving enduring fame not eternal life. Relieved but not soothed, I imagined that others, glancing at the title of my book, might think that I was writing out of narcissism or wishful thinking. I was not. Becoming Immortal was conceived as the last of three books intended to critique current concepts of change in the biological sciences. The first two books, Death of Life2 and Evolution of Sameness and Difference,3 examined the legacy of molecular biology and provided a perspective on the human genome project. Becoming Immortal was supposed to anticipate further directions in research on biological change, but my plan was overtaken by events. The book ultimately took its direction from a lamb named “Dolly” and prospects of cloning and stem cell research.4 My object in writing Becoming Immortal was to give the possibility of immortalizing human beings a realistic face so that it would be looked at seriously. These objectives were broad enough for me, and as I pursued them, I discovered that my narrow interests were shared by numerous friends who made themselves available to help and guide me. I discovered the work of authors who are, to put it simply, soul mates in this work. They have undoubtedly shaped my thinking around such issues as the universality of evolution and development, as well as the possibilities for change outside of or beyond accepted notions of biology. Which brings me to acknowledgments. I begin with Marcia Landy, Distinguished Service Professor of English/Film Studies whose own work on the Gramscian organic intellectual and on popular culture brought me to questions of mortality, and who, as the first reader and critic of record for all my work over the last thirty years, keeps me focused on immortality. Laurens Schwartz, my friend and mentor, gave Becoming Immortal a critical reading x PREFACE that sent it back to the drawing board—and me to the library—on numerous occasions. Yoram Schiffmann, of Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics got me through many a “sticky wicket.” Lynn Margulis inspired much of what I have accomplished by her own efforts and by introducing me to new friends and helpmates, including Professor Donald Williamson, whose notions of larval transfer inspired my ideas on nomadic development and illicit fusion, and Richard Doyle, who helped me appreciate the seriousness of my work through his own sense of humor. Becoming Immortal would never have been written without the help of Drynda Lee Johnston, head librarian at Langley Library, University of Pittsburgh , Ann-Marie Tärnström, head librarian at the Biology Library, Stockholm University, and the staff at Cambridge University’s Scientific Periodicals Library (SPL) and Genetics Library. I must also thank Professor James Pipas, chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, Professor John Cooper, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, who provided me with sabbatical leave in the fall of 2000, and the President and Fellows of Hughes Hall at the University of Cambridge who made available their ample facilities for me to finish this book. ...