A Canadian dentist who bought the extracted wisdom tooth of former Beatle John Lennon is hoping to extract enough DNA from the molar to clone the singer.
Dentist Michael Zuk spoke to host Mark Evans for the Channel 4 programme Dead Famous DNA, saying ‘If there is enough DNA to sequence it, it could be basically genetic real estate. My goal is to own John Lennon’s DNA.’ Zuk revealed that he would like to clone the legendary artist and raise him as his son, explaining that ‘he could be looked at as my son but I don’t think I would be the one, you know, owning his property, he would have the rights when he was old enough to make a claim.’
When asked if he would like the clone to become a musician, Zuk answered that he would try to ‘keep him away from drugs and cigarettes’ and joked that providing guitar lessons ‘wouldn’t hurt anyone.’
Dr Zuk did not seem too concerned with the moral or ethical objections to cloning a dead rock star and instead concentrated on the laws surrounding cloning, saying ‘I think I can… depends where you do these things. If it can’t be done in one country you can do these things in another. To have John Lennon’s DNA sequence outside of the family protection, to me… it is worth millions.’