A French Teenager Turned the Bible and Quran into DNA and Injected Them into His Body

A kid in France transcribed parts of the Hebrew book of Genesis and the Arabic-language Quran, into DNA and injected them into his body — one text into each thigh. Adrien Locatelli, a 16-year-old high school student, posted a paper Dec. 3 on the preprint server OS, in which he claimed, "It is the first time that someone injects himself macromolecules developed from a text." Locatelli, a student at the boarding school Lycée les Eaux Claires in Grenoble, France, told Live Science that he didn’t need any special equipment for his project. "I just needed to buy saline solution and a syringe because VectorBuilder sent me liquid and ProteoGenix sent me powder," he told Live Science. VectorBuilder is a company that creates viruses that can sneak DNA strands into cells for gene-editing purposes. ProteoGenix synthesizes, among other things, custom strands of DNA. Both companies primarily serve scientists, but their products are available to anyone who purchases them. "I did this experiment for the symbol of peace between religions and science," he said, adding, "I think that for a religious person it can be good to inject himself his religious text." Locatelli said he didn’t experience any significant health problems following the procedure, though he reported some "minor inflammation" around the injection site on his left thigh for a few days.

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