Authors of "Dark Inheritance"

March 15, 2001

Read our chat with international bestselling authors of The First North Americans series about their latest novel "Dark Inheritance." In the spirit of Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park" comes a gripping contemporary thriller about genetic engineering gone horribly awry.

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TWBookmark: Welcome to Time Warner Bookmark! Warner Books is proud to introduce our special guests W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear, authors of The First North Americans series. Their latest novel, "Dark Inheritance," is a gripping contemporary thriller about genetic engineering gone horribly awry. Welcome to Time Warner Bookmark, Michael and Kathleen!

Kathleen: It's wonderful to be here!

Michael: Hi!

TWBookmark: The recent news of the world's first genetically modified primate, ANDi (named for "inserted DNA," spelled backwards), has rocked humanity with the implications of changing life as we know it. ANDi's birth and the subsequent studies that will be done on him could speed up the development of new treatments for a host of human diseases, from diabetes and breast cancer to Parkinson's and HIV, and may even lead to a way of arresting the aging process. With this scientific breakthrough, what are the most commonly asked ethical questions?

Michael: Should we or shouldn't we be doing this research. My answer to that as an anthropologist is yes, we should be.

Kathleen: My answer is a little bit different. I think that there is no question that if we want to see diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's and diabetes cured. But when we're talking about animal experimentation--we have been inserting human genes into animals for about 30 years--and when we're dealing with animals like primates like ANDi…a chimpanzee starts out by being 98.6 percent in the DNA as we are. And the question we must ask is "How many human genes can we insert in a primate like a chimpanzee before it's human and deserves the rights and privileges we have?"

Michael: Read "Dark Inheritance" for the answer.

TWBookmark: You delve into the ethical issues in "Dark Inheritance." What parallels do you see between your main character, Umber, and ANDi?

Kathleen: They are both genetically altered primates. One has a jellyfish gene for blue luminescence and the other has a human gene.

Michael: ANDi is the beginning of the process and Umber is the logical conclusion.

Daniella: You wrote "Dark Inheritance" long before news of ANDi broke. Where did you learn of this kind of genetic research? And what did you learn about it that inspired you to write "Dark Inheritance"?

Michael: I was trained as a physical anthropologist. Which is the study of human origin, variation, diseases, and evolution, which also includes the study of primatology. And given advances in research being done on genetics and genetic engineering by so many biotech firms, we pretty well know that Umber either exists, or will, in a very short time. Both of us as anthropologists wanted to deal with the issue in a very human way, which will be done in the novel--dealing with the ramifications in a very human way.

Kathleen: One of the major inspirations for "Dark Inheritance" was the Human Genome Project, because with the charting of the human genome we now have a roadmap for what it means to be human. But we don't know where all the roads go. Even in five years research will be running fast and furious trying to figure out where the roads go and that means inserting more and more human DNA into animals. And the fundamental question we must all answer with this kind of research is "What is human?" We used to think we knew; I'm not so sure we do.

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