12022-03-18T21:53:55+00:00KSL Exhibitsad59ae249b808d7092ad4d02c088e1a23747e1281261Haidu Li, The Thread of Lifeplain2022-03-18T21:53:55+00:00KSL Exhibitsad59ae249b808d7092ad4d02c088e1a23747e128
This page has paths:
12022-03-17T21:46:39+00:00KSL Exhibitsad59ae249b808d7092ad4d02c088e1a23747e1282022 Case Western Reserve University SubmissionsDaniela Solomon33structured_gallery2024-03-19T17:57:45+00:00Daniela Solomone316041929e7cb3504341dbd1e9eb2f7bd821a14
The Thread of Life In Greek mythology, three goddesses of fate, the Moirai, determine the lives of all livings using threads. The eldest of them spins the thread of life from a spindle, representing life’s creation. The second goddess measures the length of the thread to decide the length of one’s life, and the youngest of them cuts the thread when one’s life has come to an end. At the time when the ancient Greeks were creating such intriguing stories, no one would have thought that the secrets of life are indeed concealed in a double-stranded “thread”-- DNA. With modern-day knowledge and technology, we are able to unravel some of those secrets and even modify the genes. In my illustration of the Moirai, the goddesses are working not with threads from a spindle, but genes from a chromosome. They are portrayed as young women, as the field of gene editing is still young, full of challenges yet to be tackled. The scissor of the youngest goddess is no longer a symbol of death, but a symbol of change and modification, just like the scissor representing CRISPR-Cas9. The fate that was once known only to the gods is now in the hands of humans.
