Beethoven Clone

The child Beethoven.

In 1994 four members of the American Beethoven Society bid and won the Sotheby's auction for a locket containing hundreds of strands of Beethoven's hair. The lock of hair was then given to Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose University, which arranged for scientific tests on the hair, including DNA analysis.

NPR's Lisa Simeone spoke with physician and researcher Paul Blumenthal of Johns Hopkins University to learn more about this unprecedented collaboration between the worlds of science and music.

"It's my understanding that they found a lock of hair, and that from this lock of hair, it's child's play to extract some DNA and then insert that DNA into another cell –- a live cell," says Blumenthal. "Then the cell with Beethoven's DNA starts to replicate, and then -- voila! -- a new Beethoven."

The cloned stem cells would then be implanted into a surrogate mother. Blumenthal believes there's no shortage of "ambitious young women who would like to give birth to the next Beethoven."

Blumenthal says we can expect news of the new child Beethoven any day now, with reports of his musical progress within about a year, sometime around next April 1.