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EditorsJun 22, 2015
When jewelry meets genetics
I think I am slowly but surely making one of my blog specialties interesting jewelry that borders on strange or even weird, and I have to say, I’m pretty OK with it.
I enjoy going beyond the beautiful pieces that we’re treated to every day to explore where jewelry is meeting science and innovation (see: this and this.)
The Internet recently gifted me a new topic when I stumbled onto a piece by British designer Alexander Davis, who creates DNA pendants that are unique to each wearer and inspired by his degree in biochemistry.
When a DNA pendant is commissioned by a client, they take a blood sample from the wearer (so, not for the faint of heart) and send it to a lab for DNA sequencing, Davis told me over email. They then find an area of their DNA that is likely to contain some unique code on which they can model the pendant.
The combination of gemstones on the necklace corresponds to a unique part of that sequence, representing their four-letter DNA code.
This particular one pictured here is made in platinum and set with diamonds and sapphires, but each pendant can be customized with the gems of the wearer’s choice, which of course affects the price.
Davis told me that his DNA pendants are priced from £15,000 (roughly $23,800) depending on stone selection and the blood sequence, which may seem a little steep, but then again these pendants would offer the wearer the epitome of one of the top trends today--a truly unique, one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry.
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