Tuesday January 10th, 2175 - 1:04pm PST

By Jaqueline Craig

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (Associated Correspondence/FinanceWire) - AKD Pharma CEO Alexy Dimitry announced at a press conference today the first successful transplantation of a human personality to a cloned target body. This was the culmination of almost a quarter century of effort and an estimated half trillion new dollars of research and development funds.

Following the press conference, a company spokesperson remained to answer questions about the technology which they have dubbed "Personality Transition" or PT for short. Mrs. Du Pre explained that they basically freeze the personality to be transitioned in place at a quantum level. Using technology licensed from the government's teleportation project, they unobserve the personality at the quantum level and reobserve it onto a clone specially prepared for the procedure. She noted that there is a period of time when the transplanted personalities goes through a readjustment phase where they experience a bit of dizziness and disorientation. This appears to be a side effect of getting used to a different body, no matter how familiar the target clone's DNA is.

The test subject, a 94 year old man suffering from rare, incurable form of acute arteriosclerosis had his personality implanted onto a clone constructed from his own DNA and artificially aged to be 28 years old. When asked about how the experience felt the test subject, one Martin Canner, noted "Well, it was a bit weird at first, I stumbled a lot, but I can tell you that being in a younger body is exhilarating. I haven't felt this good in, well, I guess 60 years!"

Mr. Canner described the experience of jumping from one body to the other as jarring and exciting. "One moment I'm looking at the clone, and the next I was looking at the old dead husk of my former body. There was even a split second where I saw both. It was supremely weird."

When asked about the potential for personalities to be duplicated, Mrs. Du Pre noted that it simply was not possible using the process they developed. At most, she noted, there would be the creation of two half personalities which the company asserts to be a poor idea following animal testing of just that effect. Two half Guinea pigs it seems, are not the equal of one whole.

Dr. Dimitry noted in the talk that they had factories building the cloning and PT machines but that the process would be made available to the very old and very ill first, with the remainder of the population being allowed to use the process afterwards. Describing the system as a two part process, he foresees a day when every human would wear an implant capable of transmitting a personality to a PT station in the event of a sudden trauma or imminent demise from disease or old age. "One day we will all be wearing an implant like this on," as he indicated a glowing display on his left forearm, "Which will mean no more death, no more loss and no more heartache"

Dr. Dimitry also noted that the pricing would be kept within the realm of the possible, "Hopefully under a thousand dollars a transition, but take my word that no one will be denied the procedure. It is our goal to bring the cost of the procedure down to fewer than fifty new dollars within a few years."

When asked if this would exacerbate the population pressure related problems that the planet currently experiences. He responded "Humanity has withstood worse hits. I think that the population problem is one worth dealing with. If people can live forever, it's my hope they'll value life more and not less."

John Constantine, spokesperson for the League of Morals, disagreed, "I think that nothing good can come of this. Mark my words: This invention will mean war, famine, and destruction worldwide. We cannot allow this technology to prevail, as it would mean the end of humanity as we know it. Dr. Dimitry and his colleagues at AKD Pharma are toying with immortality, which is the province of god, not man. "

When asked his feelings about Mr. Constantine's statements, Dr. Dimitry noted that changing humanity was in fact the entire point.