Bertram Navarre

A mysterious scientist working on unethical experiments for the Syndicate -- no, not Professor Hasegawa, another one. He is only mentioned in the console text below. One wonders if the Syndicate had a number of scientists working for them at any one time, in separate locations. Presumably the experiments were meant to yield either products that could be sold legally or illegally, or else to develop something that would be useful as a weapon, such as a super-soldier.

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TCTF Case File 201A-G Picasso Island CLOSED: Synopsis Renegade scientist Bertram Navarre discovered a way to 'retask' cells, making it possible to reshape bodies without having to worry about organ integrity One experiment consisted of successfully splitting the spinal column of a research subject by 'telling' the cells between the two severed halves to serve as nerve linkages. Unfortunately, he was obsessed with seeing how far this discovery could be pushed and was prepared to perform ghastly experiments on human captives he had bought from the Syndicate.

Procedure: Civilian refugees from a pleasure boat outing narrowly escaped mercenary pirates from Navarre's island laboratory and reached TCTF authorities. A full-scale raid of his island facilities was mounted and the lab installations were destroyed, but Navarre's body was never recovered.

Added value

• Retasking a cell is also known as transdifferentiation whereby the cell type becomes directly changed.
  • In nature, cells usually do one step backwards (dedifferentiation) before they transform into a new cell type (redifferentiation).

• At first scientists tried to repair nerve damages by taking embryonic stem cells (ESC) and let them replicate and then specialize to nerve cells.
  • In 1999 a mouse spine was repaired with ESC to some degree. -- At that time Oni's story was rewritten. It might be possible that Hardy read about the experiment and pushed the idea a few steps further.

• Due to ethical concerns scientists looked for an alternative way to gain human pluripotent cells. Some people have the standpoint that separating human embryonic stem cells is equal to a kill: to them it matters the cells' potential to become a complete human. Other people don't have concerns about this because the embryonic stem cells would be separated before neurons and a possible personality form. -- With the new methods specialized cells can become reprogrammed so that they transform back into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC).
  • In 2012 a mouse spine was repaired with iPSC. -- So in the year 2032 it should be totally possible to regenerate spinal damages in humans. With that in mind, Bertram Navarre depicts a believable speculation about future's technology.

Related

• Deadly Brain
• Daodan Chrysalis