Lego Genetics - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Genetic Engineering

And here's where you add wings!

"Remember, genes are not blueprints. This means you can't, for example, insert "the genes for an elephant's trunk" into a giraffe and get a giraffe with a trunk. There are no genes for trunks. What you can do with genes is chemistry, since DNA codes for chemicals."

—Academician Prokhor Zakharov, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

In the real world, the genetic code instructs a body how to grow. This process takes the creature in question from conception to adulthood, and makes sure that any replacement cells are in their proper place. An accidental alteration to the code at any point will usually screw things up chaotically as the new cells develop incorrectly (this is one possible cause of cancer). A deliberate and precise alteration can theoretically cause a non-harmful or even beneficial change, but it will only appear as fast as old cells die off and are replaced with the new and altered ones. It should take months if not years to see results either way.

Almost all GM research is, yes, currently devoted to picking up genes from one species and moving it to another. (As in fish-tomatos and other such 'horrors.') Our genetic code is universal, a code for mRNA x (and, alternative splicing aside, thus protein x) will read off as mRNA x in any cell it has been transformed to and is being expressed in. However...

A useful analogy is to think of DNA as a recipe for a cake as opposed to a blueprint for a house. There is not necessarily a one-to-one correspondence between fragments of DNA and organs of an animal. This leads to three main conclusions:

a) Timing is crucial: Adding bits of DNA to a fully grown organism will have unpredictable results. It's like adding flour to a cake after it has been baked. It's not quite the same as adding it before putting the cake in the oven.

b) The meaning of a gene depends on how it interacts with other genes: Sticking to the analogy here, if you take the "preheat oven" gene from the cake DNA and insert it into the salad DNA it will be useless because the salad DNA doesn't even have genes like "put the salad in the oven". The salad will be unaffected. If you then decide to add "put the salad in the oven" you will simply burn the salad. You can't just give the salad cake properties by taking instructions from the cake recipe and inserting them into the salad recipe (rare exceptions exist).

c) The actual expression of genes will be influenced by other factors in the environment. Just as the results of a cake recipe may vary due to things like humidity, temperature, and altitude, there's evidence that the results of a DNA "recipe" will vary due to outside influences. Cloned animals often display striking superficial differences from their genetic progenitors because an environment which favors the expression of different genes can coax different results from the same DNA. Apparently, identical twins only are identical because they shared roughly the same DNA and the same prenatal environment. Maybe Lamarck Was Right after all.

...Which is boring to the average viewer.

With Lego Genetics, you can fiddle with DNA wherever you like, intentionally or accidentally, and all the cells will change overnight (if that). Just wake up and presto! Wings! Fur! Gills! Hulking muscles! You don't even have to eat the equivalent of your entire body mass to create all those new body parts; the old cells just rearrange themselves like Lego. That part is usually lampshaded though.

It should be noted that gene therapy- the alteration of existing genes in an adult organism to treat disease, does really exist, although it is far more problematic than presented in fiction, and also has a tendency to wear off after a little while. Additionally, it normally requires very complicated surgery to carry out; you can't simply inject some foreign DNA into your blood and wait for the mutations to take place.

Genetics are not understood enough to make definitive statements. Experiments have shown that a particular segment of genes in fruit flies is identical to some that humans have; removing these genes from fruit flies causes them to develop without eyes. Altering them and putting in other genes from the same fly can cause the fly to grow legs or wings where its eyes should be. Of course, fruit flies are a favorite of geneticists because their genes are so easy to understand and modify; doing something like that to more complex organisms might not be so easy.

Often results in Animorphism, or discussion about how the character is "evolving" or "devolving", because Genetic Engineering Is The New Nuke. See also Magic Genetics. Bio Augmentation is a likely application.

Examples

Anime and Manga

The logic of Cell's creation in Dragonball Z: He's created from Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo and Freeza's DNA? He's born knowing all their techniques and possesses all their strengths.
- The Genetic Memory aspect is not even consistent, as he is shown to be capable of instantly copying any move that he sees those characters use. Cell is a mess of genetic engineering tropes.
An episode of Cowboy Bebop had a villain attempt to deploy an airborne virus that rewrote DNA and turned those exposed into apes. The transition time seemed to be a couple days, tops.
- By far the most egregious of that particular malarkey was how it apparently devolved a subject's mind to that of an ape—brain cells do not divide after attaining adulthood, except in very extraordinary circumstances. Technical note: DNA is only replicated during cell division, and replication is the only known point where it may mutate or get damaged.
  - It should be noted that (contrary to popular belief) you do grow brain cells after maturity.
  - I always thought the transformation process itself drove them insane.
  - To this troper, it seemed more like they were crying out in horror from the transformation, rather than having their minds turned into those of apes as well, but they were lacking the means of communicating it. It came across as more of a A Fate Worse Than Death than simple Animorphism.
Tokyo Mew Mew gained their animal parts overnight. And at that, they can remove them by thinking about it.
Sort of justified in Naruto with Yamato's backstory: Orochimaru to replicate the First Hokage's unique Green Thumb power, so he spliced together some of the First's DNA with that of 60 infants (so it was only from human to human and it may have taken years for the ability to manifest). Yamato was one of them, and as a result gained said power—the other 59 died.
Danzo gaining this power in a similar manner may be playing this straight, though it seems less like gene manipulation and more like having some of his cells grow to become part of his arm without his body rejecting it (he seems to only be able to do it with that one arm).

Comic Books

A good number of modern superheroes get their power this way, including the most recent incarnations of Spider Man. The '90s animated series tried desperately to justify and handwave this issue away by explaining that everything was caused by "Neogenics", a new genetic science that essentially used ray guns and laser beams to create Lego Genetics. In other words, you'd put an animal in one part of a ray gun and shoot the gun at a man to get an animal man. Really.
Has happened both ways when Marvel Comics mutants have lost their powers. Sometimes they transform to human; sometimes they keep physical changes such as a tail or wings. But then, most lost their powers when a powerful reality-warping Scarlet Witch said "No more mutants..." and the results varied even then: some become completely human, some retain their altered appearance but have no powers, and a few who had physical mutations that disagree with the laws of physics lost whatever made it work before. (A long-necked woman's neck snapped and killed her, Chamber's "energy furnace" disappeared, leaving him without multiple internal organs, a Giant Flyer fell from the sky.)
All over the place in Ultimate Marvel. Most ridiculously, the Wasp once injected herself with a genetic Super Serum and within seconds gained the ability to grow 60 feet tall.
- Ultimate Marvel at least tries to explain its scientific flim-flam. The Wasp and her husband put years of effort into the serum. Of course, it started out with sixty feet being the limit because the human skeleton would snap apart after that. This was quickly abandoned for the Rule Of Cool.
- Instant growth is ridiculous no matter how long she's had to let the treatments work on her system. But based on the internal logic of the story and the fact that Ultimate Janet Pym is secretly a mutant and Hank reverse engineered his Giant Man formula from her powers in the first place it makes sense that her body would adapt to the treatment more quickly.
Transmetropolitan used this with the tempers and later the transients to graft animal traits onto themselves. Additionally other traits, such as the ability to make phone calls or complete immunity to cancer may be nanotech. Though the average level of technology depicted in Transmet makes this somewhat justified.
- At least some of it does, as it is well-established in speculations on future medicine that programmable nanobots would be able to selectively attack and destroy cancer cells, basically giving you the benefits of a radiation treatment without the radiation.

Film

The remake of The Fly averted this with the malfunctioning transporter, while the original stepped right in it; Brundle's DNA has been changed, and he gradually becomes a sickly, deformed human-fly hybrid creature as his cells grow, instead of popping out half-fly instantly as he did in the original. In fact, the first thing that shows the beginning of his mutation is the appearance of a strange looking fleshy hair growth in a wound on his back which he got before the failed teleportation.
- Although the idea that a random mash-up of human and fly genes would be viable at all is probably still pretty unrealistic.
  - Did you not see him at the end of the movie? A decaying mass of twisted, broken flesh is not exactly what I'd call "viable."
Die Another Day combines this with Magic Plastic Surgery.
- As did Alias. At least four times.
Done in The Relic. A retrovirus found in prehistoric plants horribly alters the victim's DNA by inserting genes from past victims. The reason why there's a dinosaur ape-thing running about in the Museum of Natural History is because these plants could only ease the constant pain and insanity of the affected. A later character is able to use rabbit DNA to make a safe street drug, basically a mild version of crack with no downs or life-threatening brain holes.
Under Dog takes this trope to its logical extreme. Shoeshine is injected with a "serum", with contains genes for the wings of an eagle and the strength of an elephant, thus giving Shoeshine his abilities with no visual changes! And later in the film, he is forced to give up his powers. They turn into blue pills. He gets them back when he eats one.
In Gremlins 2, the titular monsters find a genetics lab in the corporate office building and inject themselves with, among other things, female DNA, spider DNA, and, uh, lightning DNA and gain the associated traits.
Deadpool, in X-men Origins: Wolverine, is fused with the DNA of dozens of mutants to gain their powers and become Weapon XI.
In Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the clone army (with millions of soldiers) is bred to be entirely identical and has things like "behavior and independence genes" modified.

Literature

Maximum Ride, in this troper's mind an obnoxious Mary Sue, abuses this trope bigtime. Apparently science can give children wings and psychic fish-talking powers.
- Not to mention the ability to tell what color something is by touching it (a blind kid), blending into shadows, and magnetic and shapeshifting powers.
- And super-speed flight, telepathy and mind control, the ability to perfectly imitate any voice, and telemetry.
- Don't forget breathing underwater and the ability to not be crushed by water pressure.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars Trilogy introduces people who "customize" their DNA profile while getting regular anti-aging treatments—one example is a guy who has some polar bear inserted into him to make the cold, but breathable, atmosphere of a terraformed Mars more bearable.
Spoofed in the Discworld novel The Last Continent, in which the God of Evolution explains that he was hoping to make the burnt offerings more efficient by finding the instruction that tells a cow to be soggy, and replacing it with the instruction that tells a tree to be flammable. It doesn't work, although in the way it really wouldn't work: he ends up with a bush that produces milk and makes distressed mooing sounds.
Speaker For The Dead reveals that the alien "Descolada" virus caused this effect on the native life forms of the planet Lusitania, resulting in plants and animals literally giving birth to each other.
- And then in the next book, Xenocide, a modified version of the virus is used to cure Path of its OCD problem in two days. Handwaved by the suggestion that the descolada replaces parts of its victim's DNA with random code (in the case of the descolada on humans and Formics) or a pre-programmed code (in the case of Luisitanian life and the humans on Path) so fast that the body cannot reject the modified cells fast enough before the body sees it as its own.
  - There are only a couple plant-animal pairs and the effect on humans is taking DNA and turning it into RNA then trying to put it back together to fit with it's own plan.
Somewhat averted in the Greg Bear book Legacy. A planet (Appropriately named Lamarckia) is found whose only life forms are a handful of continent-spanning 'ecoi', giant lifeforms that design and develop their own "workers" to populate the various ecological niches, to the point that an entire continent-wide functioning ecosystem consists of, essentially, one organism. 'Samplers' are a type of organism that seek out previously unseen workers from other ecoi, or any heretofore unsampled organism and return the sample so the "brain" of the ecoi can analyze the design and incorporate any interesting new genetic features into the next generation of workers it designs. Averted in the sense that it's presumed that the "brains" of these ecoi have developed - over the course of their own evolution - mechanisms to sequence and understand the genetics of the other organisms which they encounter, and the ability to integrate features at the genetic level into their own creations. Lego-like, but using a reasonable estimate of how such a system might actually work.
In Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series, at one point young Arthur Stuart, the child of a runaway slave, is being tracked so his owner can reclaim him. The trackers are using an ability to follow him via his genetic code: they have a lock of his hair, and this allows them to find him anywhere. Alvin's solution? He rewrites Arthur's entire DNA so it doesn't match the sample. By concentrating really hard. To get around the problem of Arthur's cells dying too quickly to be replaced, he dunks the kid in a river and then "orders" all the cells to adopt the new DNA simultaneously. The only negative effect this has on Arthur is that he loses his ability to mimic others' voices perfectly. Even given that this is a semi-magical setting, this troper very nearly found this moment to be a Wall Banger.
- Mind you, in some ways, this is more acceptable than many other examples. Alvin picks a few spots in Arthur's DNA and changes them to match his own, rather than make random changes or try to give him frog DNA or something. And this doesn't magically give Arthur Alvin's not-inconsiderable range of powers, either, which is a miracle in and of itself given the rest of this page.
Andrey Livadny both averts and follows this trope in his The History of the Galaxy series. One of the most prominent planets in his universe is Zoroastra, where human colonists decided to forgo technological development in favor of biotechnology, but it can take several generations for certain engineered changes to take place in humans. Then again, these modifications can border on Fringe Logic, such as organs that emit and receive infrared signals that allow a person to remotely interface with any device with an IR port. Livadny then follows the trope when a man who transferred his consciousness into an android decides to clone his body as a 20-year-old (using a sample took decades before), spliced with genes that grant his new body the same IR organ.
In Scott Weterfeld's novel Leviathan, the Primary Weapon (and Primary technology in general) used by WWI-era Britain is Fabricated animals including Messenger Gekkos and a Flying Whale airship.

Live Action TV

The various Star Treks do this at least once a season. Semi-justified when the transporter's involved, since that actually does breaks down the victim's body into energy and reassembles it elsewhere—if it gets confused about how to do the reassembly...
- ... which, if you think about it, is about as likely as an accidental ink blot forming blueprints of the Sistine Chapel ...
- It's hard to imagine that TNG episode Genesis will EVER being outdone as it involves the entire CREW undergoing this... including a cat becoming an iguana.
Red Dwarf, never one to take science seriously, has the crew discover a Lego Genetics device in the episode "DNA". It turns Lister into a chicken, a hamster, and eventually a one-foot-tall Robocop ripoff. They resort to the last one because the crew had turned a vindaloo into a half-man half-curry hybrid.
- Not to mention that it inexplicably turns Kryten - a mechanical droid - into a human being simply due to the presence of a tiny organic something-or-other.
Jekyll has the MIB rushing desperately to find the main character, because each time he transforms from his Jekyll persona into his Hyde persona (which he can do in less than a minute) his entire genetic structure is apparently changed. This is doing untold amounts of damage, and giving him only a few months to live.
Stargate SG-1, "Bane": Teal'c is injected with alien bug DNA and starts mutating not even into a single bug, but into several of them at once. Not that the resolution was any better than the "science"...
- Technically there are some real bugs and fungi that do fairly similar and equally freaky things. Though the episode's cure is still out and out BS.
  - Insect and fungi in the real world function as parasitoids - which is to say, larvae or spores are used on the unwitting host and gestate, killing the host. Teal'C is having his DNA RE-WRITTEN to become a number of them... You Fail Biology Forever goes without saying.
The main villains of Stargate Atlantis are a result of Lego Genetics; a life-sucking Iratus Bug mixed human and/or Ancient DNA with its own, and produced the Wraith. Our Heroes have developed a retrovirus that is capable of discriminating between the two genetics, and by separating them, "purifying" the subject to entirely human or entirely Iratus bug. And in the Season finale series of season 4, we discover that a character has been able to modify the virus to add Wraith DNA to pure humans. Truly Lego Genetics at its purest; take a little from column A and a little from column B at will. One wonders why the humans in the Stargate universe haven't started ad-hoc mixing of their genes from Earth creatures for their own advantage; surely the military could use some Marines with some grizzly bear genes and some tiger and some lion genes... oh my, that's a powerful soldier.
Dark Angel: The protagonists (and some antagonists) were genetically modified with the traits of various animals. The earlier versions look like hybrids, the later versions look fully human but still have various animal traits.
- Such as the ability to jump over 12-foot-high fences out of full stop. Makes you wonder just what kind of animal can do something like that, besides fleas and grasshoppers. Jessica Alba don't look like no grasshopper to me.
  - She's part cat. And yes, the common housecat can indeed jump three, four times its own height, so this kinda makes sense, if you can suspend disbelief enough to buy the trope's premise to start with.
  - No it doesn't, since a cat's ability to jump three to four times its height has nothing to do with feline genetics and everything to do with the square-cube law.
  - No it doesn't. Even a large male Siberian Tiger, at 300kg (probably six times her weight) can still make a vertical leap of about ~4.5m (on a height of ~1.3m), or a leap:height ratio of ~350%. What it has to do with is having a body structure "engineered" to make huge leaps, which she didn't, since her body was not reshaped to look like a cat. Thankfully.
  - She may not look like a cat but she still goes into heat!
Heroes. Peter Petrelli's power is to absorb the powers of the people he's around. Without touching them. His DNA is obviously psychic. And sentient.
- The "formula" in the third season.
  - Or even Arthur Petrelli's ability, which apparently removes the genetic code from someone and puts it into him.
- Actually Mohinder establishes early in the third season that the key to the Heroes abilities is in the adrenal gland which is why powers are linked to emotional states and serves as something of an explanation for the Personality Powers they have (this is more explicitly stated later in the season before Ando injects himself and it seems to work. His desire is to help Hiro and while he doesn't get the time travel powers he wanted, he does get the ability to boost other people's powers which reflects his desire to help.)
In the third season of Sliders, the writers lampshaded the change in Colonel Rickman's appearance (caused by the change in actors from Roger Daltrey to Neil Dickman) by stating that he absorbed the DNA of his victims whenever he injected himself with their spinal fluid. This was played further in the episode This Side of Paradise, when the only people available for Rickman to steal fluids from were the animal/human hybrids created by Dr. Moreau^h^h^h^h^h^h Vargas. Rickman, by the time the episode starts, has become somewhat feral, as a human/human/animal hybrid. Or something. Pretty bad, even by Season 3 standards.
CSI New York exists in a world where science pays mere lip service to the laws of nature. Splicing spider dna into a goat allows you to milk it for spider silk. "Wait...what?" To be fair, the whole episode (not to mention the entire franchise) was pretty much like that, but spidergoat tends to stick in the mind.
- How that actually works - the genetic alteration causes female goats to produce the protein spider silk is made of in their milk. To get spider silk from that, the protein has to be separated from the milk (which is a process), and then somehow pushed through a ridiculously small aperture to make the molecules snap into place. The silk made through this process still isn't as thin or as strong as natural spider silk.
- Actually, that has been done in real life. Spidergoat, Spidergoat...
  - Does whatever a Spidergoat does.
Fringe featured a manticore-like creature formed of Gila monster, tiger, scorpion and a couple others. It could also infect people with its larvae through its stinger, an ability not shared by any of its composite creatures. Apparently this was all made possible by splicing in bat DNA.
Doctor Who featured the Krillitanes, a race that absorbed biological components from the species it conquered. When the Doctor last met them, they looked like humans with long necks; when he meets them again, they're bat-like creatures with a natural cloaking device.

Tabletop RPG

The Kroot, an allied species of the Tau Empire in Warhammer 40000 use this as a means to evolve. By eating the flesh of another organism, a Kroot gains some of the traits its dinner had. For instance, a Kroot that consumes enough flying animals would eventually grow wings. Kroot chieftains, called Shapers, use their knowledge of Kroot genetics to pick out creatures with the most desirable traits for their kindred to eat, in order for their tribe to grow strong and conquer their foes. Their Tau allies see this as utterly barbaric, but value the Kroot's friendship over their habits.
- Technically it's the next generation of Kroot which gets the consumed abilities, in a hint of sanity in the flood of madness in 40k.
- The Tyranid are also very good at this. Most of their enhancements are homegrown, but two Tyranid hiveships meeting is a very bad thing because they will fight to the death, then whichever one wins will take the most effective enhancements of the other and incorporate them into its soldiers. Also because of the Tyranid's ridiculously efficient digestive and reproductive processes, fleet will grow to the size of both of them put together.
  - If they want to exchange DNA you'd think mutually beneficial gene-swapping would be more efficient for the swarm than fighting. Then again, this is Warhammer 40,000 we're talking about; Rule Of Nastiness probably applies.
- The Krillitane in Doctor Who have similar abilities.
In Hunter: The Vigil, the Cheiron Group gives its employees supernatural powers by cutting out bits of monsters and stitching them into the subjects. This is given a Hand Wave of the "Nobody has a clue how this works, it just does" variety.

Video Games

Averted (and lampshaded in the quote on top of this page) in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, where University faction leader (and resident Professor) Prokhor Zakharov is quoted more than once on the subject of the limitations of genetics.
BioShock has "plasmids", genetic upgrades that instantly give you fantastic abilities like telekinesis or the ability to shoot fire, lightning or ice from your hands. Hand Waved by advanced scientific research into creating stem cells, but even that doesn't begin to explain it. In Real Life a plasmid is a ring of DNA which can indeed be used to perform a very limited version of Lego Genetics, but only to transfer a small number of genes into bacteria. Human cells, as eukaryotes, would not accept plasmids and couldn't be altered this way.
- Of course eukaryotic, mammalian and human cells can accept plasmids. This is an extremely basic procedure that can be carried out in about 10 minutes, though there does has to be some mechanism for getting the DNA into the cells; that won't happen by itself. Making the cell porous by zapping them is popular. Indeed chick eggs can be transfected and a chick can start to develop with e.g. green nerves (they're not reported to finish developing though).
- Bacteria may also transfer plasmids "naturally". Some plasmids make bacteria form pili which are then used to transfer the plasmids to other bacteria that come into contact with the pili. Thus, bacteria with some property (like antibiotic resistance, or survival in the presence of toxic substances) may transfer this property to others without interfering with DNA in general if the relevant plasmid is "mobile" - quite like Lego Genetics.
- Let's not forget the hand that shoots bees.
- Bioshock also allows the PC to take an active plasmid out of his genome, which is a lot less plausible.
Impossible Creatures is based pretty much entirely on this trope, and aptly named.
It's hard to tell the extent to which Oni uses this trope. On the one hand, the Daoden Chrysalis basically genetically upgrades a human to include regeneration and minor superpowers (needed to survive a poisonous atmosphere). On the other hand, a chrysalis is specifically made from an individual's own cells (meaning they're all tailor-made for specific people). As well, they take a really long time to reach full effectiveness, as they have to multiply and replace all of a person's existing cells (for Konoko and Muro, it's implied that this took about two decades)).
Becomes a major plot point (with a twist) in Wing Commander IV. The Big Bads have a pretty neat covert operation going—mass murders, being blamed on a Conveniently Available faction. Problem is, the murders (which are originally thought to be a plague), turn out not to be—turns out the Big Bads have developed a nanotech weapon that kills people based on their genes—have the right gene set, you live, don't, and you die, in a genocide that would make Hitler green with envy. The parallelism is there and used—including the insane-general-that-thinks-humanity-is-weak-and-is-going-to-purge-it bit that Hitler used to rationalize his genocide. The results are shown in nauseating fashion—the weapon kills slowly, by dismantling the cells that have the incorrect gene sets—dissolving the person slowly and painfully.
- it's also based upon a lot of other factors mentioned such as level of body fat, fitness, strength of immune system and a few other things in the cut scene it appears in.
Used slightly believably in Crusader: No Remorse, where a Mad Scientist explains to you that the "new generation" of Silencers does not have the Silencer's "fatal flaw" (that being something vaguely approximating a conscience). Depending on how much understanding of genetics human science acquires this may not be entirely implausible.
Averted in Spore, where it is assumed that every time you modify a creature it counts as an evolutionary step and not a genetic modification. Once you get to civilization, you still can't gene splice as you can no longer modify your creature (unless you use the "vertical play structure" to temporarily return to the evolution stage).
- Of course, it's then replayed when you have an evolutionary step that adds arms, removes legs, adds wings, horns and a tail, changes duck feet to human feet, human hands to triple-digit pokers, and so on. It's safer to say that Spore has its own specific type of Lego Genetics, none of which changes the fact that it's a very fun tool for teaching Hollywood Evolution.
  - Spore is somewhat unique in that each "step" represents a huge skip in time, making the whole thing averted. That'd be classed as a handwave if it wasn't the entire principle of the game.
  - Spore is also a literal case of Lego Genetics in that your creature can only be put together from pieces that have been previously created. For example, to evolve a particular set of claws, you need to collect a pair from a defeated/befriended creature or lying around on the ground somewhere.
A much older game with a similar premise to Spore, EVO: The Search for Eden, runs on this trope. Every time you add or remove a part, the change is done instantly. This can be exploitable in boss battles by changing one's neck from short to long or vice-versa whenever you get low on health, completely refilling your health. The neck is the cheapest part to change, but you can substitute any part and do the same thing.
Creatures is a rare aversion (at least partially). At least several "genes" go into the functioning of each organ, and let's not even get started on the brain... The visible parts (head, limbs, etc.) can change in appearance with just one gene, but not be removed entirely or visibly duplicated (though the gene can be). (The "double tail" seen on certain C2 Norns, and the lack of tail on Ettins and some Norn breeds is a sprite thing.)
Geneforge. Canisters and Geneforges rewrite a user's genes so they instantly become smarter, stronger, better at magic, etc.
- You forgot "more easily pissed off, prone to crazy, gain Suicidal Overconfidence, slowly lose ability to communicate like a normal person"...
- This is somewhat an aversion, as these changes are actually very difficult to do and prone to instability when done by amateurs.
Metroid did this to Samus, not once, but twice: according to Samus' backstory, she was "infused" with Chozo DNA in order to allow her to survive on the planet Zebes, which is the reason for her superhuman strength, stamina, and agility. In the game Metroid: Fusion, Samus is injected with the DNA of a Metroid, the only known natural enemy of the X parasite, following her infection. Not only does the vaccine completely destroy all traces of X in her system, this somehow alters her DNA so that she has the Metroid's ability to safely absorb X for health and upgrades, ~~alters the appearance of her suit (which is biologically linked to her)~~, and gives her the Metroid's weakness to cold.
- A much better example of this trope is the X parasites themselves, who steal the DNA from host creatures and then instantly assume their forms.
- To be fair, Metroid is extremly far into the future.
- Smart money is that the Chozo DNA was only to allow her to operate her power suit (and not have it reject her); the DNA itself doesn't really do much. Her un-suited abilities aren't particularly superhuman, after all.
  - She can jump several stories in the Manga and over eight feet (and wall jump) without a suit in Zero Mission. And the suit explicitly doesn't enhance her abilities, so her agility, reaction time, and strength is all natural.
- Her Power Suit wasn't changed by the vaccine, it always was like that. They just removed it's outer armor plating, revealing the muscle mass under. Possibly meaning that the suit is an organism of it's own, and all those armor upgrades (like Varia and Gravity) you get over the course of the game are actually gene splices. It doesn't help that said armor plating turned out to be infected and became an Evil Twin of Samus Several of them, even.
Nei and Rika of the Phantasy Star series. Nei is explained to be part biomonster and was created in a genetics lab. Rika was also created in a biology lab, but she was produced over the course of a thousand years' worth of research and testing to produce a stable and functional improvement on the Nei pattern, which was drastically flawed.
Depending on whether they're viewed as an animal or a virus, this trope could be considered the very definition of Starcraft's Zerg; who swarm over alien races to absorb certain genetic traits from them, and at the start of the game, are trying to acquire beings with "psionic genes."

Webcomics

Spoofed in this Bob the Angry Flower comic◊.
El Goonish Shive has Uryuom eggs, which somehow combine the DNA of all of the parents and create a composite being with all of their traits. If more than one species is involved, it generally also gains the ability to change shape. Those must be some pretty advanced eggs.
- Later justified as it being a type of magic (well, sort of; it's complicated and hasn't been fully explained yet) inherent in the species.
Played to the hilt by Narbonic. Not only will an infusion of a computer geek's DNA turn you into a computer geek, it'll even give you his cigarette habit, and magically reappearing cigarettes!
- This troper had nightmares over Narbonic's gender reversal pills...
The "genetic chimera thingie" Molly, her clone Galatea, and the Mutant Kaiju Unigar the Vast Unicorn in The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob.
According to Word Of God this is Averted in Free Fall, Florence looks like she is a human/wolf hybrid but has no human DNA whatsoever.
- She does, however, from that same word, have a touch of bear DNA, making use of their hibernation ability to slow down her body's growth to give her a human's lifespan (or something along those lines, details escape me). However, there's no mention of that within the comic itself.

Western Animation

Batman Beyond features a gang called the Splicers who have had their DNA spliced with different animal DNA turning them into Petting Zoo People. Terry is turned into a literal Bat-Man (ala the Man-Bat) at one point, but it is easily reversible. Splicing is made illegal, but at first was perfectly legal and akin to body piercing and tattooing.
- And, of course, Man-Bat is also an example. He was trying to isolate the bat's sonar-genes in order to cure deafness.
- In Return of the Joker, the Joker is actually taking over Tim Drake's body because of a computer chip encoded with Joker DNA on his neck. Apparently this computer chip is also inherently magical, as this allows the Joker to transform from Robin to Joker whenever he wants. This includes all brain functions, skin colour, clothing. You Fail Biology Forever.
  - I figured that among the various abuses he perpetrated on the guy, he also went ahead and put in some nanomachines...
  - In Justice League Unlimited, this was confirmed. The Cadmus' nanomachine technology seen in the last episode of season two was used on Tim Drake. All the chip did was act as a controlling mechanism. Admittedly, though, the rapid clothes-change still comes off as goofy, even in a movie with the Joker in it.
Kim Possible villain DNAmy's specialty: She combines living creatures to make Mix And Match Critters.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had a character called Bugman, whose origin had him accidentally combine his genes with those of various arthropods. For some reason, his acquired traits are only expressed when he gets angry.
The Darker And Edgier second season of The Legion Of Super Heroes features a clone of Superman provisionally called Superman X, who had Kryptonite planted in his genes! Instead of making his embryo self unviable due to both Kryptonite and the loss of whatever the Legos that got visibly removed to make room for green K, Supes X has scary-looking eyes, immunity to Kryptonite, and shoots blasts of green ice in addition to the usual Kryptonian power set. (His extra powers, and entire existence, came from a bit of Executive Meddling about "beefing up" Superman.)
Danny Phantom, full stop. He got ghost powers implanted into his DNA!
An episode of Totally Spies involved a scientist who used a... laser-gun-machine-thingy to "inject human DNA" into animals, making them walk upright and consume human food and think and speak perfect English and oh my god.
- And in another episode, a fashion designer uses a serum of some sort to give humans animal features, so she can make seamless coats out of them. Of course, it is perfectly reversible.
- Yes. You just can't apply logic to that kind of show.
The Sushi Pack episode "Fish Tales," Oleander teams up with a scientist who specializes in "DNA stuff that can alter human beings." By combining his DNA stuff with her "special" seafood bisque (and Kani's recently shed shell), Oleander is instantly endowed with a crab shell on her back, and her hands turn into pincers. The effect only lasts for two hours, though.
This example is kind of borderline, but Nickelodeon's Catdog seems to have its very premise founded on something like this.

Real Life

Truth In Television: Modifications that work on the chemical level do have lego characteristics. Most prominent would be the coding of fluorescent proteins derived from jellyfish, inserted into the DNA of various animals as advanced as mammals and actually working—the mice in question do produce the chemical, which can then be tracked down for interesting insights. There are also bio-engineered crops, "injected" with traits that strengthen crops (e.g.: protection against the cold, built-in anti-parasite genes, et cetera) taken from fish and bees. It sent hippies into a fury.
- Glow In The Dark Cats, anyone?
- Note that this is always done to fertilized eggs; there is no way to specifically alter the DNA in every cell in a fully grown animal (or a still growing animal).
  - However, note also that this is a logistical problem, not a genetics or physics issue. There's nothing physically impossible about taking an adult organism, and going through every one of its cells one by one, making the same change in them all. We "just" don't have the technology to do so while not killing them, not missing any, and doing it all fast enough to outrun and overtake the continual introduction of new cells. Of course, even if you did manage to do so, there's no telling what would result from applying the "new" chemistry to the "old" existing structures, the end result may still be very different from having made that same genetic change at the single-cell stage, or even a few years, days, or even hours earlier or later in the creature's life cycle.
- This is also only applicable in a very, very limited fashion. Producing glow-cats means just one or two extra molecules manufactured by the body, but making them grow scales or tentacles would be something completely different.
  - It's more of a question of fully understanding all the interactions betweens genes. There are no "tentacle" genes, but the growing of tentacles is coded as a complex interaction of genes. Most likely the entire skin and ossature, as well as some fundamental structural changes, would have to be made. Those changes would however be so fundamental the cat would really no longer a be a cat in any way we define the term "cat".
This troper saw a video in bio class where a girl with almost no immune system was cured by Lego Genetics. The doctor modified a virus's DNA to make it harmless, then inserted a plasmid with the missing bit of human DNA. After the girl was infected, some of her cells gained the DNA from the plasmid and her body was able to make the right proteins (or whatever). However, it did take a couple of weeks, and she had to come back for periodic treatments as the "cure" wore off.
- It's worth pointing out that the immune system is one of the few parts of your body where this indeed does work out, because it's basically a highly specialized mutation factory. A regular immune system will keep pumping out variations until it finds something that can successfully attack an infection. It helps that this takes place on a microscopic level: giving a cell the ability to combat a specific pathogen with a specific protein arrangement is a lot simpler than (say) giving a fully grown being wings.
  - Actually, it has little to do with how the immune system handles detection and a lot with the fact that treating the patient's bone marrow cells and then injecting the modified cells back in the body was easier (and safer) than just pumping his or her body full of viral vectors. Particularily back then, with no precedents on the matter. The problems they met with the first tests were that retroviruses, while managing long-lasting expression and effective integration, tended to stick the new genes at random places, sometimes (not always) cutting off important stuff. Anyway you can find a (partial?) list of gene therapy trials in http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/home
There's also the hox genes, discovered so far in a number of creatures (particularly fruit flies) which appear to control the physical structure of the body. Messing with them can produce major changes in the body of the target, such as the aforementioned eyeless (or legless, or legs-instead-of-eyes...) fruit flies, but is also often fatal. This is subject to the usual proviso of not affecting developed organisms.
- Hox genes, short for "Homeobox" genes, are in fact named as such because they are highly conserved, being found in everything from plants to fungi to fruit flies to vertebrates. Think about that for a minute or two. Yes, that means you have them too.
And let's not forget genetically modified foods. The few successful ones so far have generally involved adding DNA, usually bacterial, that causes a plant to produce a protein that it normally doesn't. For example, corn that produces bT toxin, effectively making its own pesticide. They also managed to make soybeans resistant to pesticides. These receive testing that compares toxins, nutrients, and allergens of the modified crop to the normal one.
The University of Virginia is participating in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, which is built on the premise that life can be broken down into a series of off-the-shelf, interchangeable parts and reassembled into creatures that have never existed. UVA calls their creations "Bio Bricks." The competition's grand prize? A solid-silver Lego brick.
"...Two things set synthetic biology apart [from genetic engineering]: The DNA building blocks don't have to come from nature; they can be designed and created in a lab, a process that's becoming faster and cheaper. And there's the idea that life, like cars or computers, can be designed and built from standardized parts that behave predictably." [1]
I'm surprised no one one has mentioned the grad students who modfied E. coli to smell like mint. "LINK

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