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HEK293 additive "behind the scenes"

HEK293 additive "behind the scenes"
Average consumer has no idea that when buying "Nescafe" coffee, "Nesquick" cacao, "Maggie" seasoning, baby food or any other products produced by the Nestle company they obviously get it with the addition of "human flesh".

Year 2012 was marked by the "Cloud Atlas" premiere, filmed on the eponymous David Mitchel's novel by Wachowski sisters. Yes, I mean those Wachowski brothers, the creators of the Matrix trilogy who made that gender change afterall. But that's what this story is not about.

Following the main idea and the script of a "Cloud Atlas" movie in one of the paralell storylines we are told about the Korean city Seoul in a faraway future.
We see that fast food network restaurant which emloys strictly young and beautiful waitresses, specially casted and trained for this job.
Each their day envolves waking up, morning routine, dressing up, working hours, evening "soap" meal (which is told to be good for a night sleep) and the night sleep itself.
What is that "soap" food source anyway and why does this company has such a stringent requirement for personnel?
As a story goes we are told about a rite following the promotion of the elder emploees and almost at the end of a 172 minutes long movie one important detail about this restaurant network business shows up.
One of the young employees somehow gets into the room where her "promoted" collegues are followed to. It comes up to be a "body proceccing plant" transforming their not-yet-too-old bodies into that "soap" energy source...

Some will say "What the heck? Are you insane?", others will tell "no big deal, dude, that was just an author's imagination"

Perhaps this is realy no big deal and not worse paying attention at - modern film industry has plenty of weird and phycodelic stories to tell... but one thing makes this concrete story worth telling.

Please welcome Senomyx Co Ltd - american BIOtechnology company that produces various additives for food and cosmetic industries. According to english version of Wikipedia HEK293 component is known to be the pride of the aforementioned company. Therefore asking Wikipedia for the meaning of the HEK293 abbreviation we see the following: Human embryonic kidney cells 293 are a specific cell line originally derived from human embryonic kidney cells grown in tissue culture.

Take a deep breath and get a minute to rethink this again and let's get back to the point.

For those who consider Wikipedia to be unauthoritative I assume to follow the links below, including the link to ATCC organization, The Global Bioresource Center providing certificates and selling the product for 575€.

Further more. When you visit www.senomyx.com and search information about companie's partnership you'll be surprised. Even though the list is not full you'll see a couple of common names in it such as Pepsi Co and Nestle

Following the research of the evidences proving the use of the HEK293 additive by the forementioned companies you'll find the decent amount of mentions that show public protest attitude towards it not only in USA but in Russia as well.

Also according to www.senomyx.com FAQ section we see that manufacturer has the legal right not to specify what type/code of a food additive or a dye is used, referring to the trade secrets of the production process.

Summing it all up we get to the following: average consumer has no idea that when buying "Nescafe" coffee, "Nesquick" cacao, "Maggie" seasoning, baby food or any other products produced by the Nestle company they obviously get it with the addition of "human flesh".

This might sound awful but that is true. You can google actual information on pickets around the Nestle office in Russia.

So please be careful and do not be fooled by the nice package and fancy ads. It is made to provide high demand, but does not guarantee quality.

Original text - Victor Goncharov
Translation - Eugenia Koroleva