Previous
Symbols
In The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Bio Gel represents how science can help humanity, while rejection and suspicion of Bio Gel illustrates how destructive ideals of human “purity” can make people suspicious of beneficial scientific advancements. Bio Gel is first mentioned when the novel’s teenage protagonist, Jenna Fox, asks her grandmother Lily whether her parents are rich. Lily explains that Jenna’s father Matthew Fox, a doctor and medical researcher, became rich by inventing Bio Gel, a substance that can keep transplant organs viable “indefinitely waiting for the right recipient.” This use of Bio Gel—helping transplant patients and ending the wasteful loss of transplant organs—makes clear that the substance is a positive, helpful biotechnical breakthrough. Jenna later learns from her friend Allys, a quadruple amputee interested in medical ethics, that preserving organs isn’t the only possible use of Bio Gel: Bio Gel can also supplement or replace damaged organs, substituting “neurochips” for human cells.
Despite the obvious benefits of Bio Gel, the novel’s Federal Science Ethics Board (FSEB) has a complicated point system preventing more than a certain amount of human tissue from being replaced by Bio Gel: for example, brains have to remain 51% original tissue, so that if a person needs more Bio Gel than that to supplement a damaged brain, the FSEB insists that they be left to die. The FSEB’s policy on Bio Gel suggests that an ideal of human physical "purity” makes people suspicious of prostheses, biotechnology, and other advancements that can save lives.
Finally, the novel reveals that Jenna herself has an “illegal,” predominantly Bio Gel-based brain because a massively traumatic car accident and subsequent runaway infections destroyed 90 percent of her original brain tissue. By revealing that its protagonist is only alive because of Bio Gel—and that the FSEB’s ideal of human purity would have consigned her to death—the novel ultimately suggests that science is a positive force that helps save lives and should not be programmatically constrained by worries about human “purity.”
Bio Gel Quotes in The Adoration of Jenna Fox
The The Adoration of Jenna Fox quotes below all refer to the symbol of Bio Gel. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Pages 3–91
Quotes
“Sometimes we just don’t know when we’ve gone too far.”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 92–190
Quotes
“You have to draw the line somewhere, don’t you? Medical costs are a terrible economic drain on society, not to mention the ethics involved. And by restricting how much can be replaced or enhanced, the FSEB knows you are more human than lab creation. We don’t want a lot of half-human lab pets crawling all around the world, do we?”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“So it’s not human skin.”
“It is human. Completely human. We’ve been genetically altering plants and animals for years. It’s nothing new. Tomatoes, for instance. We engineer them to withstand certain pests or to give them a longer shelf life, but it is still one hundred percent a tomato.”
“I am not a tomato.”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Adoration of Jenna Fox LitChart as a printable PDF.
Bio Gel Symbol Timeline in The Adoration of Jenna Fox
The timeline below shows where the symbol Bio Gel appears in The Adoration of Jenna Fox. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Pages 3–91
...are rich. Lily, after hesitating, explains that Jenna’s father founded a biotech company that invented Bio Gel , a substance that allows indefinite preservation of transplant organs and that made him a...
(full context)
Pages 92–190
...Ethics Board, an organization that regulates “research and a lot of medical procedures”—as well as Bio Gel .
(full context)
Jenna, remembering that her father’s company invented Bio Gel , asks about it. Allys explains that Bio Gel uses “neurochips” that can replace or...
(full context)
Ethan asks about brains, and Allys says that Bio Gel is only legally allowed to replace damaged brains “up to forty-nine percent.” When Jenna asks...
(full context)
...to her hand: the gash has revealed not blood and flesh but blue gel ( Bio Gel ) over shiny “synthetic bone and ligaments.” Lily encourages Jenna to sit down, while Claire...
(full context)
...brain before it was too late. Once Jenna got to the private facility, they used Bio Gel to save “the butterfly […] the heart of the brain.” Jenna, thinking that her memories...
(full context)
...it is real: it was grown in a lab and “genetically engineered” for compatibility with Bio Gel . Jenna asserts that that isn’t human skin, but her father disagrees: a genetically engineered...
(full context)
...many people are. He explains that they saved part of her brain, supplemented it with Bio Gel , and used the brain scan they took of Jenna to re-upload “every bit of...
(full context)
...original. Her father claims that it’s all her original brain, just composed of new material— Bio Gel , an “artificial neural network” made of “neural chips.” Jenna asks why she doesn’t have...
(full context)
...medical procedures were illegal. Her father admits that that’s one reason; the other is that Bio Gel ’s “shelf life” is dramatically shortened by temperature changes or cold. Jenna, shocked and disgusted...
(full context)
Pages 191–265
...about Thoreau. She feels suddenly grateful to have unique thoughts, which are not reducible to Bio Gel , and the opportunity to make new memories.
(full context)
...keep a backup just in case of conflict between Jenna’s original brain tissue and the Bio Gel .
(full context)
