St. Louis Firm To Map OZZY OSBOURNE's DNA; KTVI Video Report Available

July 1, 2010

KTVI, channel 2, the Fox-affiliated television station serving the St. Louis, Missouri designated market area, aired a two-minute report on plans to use a blood sample taken from Ozzy Osbourne to map out his genetic code and attempt to figure out how he has survived after years of abusing drugs and alcohol. Watch the clip below.

According to the U.K.'s Sky News, Ozzy is one of the few people in the world who will have his entire genome analyzed. Researchers at Knome, a Cambridge, Massachusetts company, hope that analyzing Ozzy's blood and DNA will give them insight into how drugs are absorbed in the body, and why some people can survive extreme substance abuse while others can't.

The company's director of research, Nathan Pearson, said, "Sequencing and analyzing individuals with extreme medical histories provides the greatest potential scientific value."

Jon Armstrong, chief marketing officer for St. Louis-based Cofactor Genomics, which is partnering with Knome in the effort, told CBS News that DNA mapping may not offer definitive answers about Osbourne's relative longevity, but it could provide clues in understanding the relationship between changes in DNA and the environment.

"I can guarantee it will add more pieces to the puzzle," Armstrong said. "Very seldom is there one holy grail."

The testing will cost around $40,000 and is expected to take about three months to determine results.

Although he's sober now, Ozzy estimates that he took drugs and used alcohol for more than 40 years, according to Rolling Stone.

He also survived a 2003 bike accident in which he broke his neck and was diagnosed a few years back with a genetic disorder that is similar to Parkinson's Disease.

Ozzy recently started a new gig as a health columnist for England's Sunday Times. In the first installment of the column — which will be largely ghostwritten by his memoir co-writer, Chris Ayres — Ozzy admitted, "By all accounts, I'm a medical miracle. When I die, I should donate my body to the Natural History Museum."

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