Biotechnology is meeting art in Venezuela as scientists try to save the country’s art treasures from being ruined by its tropical insects, fungi and humidity.An 18th century colonial wood carving of the Virgin Mary is the guinea pig for a novel alliance of biologists, DNA experts and art curators who are working to preserve Venezuela’s rich cultural heritage from the ravages of the tropical climate.The team is racing to save a 2-1/2-foot (78-cm) statue known as the “Immaculate Creole Virgin” from destruction by wood-boring beetles.They plan to “vaccinate” the carving with spores of a bacterial toxin which is deadly to insects but harmless to humans, and, they hope, to works of art too.
