Recently resurfaced accounts from 2012 reveal how the musician’s genetic material was used in an experiment to create a mouse-Elvis hybrid.  

Artist Koby Barhad’s project, ‘All That I Am’ employed the idea of using some of the King’s hair to insert his genetic code into a mouse.  The artist told NBC News: “The purpose of the work was to raise those almost frightening issues.”  

Koby purchased a sample of Elvis’ hair on eBay for $22 (£15.81), before researching two companies that could, in theory, sequence Elvis’ DNA.  He found sequencing firm, Genetrack Biolabs, and InGenious Targeting Laboratory, which produces ‘made-to-order mice’

The artist also designed several cages, which he hoped would represent the various stages of the King’s life.

The sections represented included his relationship with his mother, his childhood of poverty in his birthplace, Tupelo, and finally an inclined treadmill to show the musician’s furious work rate before his death.

Koby told Wired: “I've always been fascinated with humanity’s eternal need to quantify and define life.

“Be it biology or physics, philosophy or biography, psychology or fiction – from Frankenstein to the ‘God particle’.

“In my research I came across a private lab service that offers ‘mice’ that are ‘genetically modified for your needs’.”

Koby said he kicked off the project by sourcing the hairs of Elvis, Princess Diana and former US President John F. Kennedy, who were cultural icons that “died before their time”.

He added: “That way they were made a myth, glorified to the point where they became a Utopian model.

“From these three, Elvis is the ultimate symbol of the amount of – sometimes ridiculous – effort we put, as a society, in keeping those models alive.”