From Medill Reports:
Billionaire James LeVoy Sorenson looks over a human femur being tested by forensic DNA technician Jennifer Kibler.
What do over-the-counter paternity tests, “modest lingerie” and Mormon teaching on the afterlife have in common?
One man: James Levoy Sorenson.
The Utah billionaire, who died in January at the age of 86, founded Sorenson Research, a medical research group that developed important medical innovations such as flexible catheters and disposable surgical masks. With an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion dollars, he was the richest man in Utah at the time of his death.
Sorenson was also a devout Mormon, known to unwind in the evenings by composing a religious hymn or two. According to a Deseret News story on the billionaire, Sorenson’s religious beliefs also lead to great gain for the Latter Day Saints when he gave “a more than $30 million donation to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the restoration of the Nauvoo Temple,” the Mormon Temple in Illinois.
One of the entrepreneur’s first businesses was LeVoy’s, a modest lingerie company, sold from one Mormon woman to another via “Tupperware-style” parties.
Sorenson’s more recent endeavor, initiated after he sold Sosenson Research, was Sorenson Genomics, a DNA testing company that recently unveiled Identigene, an over-the-counter paternity test that provides a retail version of the genetics work they have done for the past 15years.
In explaining a genetics research project his foundation initiated to collect genetic information from people around the world, Sorenson said to USA Today in 2007 “It’s an expensive endeavor, but worthwhile because when factions learn that they share a common ancestry — that Jewish Israelis are related to Palestinians, Sunnis to Shiites — there will be peace on Earth.” “We’re all sons and daughters of God,” Sorenson says”
Harmony through an understanding of one’s ancestry is a major tenant of Latter-day Saint theology.
On the LDS’ genealogy search website, FamilySearch.org, the church offers this explanation of its members religious beliefs:
“We believe that every person is important and that families are meant to be both sacred and eternal. We encourage all people to find their ancestors and preserve their family histories. To help in this great pursuit, the Church has been actively gathering and preserving genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years.” (cont.)