[StarManta]

Part of the story arc in one of my games is going to be a megacorp researching how to artificially Awaken people (and, in one case the players have found so far, trying to transform mundanes into Drakes). I was wondering what is in the canon about this sort of experiment? I have zero doubt that they have tried repeatedly, though the RAW doesn't allow for it, so I assume no corp has actually succeeded. But what are the results of the experiments that have been tried? Have there been nasty side effects? Are there any adventures dealing with this sort of thing? I'd like to draw on established canon as much as possible for inspiration on this story.

[Black]

One of the earliest adventures DNA DOA had aztechnology experimenting on sinless orcs to try and mess with meta human DNA to  learn ow to artificially awaken someone.   It didn't work....  Also, I this there was someing in street magic, about attempts to map DNA and a shadow across he DNA structure, as in what makes mages mages is actually in the astral.

[I_V_Saur]

Street Legends, Home Edition, includes triplets who were 'vat grown' as one of Big D's projects. An Elf, an Ork, a Dwarf, one of them Awakened. All brothers, and at that sharing some sort of link that split damage amongst them.

Might not be considered Canon, but if you take that snippet as truth for your story, then it might only be the fetus that can be altered in such ways.

[Mirikon]

They have been trying since the Awakening to do that StarManta. It has never worked, and the results are usually... unpleasant.

[raggedhalo]

There also implicit evidence that magic doesn't have much to do with genetics: you can be an Escaped Clone (Runner's Companion) with or without any of the Awakened (or Emerged) qualities, but Escaped Clone makes no reference to your status in that regard having to be the same as the person you were cloned from...

There's countervailing evidence that magic has loads to do with genetics, of course (e.g. the optional rule that geneware hurts Awakened worse) so your mileage may vary, but it seemed worth saying...

[Mirikon]

There is evidence that Awakened/Emerged has something to do with genetics, but they can't isolate what gene it is, and they can't reproduce it in a lab. And it explicitly states that a clone of someone Awakened doesn't always Awaken. Hell, cloned ears from an elf aren't always pointy. And getting cloned or type O organs/limbs doesn't affect your aura, while getting bioware does. As with most things involving magic and science, when you get down to it, Magic has its own rules, and tells Science to go play with the other kids while the grownups talk.

[Black]

Read Augmentation, p.75 The metahuman genome, with focus on astral shadows and the magus factor.

Yes, corps are trying the artificially induce magic.  There is potential here because a number of people have the potential to Awaken but never do.  However, the fact that we are talking about working with dna and its astral shadow... so you need an assessing genetic engineer who can map both the physical and the astral... and then you have to combine the science and the magic and....ehhhh.... not really going to happen anytime soon, at least not with corp science and anything that looks remotely useful in a commercial sense.

[Mirikon]

You'll know the corps have unlocked how to force someone to Awaken when suddenly Damian Knight is a magician, despite his deltaware.

[I_V_Saur]

The first step will probably be the discovery of SURGE genetics, then backtracking to how Orks and Trolls came about. Which, of course, means that MoM and Humanis will end up in a massive brawl, and shadow work will boom for racists and anti-racists.

[Wakshaani]

Yeah, we have evidence of it in DNA-DOA, which is about a sold as it gets. Also in Shadowtech, and in a few other areas. (KAM is usually there to go, "Uhm. Boy. It';s ... hard. It's really ... really hard.")

In essence, the magic gene has a 5th dimension that you have to be watching astrally to catch, and even then, you kinda have to be watching right as it expresses, since magical talent starts awakening aorund puberty. CLoning babies doesn't pan out for several years, unless you speed-grow 'em, and none of those have pinged positive ... which means that the process itself might leech any magic out of the subject, or they just haven't cloned them right, or they didn't watch the right place at the right time, and, hey, if you give us a few more million in funding, we're SURE to get it next time, right?

Absolutely the Holy Grail of genetech, but nobody's gotten even close, yet.