My novel, Mindweavers, explores the theme of how history's darkest chapters yield its most important ethical lessons. Some of humanity’s most abysmal moral failures—and ironically, the cradle of modern bioethics—occurred during World War II experiments conducted by Nazi physicians on both Jews and on its apologists, Jews included. As my novel suggests, from 1942 to 1945 15,000 documentable experiments were carried out by Nazi doctors on concentration camp inmates, although the real number is assumed to be far higher. The victims of these experiments included many nationalities and age groups, and almost a quarter of the known victims were killed either immediately or within a short period of time, and most suffered terrible permanent injuries. The violence was systematic and state sanctioned, aided by IBM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust).
At Auschwitz and elsewhere, prisoners were subjected to experiments intended to assist German military personnel, develop new weapons, facilitate the recovery of injured military personnel and advance Nazi racial and eugenic goals — among them Josef Mengele’s infamous twin experiments. It should also be noted that such experiments were performed without permission and with no consideration for human rights. Much of the research was motivated by the Nazi regime’s preoccupation with racial “purity.” They sought the "biological improvement" of the German people by eugenic programs of selective breeding, the principle whereof that the Nazis borrowed directly from Bolsheviks policies: they wanted type of Germanic people breeding like with like and then put the mother and infant in cages. Those laws became the basis of involuntary sterilization and mass murder of those considered to be “undesirable.” And among the most chilling, perhaps, was the Nazi fascination with twins. Mengele’s Auschwitz research was part of a wider study of genetics using twins. He tortured twins with painful measurements and injections of unknown substances, among a myriad of other brutal experiments. Many also were killed following experiments, so that the organs could be compared. All of this in the service of the pseudoscientific theories of racialism and racial supremacy. The terrible legacy of these crimes was the formulation of the Nuremberg Code in 1947, the first universal decree to express the need for informed consent in human experimentation. That ground-breaking code of ethics grew out of the Doctors’ Trial at Nuremberg, a case in which Nazi doctors defended themselves by claiming “military necessity” had forced them to experiment on innocent human beings. The world’s answer was perfectly clear: never again.
Genetic Science and Modern Technology Genetic Science -Through the Lens of Horror
Nazi experimentation has long hung over the aspects of genetic science. But in the years that followed, respect for genetics as a legitimate field of study revolutionized our understanding of the genes and even bestowed upon us a mighty power to manipulate those genes at the molecular level. The structure of DNA, found in the 1950s, hailed a revolution in genetic science. By the 1970s, researchers had created rudimentary methods of editing genes, but they were crude, costly and time-consuming. Its landscape has been transformed with the development of CRISPR-Cas9 (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology in 2012, which has redefined the field of genetic manipulation. CRISPR-Cas9 has dramatically changed the landscape of genetic manipulation, effectively reducing financial and technical hurdles to practice genetic engineering. What used to take months and millions of dollars can now be done relatively quickly, cheaply and precisely. This kind of democratization of genetic technology is fraught with promise and peril. The technology has enormous possibilities for good. Scientists are investigating CRISPR’s utility in fixing deadly genetic mutations, developing disease-resistant crops and treating serious diseases, including cancer. Researchers in top institutions are even working on applications that had seemed impossible, such as age reversal and xenotransplantation. But as genetic technologies become more accessible, the potential for abuse increases. CRISPR tech could, in theory, be abused to create enhanced pathogens that spread more rapidly, infect more individuals, result in nastier illness, or resist treatment. What it means for developing bioweapons is alarming.
The Mindweavers - Fiction As Reality My novel's virus serves as a powerful literary device to explore very real concerns in genetic engineering. Like other science fiction, it extrapolates from current technological capabilities to warn of possible futures. The Mindweaver virus mirrors real-world concerns about gain-of-function research—scientific work that deliberately alters organisms to enhance certain properties, such as transmissibility or virulence. Gain-of-function studies consist of serially passaging microorganisms to enhance their transmissibility, virulence, immunogenicity, or host tropism. However, the kind of research that seeks to develop countermeasures to potential natural threats also is rife with risks. The equivalent problem in biology in the 21st century is the risk that biology as we know it might be misapplied to produce otherwise more dangerous forms of biological agents. Emerging technologies such as CRISPR, gene drives and synthetic biology present new opportunities for human progress — but also new tools for potential disaster. My Mindweaver virus is not unlike what we can already do with CRISPR. Advanced forms of genetic engineering, such as CRISPR, could be turned to make designer pathogens with greater impact—erasing the distinction between natural disease outbreaks and intentional bioweapons. COVID-19 has already shown how susceptible the world is to new pathogens irrespective of their origin.
The Mindweaver's use in fiction to single out populations also echoes a real biosecurity worry. Some experts are concerned that digital organisms could be programmed to target populations or individuals through memetic rather than kinetic actions. Current technology does not yet enable such precise targeting, but genetics research is moving in that direction, he said. The Bioethical Crossroads As technologies in genetic engineering have developed, Western culture has approached a critical bioethical crossroads. Decades earlier, the questions we are confronted with today resonate with those provoked by the Nazi experiments — but in a very different context: How can we ensure that powerful technologies work for human welfare, not for human destruction? Who should oversee how these technologies are used? What barriers should be set for genetic study? Global governance of them is still fragmented and has much room to grow. There is relatively little international guidance on when to modify non-human organisms outside of the Biological and Chemical Weapons Convention, which is designed to prohibit research into and development of biological weapons. For human use, oversight is quite varied country by country. The moral discussions about GE are complicated. The overarching ethical issues are risks of harm, potential benefits, oversight, informed consent, justice, and avoidance of eugenics. These are not just scientific debates, they are debates in which ethicists, policy makers, theologians, and ordinary citizens are all involved. The question of who should decide regarding genetic technologies is a central issue. Can only technical experts do so? An amalgam of experts and bioethicists? Pillars of the community or religious? The people who are most at risk? The general public? There are no easy answers to these questions, but they are questions we need to grapple with as technology progresses. Some scientists worry that unchecked, CRISPR’s democratization could allow bad actors to fashion biological weapons on the cheap with minimal infrastructure and potentially devastating consequence. Traditional models of international security may be unsuitable to handle these threats. Editorial: Balancing Innovation and Security Balancing the needs of innovation with appropriate safeguards is the way forward. The United States, along with other countries, should involve themselves in global health, bioethics and normative organizations to shape international standards in accordance with common values and interests. It is, however, important to strengthen international frameworks like the Biological Weapons Convention. Self-regulation by the scientific community is particularly important. When Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced last year that he was trying to create gene-edited babies, the outpouring of condemnation was near universal. NICD2 shows the power of professional norms in fostering responsible research. Education is also vital. Bioethics also should be incorporated into scientific training to help researchers grasp the moral implications of their work, particularly when it uses powerful technologies like CRISPR, the report says. And that education needs to reach beyond scientists, to policymakers and the public. That more and more of the public are involved is what matters. Matters of gene technology impact us all, but the technical details can shut non-experts out of the discussion. It is difficult to make those conversations available and inclusive."
Other Novels That Confront Genetic Warfare
The moral dilemmas presented by genetic manipulation and bioweapons, raised in my novel, have been raised in many novels. Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (1932) also remains one of the earliest and most remarkably prescient studies of the genetic engineering of human beings. Written decades before DNA’s structure was known, it envisages a society in which humans are genetically engineered and conditioned for particular social roles. Its discussion of eugenics and genetic determinism also echoes current concerns over genetic engineering. The first novel in Margaret Atwood’s trilogy, “Oryx and Crake” (2003), gives us a near-future world crushed by a corporate-engineered pandemic. The protagonist’s friend Crake sets in motion a bio engineered apocalypse, intending to replace imperfect humans with his genetically perfected humanoids. Atwood’s work explores how genetic technology in the hands of private individuals might spell doom, but the kind of doom that’s controlled not by state power but by individual ideology. “The Andromeda Strain” (1969) and “Jurassic Park” (1990), both by Michael Crichton, delve into the dystopian implications of genetic technologies gone wrong. In the first, researchers grapple with an alien pathogen, underscoring the danger of new biological forces. In that movie, genetic engineering recreates dinosaurs with catastrophic results, proving that even the best of intentions in genetic manipulation may produce unwanted and unmanageable outcomes. Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go” (2005) looks at genetic engineering from a different angle, exploring a society in which cloned humans are brought into the world for the sole purpose of being organ donors. These are some of the profound questions raised by its restrained, devastating narrative about what it means to be human in the age of genetic technologies. Ken Alibek’s “Biohazard” (1999) is nonfiction but reads like a thriller in bringing us through the Soviet Union’s bioweapons program. Authored by one of the deputy directors of Biopreparat, the Soviet bioweapons interceptor, this account is shocking in its revelation of the state of the art as well as the state of the politics during the cold war biological warfare programs. These works reveal in which ways fiction plays a role in enabling us to grapple with complicated ethical, social, and political dimensions of genetic technologies. They are thought experiments that let us imagine how things might be in the future without having to live through those futures, and they can offer our overburdened system valuable perspective as we slog through the reality of life and death issues.
Lessons from History to Protect Our Future
From Nazi experimentation to contemporary genetic engineering, the trajectory raises radically different intentions but shares the same ethical questions about the boundary of scientific inquiry and protection of human dignity. The Nazi experiments serve as a painful reminder of what happens when we separate scientific work and ethical conduct – when human dignity is forsaken in service of an ideology. The Nuremberg Code developed in the wake of those atrocities made clear that scientific advances should never compromise human rights. The frontiers of knowledge are infinitely expandable, especially in the field of genetic engineering. But they also produce new potential for harm that if left in the wrong hands can have devastating consequences. My novel's Mindweaver virus was meant to serve as a warning about where unchecked genetic manipulation could lead. By connecting historical abuses to contemporary possibilities, it invites readers to consider the ethical dimensions of genetic engineering and the importance of robust safeguards.
As we navigate this new frontier, we must remember the lessons of history while embracing the potential for positive transformation. The power to reshape life carries with it an awesome responsibility—one that requires wisdom, foresight, and an unwavering commitment to human dignity.