Designer pathogensBioengineers today emphasize the crucial ingredient Dr. Frankenstein forgot – responsibility

By Ian Haydon

Published 6 March 2018

Mary Shelley was 20 when she published “Frankenstein” in 1818. Two hundred years on, the book remains thrilling, challenging and relevant — especially for scientists like me whose research involves tinkering with the stuff of life. Talk of “engineering biology” makes a lot people squeamish, and technology can turn monstrous, but I read Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” not as an injunction against bioengineering as such. Rather, the story reveals what can happen when we – scientists and nonscientists alike – run away from the responsibilities that science and technology demand. Victor Frankenstein was certainly careless and perhaps a coward, unable to own up to the responsibility of what he was doing. We now know that science is best conducted with humility, forethought and in the light of day.

Mary Shelley was 20 when she published “Frankenstein” in 1818. Two hundred years on, the book remains thrilling, challenging and relevant — especially for scientists like me whose research involves tinkering with the stuff of life.

The story of Dr. Victor Frankenstein is familiar: A deranged scientist muddles with corpses and creates a monster. Or, a naive young man makes a mistake and is forced to live with it. Or, a college student dives headfirst into biotechnology without once considering the consequences.

The prose may be a bit dated, but the issues at the heart of “Frankenstein” feel modern. Biotechnology and bioengineering are real things now. Scientists can still be blinded by their passions. And, just as true today as in pre-Victorian Britain, the future is hard to predict.

“Frankenstein” endures because it addresses a perennial fear: What if science goes too far? What happens if we build something we don’t understand and can’t control? Are there certain roads in science or technology that we just shouldn’t go down?

As a doctoral student in synthetic biology, my day job is to try to engineer life. And after rereading “Frankenstein,” I couldn’t shake one thought: If Mary Shelley were writing the book today, Victor would surely be a synthetic biologist.

Building life
Victor Frankenstein, the character who creates the Creature (who, in the book, has no name), was 17 when he left home to study natural science at university. An eloquent professor sparks a passion in him. Victor resolves to take science further than anyone – to “explore unknown powers,” as he puts it. Within three years, Victor begins digging up dead bodies.

Clearly Victor takes his passion — or perhaps obsession — too far. But what Victor did – taking different parts from living things and stitching them together — is not on the face of it that different from the field of research I work in.

Synthetic biology seeks to engineer new biological systems such as biomolecules, metabolic pathways or cells, using either natural or synthetic parts.