Unforgotten: A Genetic Analysis

My novel this semester, Jessica Brody’s Unforgotten, is about a girl from the future named Sera, who had escaped to the past in an attempt to evade agents of the company that created her. She is the prototype for artificially-created humans but disliked her life and ran away, and the company wants her back. While such technology as that which is needed to generate a complete being is still far off in our present, scientists are already making progress and discovering more about this field. Many similarities between this fictitious world and our own can be seen, as exemplified by the article “Scientists Debate How Far To Go In Editing Human Genes”, by Rob Stein. Primarily notable are the logistical and physical parallels between the technologies. Sera has enhanced senses and …show more content…
Sera is upset that she was created, confined, and tested on without any choice of her own, and sees the detached and uncaring practices of the scientists as very negative, hence she ran away. Furthermore, the time-travel gene that she was given, while harmless to her, causes terrible illness and death to most people. Today, people fear unintended consequences that could result from modification, as not much is know about what effects it could have, possibly including new diseases. Additionally, some are worried about the ethical ramifications of changing the DNA of a child, and possibly putting it at risk, when it is impossible for it to have any say in the matter, a major issue that Sera also faces. Overall, many connections exist between current events, as represented in Stein’s article, and my novel. They both show the possibilities of human genetic modification, although they differ somewhat, and explain the moral dilemmas associated with this technology, and I think that a lot can be learned about our future in this field from these two