Predatory Algae (Horrorstory Contest Entry for Cryptails #1)
“Algae are the future”
This had been the tagline of Dr. Hofmann’s research for years. Over and over again, he had explained to people how important it was to direct money to the research of the diverse family of algae. Food production, energy production, pharmaceuticals, fertilization of crops. Algae had the potential to be used everywhere.
It had been the best day in his career when the institute had finally decided to fund his research on dinoflagellates, tiny single cell algae with an interesting characteristic: Many of them were predatory and thus eating other tiny organisms.
Luciella masanensis had been discovered relatively early at the beginning of the 21st century. Some called them the fish killers, as they thrived best when feeding on the blood cells of living fish. Several fish farms had lost all their animals because L. masanensis had been discovered way too late.
For Dr. Hofmann, the deadly algae had always had the potential for greatness that he just had to unlock. But it hadn’t been possible for a long time. Genetic engineering was just too costly. But then, CRISPR/Cas9 had been added to the tools of biotechnical research.
Basically overnight, there was a way to make precise changes to the genome of living cells. And it was cheaper, faster and more specific than anything that had been there before.
From there on, it had all gone by the textbook. The genome of L. masanensis had been changed so that they preferably targeted cancerous blood cells in the human body. The goal had been to find an alternative to chemotherapy and radiation therapy that was less dangerous for the patient, with less side effects and hopefully no long-term effects.
When the experiments on cell lines had proven successful, Dr. Hofmann’s team had moved on to animal testing and finally, they had gotten permission to start clinical trials on humans. Since then, everything had been going really well.
It was the second month of treatment for the twenty leukemia patients that had volunteered for the experimental treatments and all of them already looked a lot healthier. Dr. Hofmann took it as his responsibility to check on every single one of them at least once a day.
“Mrs. Fisher, how are we today?” He asked the elderly woman in the bed he was standing in front of.
“I’m feeling fine, Dr. Hofmann, thank you. My grandkids will visit later today!”
“And I’m sure they will be happy to see that your health is improving every day. You should soon be ready for the bone marrow transplant.”
“That would be just wonderful!” The woman exclaimed with a smile.
Dr. Hofmann left the room to visit the last few of his patients. On the hallway, he encountered Mrs. Fisher’s family who greeted him when he was walking past.
In the next room, there was a young child, eleven years old. The boy had already been treated with radiation therapy before he joined the trial. His parents feared the possibility that he’d develop cancer in a different way when he was older because of the radiation. Dr. Hofmann empathized with their fear. He would feel the same in their place.
When entering, he greeted the boy’s parents. The father got up from his chair and shook Dr. Hofmann’s hand, while the mother stayed behind. She looked sick.
“Is everything okay, Mrs. Meyer?” He inquired. “You don’t look well. Would you allow me to perform a blood test?”
He had half expected the woman to refuse, but she just looked at him and slowly nodded.
A bit later
It couldn’t be. But he had checked and repeated the test several times himself, there was no room for doubt. Somehow, the dinoflagellates used to treat the child’s leukemia had ended up in the mother’s blood stream. That wouldn’t have been such a problem if they had just done what they were supposed to do, but they didn’t.
The lack of cancerous blood cells had apparently put enough selective pressure onto the algae that they had started to attack healthy blood cells. Wildtype versions of L. masanensis would not have been able to feed on human blood cells, but he had modified them to do exactly that. And he didn’t know how to stop them.
It was a nightmare. Dr. Hofmann instructed his team to perform blood tests on all the patient’s relatives. They came back positive, all in various states of progression. He ordered tests on the hospital staff.
All positive. Even himself.
L. masanensis had spread everywhere and the human immune system couldn’t fight it, because it was devoured every time it encountered the pathogen. The effect was even more drastic than with AIDS.
How many more people were infected? Everyone in the hospital had had contact with the outside world. There was no way of knowing how far it had spread. In this moment, Dr. Hofmann realized, that he made a big mistake.
He might soon be responsible for the death of millions, if not billions of people. And he had no idea how to prevent it.
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17552978
https://www.cancer.gov/types/leukemia
https://www.cancer.gov/types/leukemia/patient/adult-all-treatment-pdq#section/_34
https://www.neb.com/tools-and-resources/feature-articles/crispr-cas9-and-targeted-genome-editing-a-new-era-in-molecular-biology
Picture taken from pixabay.com
The genetically bio-engineered foods that are being snuck into our food supply has the real potential for something entirely unsuspected to happen.
Your interesting story is just one in a billion ways that things could go bad for the human race.
And now way too many genetically mutated crops are currently being grown in wide open farms around the world that are susceptible to floods, tornadoes and etc. These new life forms can no longer be contained.
Thank you for your sci fi story that shows the carelessness of some scientists.
While I'm glad you like my story, I have to heavily disagree.
I'm a biologist. I know how to manipulate the genome of plants and what will happen if I do. That's how I was able to make this story somewhat realistic.
But that also makes me qualified to tell you that GMO foods aren't the problem.
The pesticides they're sprayed with are.
The crops are not manipulated in a way that's harmful to us, but the pesticides not only harm us but are also killing the bees.
Please direct your justified anger towards the right evil.
Thanks for your knowledgeable reply. It's an honor to have a chat with an expert.
I appreciate your corrections to my limited knowledge on the subject.
I agree with you about the pesticides. Our ecosystem, while very robust, just might not overcome every assault we or nature throws at it. Reductions in the bee population can have devastating effects on certain crop productions and thereby reducing the food available to the world.
I'm also concerned about the pesticide gene that makes pesticide in the plant. I have read that it was placed in the plant DNA by a bacteria. When we or animals eat those plants with that gene, isn't it remotely possible that the gene could be picked up by one of our gut bacteria, which naturally multiply, and produce pesticide in our gut?
Another concern is that there are so many genetically modified foods coming to farms and therefore the market, and each one is unique, and while many may be perfectly safe, isn't it remotely possible that certain genetic modifications could have unintended consequences that could arise in our complex ecosystem or our children's health in ways that we hadn't considered beforehand?
Adding a foreign gene to a plant makes it transgenic.
Transgenic plants are only allowed "outside" if they're made infertile, because of exactly your concerns.
Everything you see outside that is fertile
has modifications that could have happened naturally and were just forced to happen faster.
There are many ways to manipulate a plant's genome and many, many rules apply to it.
And before a plant is deemed safe for human consumption, it is throughly tested for safety and possible dangers.
For an example on how genetic manipulation works, you could read my "Why we squish no-squish tomatoes" story.
Thank you again for your insight.
When I think about how many medications that were thoroughly tested for safety but later had to be recalled because of unexpected problems, causes me to wonder just how thoroughly tested the genetic modified foods were when there is so much money involved.
I also have read that the effects on children, fetuses and future generations may not have been thoroughly tested.
I just don't believe we have all the pieces of the puzzle yet. And the issue of labeling foods that contain various genetic mutations seems to have an endless supply of money to fight labeling that would let mothers easily choose whether or not to feed it to her young children.
Hi, @suesa! I’d like to add my perspective to Jean’s feedback:
Dr. Hoffman was an alluring character, and following his hurdles with experimentation made for a very interesting read. I very much liked the addition of referential links to inform the reader about the technology being used, this was a good example of incorporating the medium into your writing.
The idea behind this story was very appealing, but perhaps the delivery could have been improved. The pacing of the story could have been more effective at evoking fear in the reader and building up to the big reveal. While the story was solid, I was hard pressed to feel the ‘horror’ it was meant to convey, perhaps because of the pacing troubles mentioned above.
Thank you very much for you submission, it was a very enjoyable read. Keep it up!
Wooo Great...
Hey suesa! I just wanted to let you know your entry is now participating in Cryptails #1. Good luck! It looks like a great story! ;)
Amazing story, Sue! I had no doubts about how your scientific approach would translate into powerful horror narrative, and I was not mistaken! The algae, absent any form of consciousness or volition, ultimately become a force of nature, one before which we puny humans are completely helpless. Lovecraftian.
The one line I have quarrels about is your scene transition after paragraph 17. By using “A bit later” to convey the passing of time, you created an abrupt stop that hindered the pacing of an otherwise fluent and dynamic narrative. Had you noted that time difference with a milder conjunctive construction (such as adding “After analyzing Mrs. Meyer’s blood” or something along those lines to the start of the following parragraph), the cadence of your story would have remained untainted.
Despite that minor hiccup, your text was truly a pleasure to read.
Best of lucks in the contest!
All best,
Jean
Thank you for your feedback!
I though a long time about how to write this one specific sentence but for some reason, nothing felt right. Because of this, I accepted a rather abrupt break in favor of not stressing myself too much.
I have the tendency to scrap the whole story when one single thing doesn't work out :P
I'm happy that you liked the rest of it and I'm eager to see how the contest turns out!
I love the ending to this, it only makes me want to read more.
Whoops, but also, now we're going to be scared of good science. NO!
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nice post :)
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