Sequence-tories: Inspired narratives
DNA technologies have percolated our everyday lives and many of us are still unaware. These real-life inspired short stories are evidence enough to drive home the point ….
The Closure
Nia and Ryan waited anxiously throughout the day, checking their phones every few minutes. The sequencing report of their only embryo was awaited from the fertility clinic. The result would decide whether the embryo should be transferred into Nia’s uterus for possible implantation, or not. The cell phone didn’t ring that day but a detailed 5 pages report was sent on whatsapp. The result showed multiple changes throughout the DNA of the embryo, some potentially debilitating, or lethal. Clearly, the embryo was not recommended for in-utero transfer. There was a high probability that the resulting fetus would have a genetic defect, deformity, or might not survive. This could happen either in-utero or after birth. Nia and Ryan could not believe this was happening (again!) since the microbiologist had informed them of a visually healthy looking embryo just two days back. This had raised their hope. Three years earlier they had not had this sequencing information and had decided to go along with the transfer of a medium grade (++) embryo. After a joyous 28 weeks of twin gestation, one of the fetuses had started showing IUGR (Intra Uterine Growth Retardation). After an emergency C-sec and 25 difficult days in NICU, the preemie was laid to rest. Difficult as it was, this time around they decided against the transfer, and by default gave consent for the use of the embryo for research purposes.
Nia went inside their bedroom and gently kissed their sleeping toddler murmuring a silent prayer of gratitude for this little miracle! Ryan smiled tiredly as if reading her mind.
The Inheritance
Samyukta felt a sudden tightness in her chest as the second dose of anti-cancer drugs pumped through her veins in a dimly lit hospital room. She felt her blood pressure rise and her cheeks felt warm. She pressed the buzzer and a nurse promptly rushed in to turn off the line. Sam shut her eyes and drifted as the drugs to counter the side-effects started kicking in.
Ironically, being away from her country of birth, Sam had felt closer to her mother even more after she had passed on. Her physical form had made Sam travel to India often, but now she felt as if she was closer to her than ever! Her mother had fought a decade long battle with breast cancer and ultimately succumbed to cardiac complications. At her insistence Sam had taken the genetic test to see if she was susceptible to breast cancer as this trait is familial. Sam remembered crying over the phone when the results came to tell her mother that indeed she was! After a brief pause she heard her mother’s calming and reassuring voice. That voice had echoed in Sam’s mind for the next 7 years, every time she went to get her annual health check done.
This year the report was different. Sam promptly enrolled herself for her right breast removal so the aggressive tumorous cells could be contained before they had a change to start spreading. Today Sam rang the bell to mark the completion of her chemotherapy in an empty hospital corridor, witnessed only by her proud husband from a distance. Their eyes welled up as they embraced one another.
Once home, Sam decided to remove her head scarf and accept herself for what she had become. She sent her photograph to her family and friends giving a double thumbs up and a beaming smile across her fatigued face. She knew that there was still a lot of ground to cover but her mother’s voice nudged her to keep going; everything was going to be fine!
The Soothsayer
Dr Nair’s gaze was transfixed on his laptop screen with beads of sweat emerging on the corner of his forehead. Months of his team’s work mounted to nothing? As a scientist he was accustomed to failure, but this was different, many lives were at stake!
As a scientist in a government funded state-of the art genomic laboratory, the pandemic had required him to pause his research work so he could divert time and resources to contribute to the surveillance of the SARS-CoV2 virus. His sequencers and staff had also been working round the clock to match up to this unprecedented urgency.
Samples had been piling in his deep freezers for weeks but in the absence of the reagents required to run the sequencers, Dr Nair’s hand were tied. After over two months of wait and umpteen requests to his bosses, and their bosses, they finally received the consignment. He knew it would be a busy year-end for them. The sequencers went into over drive and the tetrabytes of data was streamlined for analysis on supercomputers simultaneously. Raghav, his senior doctoral student, entered Dr Nair’s room around mid-night with a pale blank expression to show him the sequencing results of the first batch of samples. Something was off, there must have been an error in the set-up. There had to be! How else would you explain the evolution of a virus in a matter of weeks!
The team ran confirmatory and cross-confirmatory tests, each time coming back with the same results. Dr Nair was sleep-deprived and physically exhausted when he communicated his reports, marking sure to mark them as ‘URGENT AND IMPORTANT’. A viral variant, a variant of concern (VoC), was circulating in the population and had suddenly increased in frequency among infected cases. Only time would tell what this meant for the pandemic which had been already raging for nearly a year. Was it increasing viral transmission or…, they had to wait and watch. Anyhow, the decision makers had to be warned and the public health system had to be alerted since many other sites had started reporting similar viral variants, even as the vaccine started rolling out.
Weeks later as cases increased exponentially and the second wave hit like a tonne of bricks, Dr Nair would often sit silently, well past mid-night, stone-faced looking into infinity through his lab window as red lights from a distance reflected off his face. The conundrum inside and outside had been deafening!
