Pandemic

Title: Pandemic

Author: Robin Cook

Publisher: Macmillan, 2018 (First)

ISBN: 9781509892945

Pages: 386

Gene editing is an exciting new technology that is making rapid progress in medicine. Genetic disorders have a sense of inevitability inherent to them in the way that they do not follow a cause-and-effect paradigm which other diseases do to a considerable extent. If you smoke regularly, there is a very high chance to contract lung cancer and if you are used to booze in liberal quantities, damage to the kidney is guaranteed. But genetic diseases like various cancers do not operate like this. The recipe for the disease is in the genome of the patient right from birth but the malignancy gets triggered at a time when we least expect it. No amount of precaution or healthy living can change the outcome. That is why a way to edit malfunctioning genes became necessary. ‘Pandemic’ is the story of a thrilling adventure associated with complications arising out of gene modification and organ transplantation.

Dr. Jack Stapleton, the leading medical examiner of New York city and the protagonist of many of Cook’s novels encounters a unique and dreadful disease that affects the respiratory system and kills the victim within one or two hours. At first, he compares it to the 1918 flu pandemic which showed a few strains of a very virulent pathogen. Jack identifies the death to have been caused by a process called ‘cytokine storm’ in which the body’s immune cells reacts against a relatively harmless external agent in its system. This reaction causes secretions and inflammation in the lungs and the victim literally drowns in his body fluids. Seeing the dead person having a recent heart transplant, Jack wonders why she was not under a regimen of immunosuppressant drugs which would have reduced the severity of the immune reaction. But his consternation is aroused when a genetic examination reveals that the DNA from the victim’s body and the transplanted heart matched exactly. The real action begins at this point.

Cook successfully reflects the level of unease in the US regarding cutting edge research on the frontiers of molecular biology conducted by overseas business corporations, especially the Chinese. The antagonist of the story is a billionaire Chinese scientist who wants to pull out of the stifling capital movement restrictions imposed by the People's Republic, but unwilling to play by the equally strict rules in America regarding clinical trials of new drugs. Wei Zhao, the super-rich Chinese businessman cuts corners whenever it suited his interests under the guise of providing comfort to people in dire need of organ transplants rather than waiting for painstaking licensing procedures that may take weeks or months to complete. Predictably, Dr. Stapleton crosses his path through sheer intelligence which leads to serious consequences. The author also introduces a new generation of Chinese millennials who exhibit a very high level of nationalism born out of the tremendous economic progress made by the country and who are animated by a strong desire to be a part of the Chinese success story in the coming decades. Wei Zhao’s efforts are thwarted by these rebels who enjoy the connivance of the Chinese regime.

Of course, in a thriller everything is solved in the end and the hero revels in the disclosure he had made in the face of grave personal risk. However, his final escape and the nuanced outcome of the story present a bit of an anti-climax. Cook fails to maintain the tight tempo he had built up in the first three quarters of the book to the quick and much too easy denouement that faces the readers in the final quarter. Anyway, the technologies handled in the book such as CRISPR/CAS9 gene editing techniques and growth of customised human organs in other animals such as pigs provide an interesting new field of operations for molecular biologists.

The book is highly recommended

Rating: 3 Star