Jurassic Park / Парк Юрского периода

The late twentieth century has witnessed a scientific gold rush: the haste to make genetic engineering profitable. Biotechnology promises the greatest revolution in human history. By the end of this decade, it will surpass atomic power and computers in its effect on our everyday lives; it is going to transform every aspect of human life: our medical care, our food, our health, our entertainment, and our bodies. Nothing will ever be the same again. It’s going to change the face of the planet.

When, in 1953, two young researchers in England, James Watson and Francis Crick, deciphered the structure of DNA, this was a triumph of the human spirit, of the centuries-old quest to understand the universe in a scientific way. It was expected that their discovery would be used to the greater benefit of mankind.

Yet thirty years later research in molecular genetics had become a vast, multibillion dollar industry.

In April 1976 Robert Swanson, a rich industrialist, and Herbert Boyer, a biochemist at the University of California founded a commercial company to exploit Boyer’s gene-splicing techniques. Their new company, Genentech, quickly became the largest and most successful of the genetic engineering start-ups. Suddenly everyone wanted to become rich. New companies were founded almost weekly, and scientists from universities went there to exploit genetic research and make money. By 1986, at least 362 scientists, including 64 in the National Academy, sat on the boards of biotech firms.

This shift in attitude actually was very significant. In the past, pure scientists took a snobbish view of business. They saw the pursuit of money as intellectually uninteresting, suited only to shopkeepers. And to do research for industry, even at the prestigious Bell or IBM labs, was only for those who couldn’t get a university appointment. Thus the attitude of pure scientists was fundamentally critical toward the work of applied scientists, and to industry in general. So there were independent university scientists free of industry ties, who could discuss the problems at the highest levels.

But that is no longer true. There are very few molecular biologists and very few research institutions without commercial interests. The old days are gone. Genetic research continues, at a more furious pace than ever. But it is done in secret, and in haste, and for profit.

In this commercial climate, a company named International Genetic Technologies, Inc., of Palo Alto, arose and went bankrupt. It created the genetic crisis that went nearly unnoticed. After all, InGen conducted its research in secret; the actual incident occurred in the most remote region of Central America; and fewer than twenty people were there to witness it. Of those, only a handful survived, and they were willing to discuss the remarkable events that lead up to those final two days in August 1989 on a remote island off the west coast of Costa Rica.

The tropical rain fell like wall, splashed on the ground in a torrent. Roberta Carter sighed, and stared out the window. From the clinic, she couldn’t see the beach or the ocean beyond. This wasn’t what she had expected when she decided to spend two months as a visiting physician in the village on the west coast of Costa Rica.

She had been in the village now for three weeks. And it had rained every day.

Everything else was fine. She liked the isolation of the place and the friendliness of its people. Costa Rica had one of the twenty best medical systems in the world, and even in this remote coastal village, the clinic was well maintained and supplied. Her paramedic, Manuel Aragon, was intelligent and well trained. Bobbie was able to practice a level of medicine equal to what she had practiced in Chicago.

But the rain! The constant, unending rain!

Across the examining room, Manuel cocked his head. “Listen,” he said.

“Believe me, I hear it,” Bobbie said.

“No. Listen.”

And then she caught the rhythmic thumping of a helicopter which burst low through the ocean fog and roared overhead, circled, and came back. She saw the helicopter swing back over the water, near the fishing boats. It was looking for a place to land.

Bobbie wondered what was so urgent that the helicopter would fly in this weather. The helicopter settled onto the wet sand of the beach. Uniformed men jumped out, and flung open the big side door. She heard frantic shouts in Spanish. They were calling for a doctor. She ran up to the helicopter.

“I’m Dr. Carter,” she said.

“Ed Regis. We’ve got a very sick man here, doctor.”

“Then you better take him to San Jose,” she said. San Jose was the capital, just twenty minutes away by air.

“We would, but we can’t get over the mountains in this weather. You have to treat him here.”

Bobbie trotted alongside the injured man as they carried him to the clinic. He was a kid, no older than eighteen. She lifted the blood-soaked shirt and saw a big slashing rip along his shoulder, and another on the leg.