The Borshov Effect

Other breakthroughs came quickly: genes were being synthesized in the laboratory, cancer-causing genes were identified, gene splicing led to the first recombinant-DNA molecule, the mutation in DNA by cancer-causing chemicals was established and many successful genetic engineering trials had been conducted. The implications that genetic engineering presented were soon front-page news and the scientific world was forced to address the issues. To stem the groundswell of political and religious concerns with genetic engineering, hundreds of scientists gathered in Pacific Grove, California in February 1975 at the Asilomar Conference Center to set down guidelines to strictly regulate recombinant-DNA research.

As accepted a procedure that in vitro fertilization was then, human cloning was only a whisper in scientific circles, a glimpse into the future in the minds of theoretical scientists, biologists and biochemists. However, two Harvard University scientists in Boston, Nina Borshov and Margaret Lynch, who did not attend the Asilomar conference, were pregnant in-vitro. The pre-embryo cells that were transferred into their wombs were different from any human transfer ever performed. The birth of their four children would turn back the time clock of humanity to the days of Eden. The twins that would soon develop to full term in each woman’s womb were perfect, genetically engineered clones. The thrilling story about the cloned twins Nina and Margaret gave birth to is here for the reading in John Clarence’s novel, The Borshov Effect. …Genesis 6:4 “When the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown.”

A Note from John Clarence: 

My interest in human cloning began in 1978 when I watched The Boys from Brazil. The film won three Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor (Laurence Olivier), Best Music, and Best Film Editing. Gregory Peck played Josef Mengele who developed clones of Adolf Hitler. Olivier, a Jewish Nazi hunter, set out to stop Mengele’s evil plan. Chrissy Stockton’s “Creepy Catalog” (https://creepycatalog.com/clone-movies/) of the top 21 clone movies listed The Boys from Brazil, Creator, Oblivion, and Aeon Flux. In the Creator, Peter O’Toole played Harry Wolper whose life’s mission was to clone his wife for “companionship” in his twilight years. The knockout punch clone movie for me was the 2013 film, Oblivion, starring Tom Cruise who played Jack, one of thousands of “Jacks” cloned in the Tet, a giant 30-mile-wide “tetrahedral space station” orbiting the earth in the year 2077 (https://www.reelviews.net/reelviews/oblivion). In the film, Aeon Flux, Charlize Theron plays the lead role as the character, Aeon Flux, an assassin “for a group of anti-government rebels known as the Monicans.” It’s 2415 and only 1% of the world population has survived a global viral pandemic. In the end, Flux finally realizes that “humanity has only been kept alive for the past four centuries through cloning.” But it was in a review of the Aeon Flux film that caused me to reflect on a time in 2004 when I got the notion to write a novel about cloning. I had given it considerable thought; the story had to be engrossing, believable, and above all, human––and not creepy. In Chrissy Stockton’s list of the 22 best cloning films, James Berardinelli, in reviewing Aeon Flux, said, “Someday, someone is going to make a great feature about cloning.” His comment triggered a memory of that moment in 2004 when I began writing an outline for The Borshov Effect. I recently put the finishing touches on the book and just maybe The Borshov Effect is the book James Berardinelli was talking about.