Mutation is a book written by Robin Cook about the ethics of genetic engineering. It brings up the benefits, risks, and consequences. Plot summary Victor Frank, and his wife Marsha, are unable to have a second child due to Marsha's infertility. They turn to surrogacy as an alternate method of conception. Victor, an obstetrician-gynaecologist and owner of the biochemical company Chimera Inc., injects the egg implanted in his wife with an agent called Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) into chromosome six, which causes the baby to grow more neurons than usual, as a result making them super intelligent. Their son, VJ (Victor Junior), is born a genius. He is able to talk in six months and read in thirteen. Victor wonders if his experiment was a mistake. Several years later, VJ's brother, David, and nanny, Janice, both die of an unexplainable rare form of liver cancer. At about three, VJ experiences a drop in intelligence, leading Victor to think his experiment is a failure. VJ is not a genius anymore. VJ lives a secluded life from that point, leading his psychiatrist mother to worry, to the annoyance of Victor who believes VJ is fine. When VJ turns eleven, a disastrous chain of events begins. Victor had injected two other eggs with NGF, which were given to two families who work at Chimera through the fertility clinic there. They both inexplicably die at age three because of brain edema. Victor later finds out they had been given the antibiotic Cephaloclor, which causes the nerve cell growth process to begin again. This causes their brains to grow too large for their skulls, killing them. Their parents, however, were told their children had deadly allergies to this antibiotic. Victor launches an investigation into the children's deaths, and finds no explanation for how they got the antibiotic. He also insists on VJ getting a full neurological work-up, making Marsha suspicious. Victor eventually reveals his experiment to Marsha, horrifying her. She then gives VJ a full psychological work-up as well. Nothing seems out of the ordinary in the results, but Marsha realizes the results don't seem to reflect VJ's real personality. This leads her to believe that he analyzed the tests and beat them. Victor, meanwhile, is having the DNA of the tumors that killed his older son and nanny analyzed. When the DNA in the tumors is sequenced, there is an identical strand of alien