Like millions of people in America, I saw producer Guillermo del Toro’s interpretation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein during the fourth quarter of 2025. I walked away from the hours looking through del Toro’s lens, mulling over an array of bioethical questions—some unique to my professional work in biotechnology and clinical research, some likely common to most viewers. Many center on relationship and the role of relational connectivity in the human experience.
Del Toro’s film specifically makes me think about loneliness—that is, loneliness as an inherent and pervasive perception of being apart from meaningful, sustained connection with other creatures like oneself. Del Toro’s monster is immortal, conscious, and demonstrates capacity for love, learning, communication, and connection. Del Toro emphasizes the monster’s desire to relate to such an extent that its eternal loneliness is highlighted as the closing scene in del Toro’s movie.
Considering the ethical landscape surrounding Frankenstein’s monster through the lens of loneliness yields some of the same conclusions that Shelley, seemingly del Toro, and Christian theologians reach through the Frankenstein story—put simplistically, that bioethically “playing God” yields negative consequences, and that biotechnological development pursued for the sake of itself, rather than in thoughtful service to sick and hurting people with defined needs, can create havoc for both scientist and created creature. Looking through the lens of loneliness, however, can bring us to the same conclusion by a path that may have application for modern clinical research and study design.
Though today interpersonal connectivity is often openly debated in medical public policy and emerging considerations of medical practice, the same cannot be said of clinical research. In fact, in the biotechnological clinical research space outside of mental health research, connectivity is often viewed as an undesirable variable that can skew results by contributing to a placebo effect. While a myriad of mental and emotional healthcare questionnaires that are relatively standard in regulated research overseen by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) often include questions about social isolation or feelings of depression and anxiety, I have not personally encountered such a questionnaire in disease-based research that asks explicitly about loneliness in a spiritually meaningful way.
Concerning metrics, there is often discord between the patient experience and what scientific tools attempt to quantify. Specific to loneliness, research participants consistently report that if the clinicians administering a trial are kind, the extensive interaction with clinical providers often required in a trial can be a balm to an isolated mind, a tired body, and a worn spirit. At research sites where participants are batched (that is, patients living with the same disease or injury state are scheduled to receive treatment at similar times, so they and their families and caregivers often meet each other in waiting rooms, during treatment, or other overlapping time on site), patients again report that meeting other individuals walking a similar healthcare path can be uplifting and ease feelings of isolation. If relief from pervasive loneliness is considered good and to be desired, as del Toro’s Frankenstein seems to indicate, then there is an inherent tension between sick and hurting people craving connection and a system that, while it has the capacity to offer relief at least to some degree, often disincentivizes extension of that offering for the sake of (arguably) clearer data.
Del Toro’s monster is experiencing a magnitude of loneliness that I, as a viewer, interpreted as deep and pervasive. Though Shelley’s original monster is a sympathetic character, and Shelley deliberately blurs the line between man and creature in a manner meant to provoke questions about what makes us human, del Toro pushes harder. Del Toro’s production continues a seemingly growing Hollywood trend of attempting to humanize, or anthropomorphize, man-made technologies in a relationally attractive way (think The Wild Robot, for another example). I have personally met with scientists who would likely argue that Frankenstein’s monster constitutes a positive outcome—the monster, the result, is physically imposing, even immortal, something biohackers are spending millions of dollars today chasing. This monster can even feel. Frankenstein accomplished what he set out to do. What success! What science!
Despite any potential allure, a loneliness parameter would decisively limit research of the kind that led to the creation of Frankenstein’s monster. Experiential pain in general already has a place at the bioethical table, including in clinical research. Whether designing clinical trials or developing administration procedures for technologies, we are accustomed to considering the patient experience of pain, and in the United States often accountable to regulatory bodies for disclosing and reporting how the patient experience of pain will be considered and mitigated. These factors, however, are predominantly physical. Frankenstein suggests another type of pain should be considered—the mental, emotional, and spiritual experience of loneliness.
When extended to clinical research, the Frankenstein story could be a platform from which to begin systematically asking about potential impacts to human connection, should a given technology succeed in any way close to as envisioned. Were loneliness considered, Frankenstein’s experiment would not have passed an Internal Review Board (IRB); that is, the process by which external auditors in FDA-authorized research ensure basic rights and wellbeing of participants. The increasingly well-documented effects of loneliness on physical and mental health are sufficient to conclude that dooming a creature to a similar fate constitutes unique and indefensible cruelty. If the impact of loneliness is accepted, then, put deliberately dramatically, to create something fated for loneliness could be to mastermind torture. There are clear and bright lines between discussions of loneliness and clinical research in modern technological arenas such as artificial intelligence and humanoid robotics, longevity research, and perhaps less obviously, to fields like gene editing. However one chooses to extend the concept and in which direction of application, at an experiential level, del Toro’s Frankenstein provides an example of loneliness as a sufficiently significant experience of pain for the created that one can walk away from the film convicted that issues of loneliness and connectivity deserve a place in bioethical dialogue in clinical research.
The Christian position on loneliness delineates between “being alone” and the oppressive state portrayed by del Toro’s monster and has value in exploring complex experiences, such as loneliness, in meaningful and practical ways. Scripturally, loneliness as considered “being alone” is not inherently negative. Being alone with God is in fact foundational of the personal relationship with God, through Christ, activated by the Holy Spirit, that is the core promise of Christianity (Jer 29:13; Matt 6:6; Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; Heb 13:5). The Scriptures are equally clear that fellowship is part of God’s design and intention for humanity—God desires no part of his creation to end their story like del Toro’s monster (Isa 41:10; John 14:27; Rev 21:4). God comforts us so we can comfort others (2 Cor 1:3–4). Loving thy neighbor is not only a clearly articulated directive from God, but how well one does (or does not) do so can be practically considered an hour-by-hour barometer reflective of individual peace and closeness to God in practiced Christian life (Matt 22:29; Mark 12:31; Rom 13:8–10; Gal 5:14–15).
Whether a bioethicist chooses to approach a question from an overtly Christian position or from another starting point, del Toro’s Frankenstein clearly affirms that it is not good for man to be alone (Gen 2:18). The monster knows this, too, and in a scene reminiscent of Genesis, asks his creator to make him an immortal companion. Both Shelly and del Toro, then, open the door for the application of Christian principles to the Frankenstein story. Remaining focused on our chosen topic, scripturally among the greatest pains in the human experience is to feel a loneliness that results from separation from God (Mark 15:34). The triune God himself is a barrier to loneliness and comfort to humanity, and a primary function of the Holy Spirit is connective. The answer to the monster’s pain, then, and the monster-like pain we all might experience, including and especially when we are sick, hurting, and seeking hope for health, is God (Matt 9:35; John 3:15–16, 11:26).
May our spirit of scientific inquiry and research practices ever reflect the same.