Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) (11 page)

…

              Wednesday afternoon found Jessica hunched over her computer updating spreadsheets while Brett had gone over to the isolation lab to gather some additional data on the primate trials that were now all but wrapped up.  She paused for a moment to wonder about those monkeys.  They may be in the same fix as some other researchers soon she thought. They were all now immune to HIV and would be of no use for further drug testing for AIDS.  She was hoping that maybe they would be able to go to a primate rescue center when the phone rang.

“Hello, this is Dr. Driskall,” she answered.  “Yes, this is Dr. Jessica Driskall, how may I help you?”  She listened in silence to the person on the other end of the line.  Finally she answered, “Why of course we can, we would be honored, yes, we can catch a flight then.  That will be fine.  Yes, it was a pleasure to talk to you too, Dr. Basjani.”  Jessica hung up the phone as sat a moment in silence.  “Oh my God,” she thought to herself, “Brett is going to freak out!!!  We are meeting with the President of the United States next Thursday!!!”  She picked up the phone to call Brett, and then changed her mind.  Maybe I can surprise him she thought deviously.  I will tell him we have to meet some government flunky in Washington and then pull up at the White House….oh this will be sweet!

Jessica started thinking to herself that she would really have to take a look at her wardrobe for something to wear.  Her usual attire was jeans, a blouse and a lab coat.  That would just not do to wear to meet the President, not at all.  Sounds like we are going shopping tonight she grinned.  Her thoughts were interrupted by the phone ringing again.  “Now what?” she muttered.  She answered the phone to hear another unknown person’s voice.  “Yes,” she said, “this is Dr. Jessica Driskall.” The man on the line introduced himself.  “Yes,” she replied, “I have heard of you Mr. Greco, but I was not aware that you are the majority stock holder in Merck Inc.  Yes, my husband will be back in the lab here at four.  Of course, we would be happy to speak with you and show you around. Yes, we are looking forward to it. Goodbye.”

“Damn,” thought Jessica, first the President wants to meet us and now a Billionaire wants to drop by this afternoon and meet us.  All this before we even start the clinical trials!  She could not wait until Brett got back to the lab.  This was going to be fun!

Brett arrived back in the lab office around two thirty.  He found Jessica busy working on her computer.  “I have the final reports from the Primate trials,” he announced.  “Chet, the primate custodian at the bio lab had already compiled them for us.  He was really curious about what the results were but I just told him that he would be one of the first to get a copy of our results. I told him that it would take us at least several weeks to make any conclusions. What have you been up too, you still working on that spreadsheet?”

“I took care of a few urgent phone calls,” said Jessica.  “We need to be in Washington next Thursday morning to see Dr. Basjani, the head of the NIH. They are even arranging air fare and lodging for us.  In addition we have a Mr. Benjamin Greco coming by the lab this afternoon from Merck, to speak to us and look around the lab.”

“Greco, Greco,” Brett ruminated the name.  “I do not know of any Dr. Greco at Merck.”

“He is not a researcher, Brett,” Jessica replied.  “He is the major stockholder in Merck and also about the eighth richest man in the world.  He is probably coming up to shoot us for ruining his stock holdings.  Or, maybe he is so proud of us he will buy us a brand new fully equipped and staffed lab with a main frame computer.”

Brett frowned, “Guys in expensive designer suits do not usually go around offering money to people without a reason and they sure don’t have any business in our lab.  It will be interesting to see what he has to say.”

Benjamin Greco arrived promptly at four pm at the small off campus research/lab complex near Boston College.  His chauffeur got out and opened the door of the limousine.  Benjamin entered the building with his assistant who also doubled as his personal body guard.  Getting directions from the small receptionist desk at the entrance lobby, he acquired his visitors pass and made his way up to the small lab area the Driskalls used.  He could hear voices in the back room of the lab so he nodded for his assistant to wait outside the door and made himself at home.  He slowly walked around the lab looking at the multitude of charts, photographs of bacteria, and other lab
paraphernalia that covered the walls of the lab.  He noted that the Driskalls had been busy getting their results paper ready to be published as sections of it were neatly stacked on a small break table in the corner.

Jessica came around the corner and nearly ran into the dark haired man who was studiously looking over their papers she had sorted out on the table.  “Uh, excuse me,“ she said.  “Can I help you Mister.…?”

Mr. Greco extended his hand.  “I am Benjamin Greco,” he said as he shook her hand.  “I spoke to you this morning about visiting your little lab here.”

“It is nice to meet you Mr. Greco,” Jessica greeted.  “Brett, we have company,” she called to the back room.

Brett came out and offered his hand in greeting.  “It is a pleasure to meet you Mr. Greco.”  Brett noticed the hulking bodyguard watching them from outside the lab door.  “Maybe he did come to shoot us,” he said jokingly to Jessica.

Benjamin Greco looked out the door and saw they were speaking about his assistant standing alertly outside the door. “Tom is my administrative assistant,” he explained.

Jessica just grinned and answered. “Right, everybody, who is somebody, has administrative assistants who could bench press five hundred pounds and stand six feet and six inches tall.

Benjamin grinned back and acknowledged, “Well, he does have some other collateral duties.”

Brett said, “Well, welcome to our lab.  This is really more of an office for us.  All our clinical studies are over at the Boston College Bio Lab.  About all we do here is work with our computer we use for assessment and re-assembly algorithms.   We also do a little non-infectious experimentation here, although the hot samples are handled in the class-four lab.  So what can we do for you Mr. Greco?”

“Actually, I was informed Friday of your potential break through and I wanted to personally congratulate and meet the people who could make me quite a bit richer, or perhaps do the opposite and devastate my stock holdings in Merck.”

“Ah,” said Brett as it clicked.  “You were called by Doctor Sousa and he told you about his fears that our technology could make a lot of drugs and antibiotics obsolete.”

“In a roundabout way,” answered Benjamin.  “I do like to keep abreast of developments at Merck since I have a very heavy stock
interest in them.  I also personally finance several research projects within the company myself.”

Benjamin turned to look closer at a picture of what appeared to be a bacterium on the wall.  Jessica leaned over to whisper to Brett while Mr. Greco was not looking at them but never got the chance.

“What is this picture?” Benjamin asked.

Jessica answered. “That is a picture of a Helicobacter Pylori bacterium.  It uses the flagellum, the little tail you see, to propel itself around the fluid it is in.”

That’s funny,” Benjamin said, “It looks almost like a sperm cell.”

“Actually, they are quite physically similar in many ways,” said Jessica.  “Bacteria with flagella use their tails to swim around in search of food.   A sperm cell uses its tail to swim up the female reproductive tract in search of the egg so that it can attempt to fuse with it and fertilize the egg.  Many of the cells in the human body are just very adapted symbiotic cells that we have collected over the millions of years that we have evolved.  For example, your white blood cells are very similar to many amoebic single cell organisms in that they seek out and engulf other single cell organisms and proteins for food.  The cells lining the airways in your lungs are like millions of flagellate bacteria all lined up and using their tails to sweep dust and other contaminates back up out of your lungs.  Simple organisms like jelly fish and corals are similar in that that they have symbiotic organisms working together in the same way.  Higher life forms have just taken the process to the extreme.”

Benjamin turned back to them.  “Let me summarize what I know of your work to date and please correct me if I am wrong.  I am not a scientist, but I do invest in many companies that are on the cutting edge of technology.  Therefore, my desire is to look at the big picture so to speak.  You have developed a process for mapping and rapidly recording the RNA and DNA of viruses and then storing that information in a computer database as a blueprint, so to speak, of that particular virus.” 

Brett nodded his head in agreement.

“In addition,” continued Benjamin, “you are able to manipulate that data and then reverse the whole process and actually recreate the virus at will and can also manipulate its genetic makeup also if desired.” 

Brett nodded his head in affirmation again. “That is pretty much a simple outline of the process, yes.  However, it is not a rapid process.  The amount of computing power required to analyze each segment of
that RNA or DNA molecule, determine exactly what it does, and try to manipulate it and analyze what the end result will be is very processor extensive.  It took us almost seventeen weeks of computing time just to perfect the process on the HIV virus.  Then, we have to go back and look at all the different variations that have existed and determine what its basic structure is.  All the various mutated forms of it are simply adaptations of its outer protein shell that it has evolved to bypass the host organism’s immune system response.  The basic RNA does not vary that much.  Using the knowledge of that process, we were able to make a tiny change in its RNA structure where it can no longer invade the immune cells that are trying to destroy it.”

Benjamin looked thoughtful and spoke. “So in essence, your most limiting factor is how good a computer you have for all the data processing?”

“Well, that and just lack of space for setting up additional equipment,” said Brett.  “The electro-phosphoresis tanks are bulky and very expensive.  We are hoping that if the clinical trials get off to good start, Merck will be willing to invest in some better equipment for us.  Probably at that point though, since they have rights to use our discovery, they will set up a large lab of their own and mass produce the vaccines that we have shown are possible.” Then, I guess we will be back to looking for another grant for additional research, most likely working with microbial bacteria DNA.”

“So, let me make sure I understand,” said Benjamin.  “You believe that you can do this with bacteria, and make vaccines for them also?”

“The process will be a little different,” interjected Jessica.  “Breaking down and processing the DNA will be pretty similar, as will storing the DNA.  That DNA could then be analyzed, manipulated, re-produced and then swapped out with a living bacteria’s DNA.  It would then be allowed to re-produce as normal but with the changes that were made. Then, that altered bacteria could be used to develop a vaccine. It will also be a much easier way of creating application specific bacteria.  If you needed, say bacteria that would absorb, say certain heavy metals, and then concentrate them and excrete then as bound sediment, it would be possible to do so with our process.  This could all be simulated on a computer if it was powerful enough, instead of years of trial and error in vitro. Our real goal at the moment though, is the development of vaccines.  We are concentrating on the medical aspects of this process.”

Benjamin looked at the picture on the wall again.  “So theoretically you could breed bacteria like this one that would not harm humans.”

“Not exactly,” said Jessica.  “We could, but the old strain would still exist.  Many bacteria are detrimental to their hosts because they produce toxins that are poisonous.  They produce endotoxins.  The bacteria get in a human hosts body and reproduce in such massive numbers that the immune system cannot kill them all.  The toxins damage organs such as the kidneys, liver, etc. and that is how they are dangerous.  What we would do for combating bacterial infections is to develop a strain of those bacteria that does not produce the endotoxin.  Then, they could be injected as a vaccine.  The immune system would see that bacteria as an invader, develop antibodies and immune cells that would then remember that bacteria.  They would then kill off the bacteria in the vaccine in the process.  The remaining antibodies and immune cells that are left will be present for an extended period of time, sometimes for a life time.  If the original bacteria ever invade that person’s body, the defenses are already in place to fight it and the person never gets sick.”

Still looking at the picture, Benjamin asked another question “I have another theoretical question that your picture has brought to mind.  If sperm cells are very similar to this this bacteria, could you not develop a vaccine to sperm cells that could be given to females that would make them immune to getting pregnant?”

Brett looked thoughtful and replied, “Well, I suppose you could, although the process would be a little more complicated as sperm cells do not reproduce.  They only contain one half the DNA that a normal human cell does. the other half of the DNA comes from the female, the egg.  So you could not reproduce them in vitro.  You would probably have to develop a donor that produced sperm that had a small change to their cell wall that could not penetrate and join with the egg.  The sperm could then be injected as a vaccine and the woman’s body would build up defenses to destroy any sperm that managed to get into her reproductive tract, similar to the way it kills bacteria in the womb to keep a fairly sterile environment for the fetus to develop in.  It would be rather complicated and has some ethical issues.”