by C. P. James
It wasn’t rational for Baz to think that Geller would ask whether Lucia had said yes. It wasn’t rational to think that some small part of Geller’s mind might have wondered why cake samples were in the refrigerator, or why he kept a spreadsheet of honeymoon options open on his laptop. And it certainly wasn’t rational to think Geller might be concerned about changes in their working relationship. And because none of these things were rational, it was irrational for Baz to be as pissed off about it as he was.
Baz almost touched the light panel that would ignite the blinding fluorescents in the lab and send Geller into a rage, but he thought better of it and simply cleared his throat. Geller looked up with a start and saw him in the doorway.
“Hey,” Geller said.
Baz walked down the long row of cages where dozens of rats were awaiting, or undergoing tests of their gene vectors. Some stirred and sniffed the air after him, and some curled up in little white piles at the corners. As of Wednesday there were 10 working vectors, but knowing Geller he might have added another.
“Thought I’d better check on you,” Baz said, drawing close enough now to understand that Geller hadn’t showered or changed in days, despite a small locker room and shower on that very floor. The faint smell of Greek takeout hung in the air. He half expected to find a cupboard full of graduated cylinders spilling over with Geller’s urine. He didn’t want to look in the garbage can.
“Oh. Yeah, I guess I’ve been at it for a while. The ALS vector is triggering a massive immune response and I don’t know why.”
Baz could have listed possibilities why this might be, all of which Geller would have considered. Sometimes he could help spin Geller off in another direction that eventually led him to a solution. But he said nothing.
“I thought we agreed this was a good week to take a break,” Baz said.
“You said it would be and I said okay. I’m sorry if you thought that meant I agreed with you.”
“I needed the break. I knew that about myself. You need the break, too, but you don’t know it. I never imagined you of all people would need to work on your self-awareness.”
“What did I ever do without you?” Geller said sarcastically, brushing past him to open a cage and remove a rat for a blood draw. He noted the number on the tag, unsheathed a tiny collection needle and got the sample in under ten seconds. “So Aruba, is it?”
Baz had, in fact, booked their honeymoon that very morning. Ten days, though he could scarcely afford even three.
“Yes,” he said, trying to sound more surprised than pleased. “How did you—“
“Lucky guess,” Geller said.
Geller was exceptional at guesswork, but Baz knew he hadn’t guessed this. He knew somehow.
“You printed out your booking information for your records, just as the travel site suggested.”
He was right. Baz had printed it, and it probably was still on the printer.
“I imagine you’ll work the whole time I’m gone,” Baz said.
“We’re behind schedule. Someone’s got to stay on top of all this.”
“What schedule?”
“You think Merriweather’s going to hang that money out there forever, just sitting? He’s a businessman. If we don’t get our asses in gear he’ll pull the plug.”
“What we have right now is more than enough to win that money and you know it.”
Geller dispensed a single drop of the rat’s blood onto a slide and placed it into a digital microscope.
“Winning the money is a foregone conclusion. I’m already thinking about what comes next.”
“Is that right?”
“Once we have capital, we’ll have oversight. Accountability. What we have right now is autonomy, and we may never have it again. You want to squander that on piña coladas and sex, that’s your business. I want to change the world.”
Baz knew better than to let Geller, who almost certainly self-medicated in order to work these hours, suck him into his vortex. He had a way of making people feel extraneous, even unnecessary. But Baz knew Geller needed him. If Geller was a supercar, Baz was the brake. A car without brakes would eventually crash, no matter how good the driver was.
“If you didn’t do the Marfan vector right now, we’re at 10, yes?”
“Yeah.” Geller typed a note into a tablet.
“So call what we have version 1.0 or something. Put it all together and physically set it aside.”
“That’ll take weeks. Why would I do that?”
“Because what’s sitting in cryo right now isn’t just a viable serum. It’s a Nobel Prize.”
“That’s not the prize I care about.”
“Let’s say we hear tomorrow that the prize is shutting down at the end of the year. We only have data. It’s like a proof of concept. You’re not stopping, you’re just leaving yourself some provisions for the return journey.”
Geller pulled back from the microscope and his shoulders sagged. He was thinking about the work. The delay. But also the logic.
He shook his head. “There’s no time,” he said.
“What do you do when you’re writing a research paper? You stop and save your work, often.”
“Our progress is thoroughly documented.”
“Listen, I share your ambitions for this. I do. But—“
Geller guffawed. “You don’t share my ambition for anything, Baz. None of this is your doing. If it weren’t for me, you’d be a footnote in some diabetes journal. We have a chance to make history here, and I’m on a fucking roll. Your concerns are noted.”
Baz sighed and shook his head. That stung. He saw a flicker of guilt in Geller’s eyes, then they returned to the microscope.
“Suit yourself,” Baz said. “I know you will.”
“Enjoy your honeymoon.”
He left, and turned back as he opened the door. Geller didn’t look up.
8
Emotionally, Lyle was running on empty. He was nearly ready to repurpose the money the foundation had set aside for the prize and try to put a positive spin on its failure. He was at a meeting of the foundation’s board one fall afternoon, giving feedback on the press release, when a young senior communications manager whose name he could never remember entered the room lightly and leaned down to Lyle’s ear.
“Mr. Merriweather, Dr. Lindh is on the line for you. He says it’s urgent.”
Merriweather checked his phone and noticed several missed calls from Lindh. His brow furrowed.
“Tell him I’ll call him back as soon as we’ve wrapped up here.”
“He said you would say that, sir, and to tell you—these are his words, not mine—‘Pick up the fucking phone, Lyle.’”
Lyle chuckled at that. Either Lindh had found something promising, or he was quitting. Probably the latter.
He ushered Lyle into a small conference room by the young man, who indicated he would transfer the call to the phone on the table. Lyle thanked him and sat as the door closed. Moments later, the phone rang.
“Let me guess,” Lyle said. “You want out.”
“There’s a submission we need to discuss.”
Lyle sat up. There was real excitement in Lindh’s voice.
“Is it what we’re looking for?”
“It’s some of the damnedest research I’ve ever seen. If their data is accurate … I guess I’m saying that if this wasn’t what you wanted, then I don’t know what you wanted.”
“Anyone you know?”
“Brent Geller and Basilio Montes from the University of Wisconsin. Geller was a young prodigy who I remember published a few interesting things but he’s been under the radar for a long time now. Turns out he’s been a busy boy. Montes, I’ve never heard of.”
“So assemble the full committee?”
“Yes. Immediately.”
Lindh was a hard man to impress, which was why his awe took Lyle by surprise. He paid Lindh to judge the science, but Lyle was just as interested in the man behind it. He looked forward to a meeting.<
br />
The committee convened the following Tuesday. For scheduling reasons, they met in an executive boardroom at Merriweather Industries’ controls division, a lavish glass cube atop a 72-story high-rise with a stunning view of the Sound. The LCD panels forming its walls could be made opaque with the flip of a switch, and they all had been save for the ones facing the water. The CFO of the foundation was there at Lyle’s invitation, along with the usual committee members.
A cart of coffee and water was wheeled inside, and on its heels a female assistant held the door open for a man Lyle somehow knew to be Dr. Brent Geller. He was shortish—maybe 5’9”—and he hadn’t gotten much in the way of sun, but otherwise he might’ve been an underwear model. His black hair was unkempt in a way that looked intentional, a trim week-old beard framing his otherwise smooth face. He flashed a disarming grin to everyone in the room and cast a sidelong glance at the young woman holding the door. Lyle supposed it wasn’t entirely unwelcome.
Behind Geller was a much taller, rail-thin Latino, also with a beard, whose hair was pulled into a smooth ponytail. His Buddy Holly glasses were as suited to him as the crisp dress shirt he wore. Montes. He guessed him to be about 34—a fair bit older than Geller.
Introductions were made and Lindh set the stage for Geller’s presentation. The broad strokes were outlined in the brief Lyle read over the weekend, but basically he reiterated that Geller’s therapy had the theoretical potential to prevent, and eventually eradicate, a laundry list of genetic diseases with a single treatment. That much Lyle knew, but he looked forward to hearing more. He leaned back in his chair and gestured for him to begin.
Geller cleared his throat and set his smartphone on a glowing multipad built into the table. A screen integrated into the glass wall flickered to life, and he gestured toward the multipad. A sensor array overhead read his movements and he threw a presentation from his device onto the glowing screen.
Geller talked for nearly an hour and a half, but to anyone in the room it seemed like minutes. It was like a symphony. Every question Lindh and the rest of the committee posed was answered so skillfully that they felt foolish for asking. Never in his life had Lyle heard someone elucidate so effortlessly on so esoteric a subject. The science, he could see from the raised eyebrows and furtive glances around the table, was sound. By the end, he was ready to give Geller everything. Montes barely spoke—he studying everyone’s reactions.
Lyle had no way of knowing whether the doctors and scientists on the committee truly understood everything they heard, or whether they followed him up to a point but got lost in the elegant, yet subtly condescending explanations of how and why. After Geller finished, he helped himself to a bottle of water and sat. The ensuing silence continued for several long seconds. It was Lindh who finally broke the spell.
“Dr. Geller, I’d like to delve a bit further into your plans for delivering this treatment in-vitro. Do you think expectant mothers will submit to an invasive and unproven treatment, FDA approved or not?”
Geller set his water on the table and shrugged.
“Beats me.”
Everyone in the room did a double take except Baz, who smirked and shook his head. After what they just saw and heard, hearing Geller say this was like hearing an opera singer’s voice crack. Lindh wasn’t sure what to say, so Geller allowed a thin smile and continued.
“I mean, it’s a risk—no question. But having a baby at all is a crapshoot. This could give mothers the opportunity to have a genetically flawless child. Not a designer child or a kid engineered to be super smart or beautiful, but a kid who starts life on a level playing field. A kid who won’t require around-the-clock care when he’s five, or 13, or 20. It’s like applying Six Sigma to immunology and genetics—you’re just eliminating defects. Over time, you get a whole generation of people with essentially flawless genes, and there aren’t recessives or dominants anymore—no one gets the rug pulled out from under them. What mother wouldn’t want that for her kid if it was practically guaranteed?”
Lyle turned to one of the two female scientists, Dr. Alward, whom he knew to be a mother. “Eileen, I believe you have a unique perspective on that question.”
She raised her eyebrows and nodded reluctantly, like a politician conceding a small point in private.
“If the FDA blessed it, it would be hard to ignore. Every mother hopes for a healthy child, but there’s always some fear there. Like you said, you leave a lot to chance.”
“But regarding the cancers, there are obviously environmental factors,” Lindh said, turning back to Geller. “Chemicals, free radicals—the sun. What happens to those people?”
“We figured out how to prevent 34 diseases with genetic links working off the fringes of a $5.5 million grant. What do you think we could do with a billion?”
Lindh instantly felt silly, and looked it. Lyle smiled—no point in playing devil’s advocate anymore.
“What would a treatment like this cost?” asked the CFO. "I've got no frame of reference."
“Well, that’s where we—“ Geller began.
“Nothing,” Lyle said, cutting him off.
The CFO's eyes widened.
“Edward Jenner gave the smallpox vaccine to the world. No patent, no money. Today, smallpox is a dead disease. What would’ve happened if someone tried to profit from that?”
“That’s different.”
“Not really,” Lyle said. “If this works the way Dr. Geller described, then you’d need nearly everyone to do it. A whole generation. It took a while, but now every parent who isn’t crazy gets standard vaccinations for their kids. They can’t even attend public school unless they do. No—doctors can charge whatever they like for the treatment, but the drug is free. Are we of a mind, Dr. Geller?”
“The more people who sign up for this, the better in the long run,” Geller said, obviously pleased to have an ally in Merriweather. “Free helps make that happen.” Baz was smiling too.
“Well, then,” Lyle said, trying to read the look on Geller’s face, “We’ll be in touch.”
9
From The Perfect Generation: A Memoir
by Dr. Brent A. Geller
Normally we’d have taken our five-year National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant and gone on a spending spree, hiring grad fellows, renting additional lab space, buying new gear—that sort of thing. But the grant was for something very specific: testing a retroviral delivery system for a gene therapy targeting liver cancer. I wanted to take that to the next level and beyond.
We worked on the grant-funded research just enough to satisfy its terms but used the equipment and the space, along with some of those grad students, to work on our treatment as well. The net result was that Baz’s and my time was essentially free. Our stipends from the NIH grant covered our living expenses along with the personnel and extra equipment needed to set up experiments, so we were effectively sponsored in the work. Ethically, it wasn’t exactly above-board, but our work was moving too quickly for bureaucracy. We had a billion dollars to win. (Don’t worry, I’ve since made enough gifts to the university that they shouldn’t feel too slighted. Also, it’s important to note that Baz was never totally comfortable with any of it.)
The work itself was tedious and beyond most people’s understanding. But I’ll try and give you a layman’s understanding of the science because it’s important.
Genes are blueprints for building an organism and giving it traits. They contain DNA, which is unique to the organism. We have roughly 25,000 genes, each of which does something specific—mostly directing the manufacture of proteins. Manipulating genes is tricky (don’t try it at home) because there are lots of them, they are complex in themselves, their products are also complex and interact in complex ways, and they don’t always behave predictably. They can also mutate for a variety of reasons, which changes everything.
Imagine you’re in a room with nearly infinite number of locked doors and 25,000 machines that spit out piles of keys when turned on. Every key un
locks at least one door—some perfectly, and some with a little wiggling. Behind one door are blue eyes. Behind another, cankles. Behind another, lymphoma. To manipulate genes you need to a) find the right key for the right door, and then b) figure out how to tell one machine to make keys that either fit another right door or don’t fit a wrong door. Good luck.
Computers transformed the science, and quantum computing did it again. They can predict the 3D structure of a new protein produced by an altered or replaced gene, and whether it will bind or not to affect the desired change. They can do this billions of times per second all day, every day. In so doing, they can reduce the number of possibilities from a few quadrillion to a few thousand. That’s impressive, but when real-world tests takes several days to complete, you can’t deal with thousands. Sometimes you have to follow a hunch. Computers don’t get funny feelings or have intuition or moments of insight. A good hunch can get you from a few thousand to a handful you can actually test. If there’s one thing that separated me from my peers, it’s a frequently accurate gut feeling.
I’ve said this before in interviews, but our ambitions were modest at the start. There was a small pool of disorders that we already knew were caused by defects in specific genes, and that’s where we started. Working as a team, we developed effective therapies for these disorders in rats within a year. Emboldened, we kept trucking. One by one, keys slid into locks and turned. Though the treatment was becoming dizzyingly complex, our methods were achieving dramatic results more quickly than we dared imagine.
After the prize was announced, we heard through research channels that several teams, notably the Norwegians, were on the verge of huge breakthroughs. Biding our time, even if it potentially meant losing a billion dollars in funding, was maddening. But though I’d never met him to that point I felt like I knew Lyle Merriweather. When he said what he said about half measures, I got it. I mean, really got it. I knew he wasn’t going to give that money away unless he felt in his very bones a sea change, and I wasn’t going to stop until I knew I had that. So I didn’t.
