Brian Freemantle - Dead End

‘We’re surely among qualified people… sufficiently qualified, at least, to know about the existence of genes and their potential application!’ took up Ted Lapidus. There was little trace of an accent. The Greek had a very full, drooping moustache that made him look permanently doleful: even the smile, which accompanied the overstressed cynicism, was mournful.

‘I misspoke,’ Parnell apologized. This was sliding downhill into an awkward opening day. ‘Let’s just not forget our newness and human nature. Dubette go in for rules, although they’re mostly understood rather than official. Within Dubette the recurring theme is that it’s one big happy family. We’re not an accepted part of that family, not yet…’ Oh Christ, he thought, hearing his own voice and seeing the expressions of those facing him. ‘I was trained that science builds upon the free exchange of ideas and theories. That’s how I want us to operate. Any of you get – or already have – an hypothesis, you follow it. And talk about it, to each and every one of us. If, in the end, it doesn’t pan out, it doesn’t pan out. More experiments and research fails than succeeds, as you all know. At least we’ll have taken a possibility as far as we can…’ He paused, as an idea came to him, but decided against proposing it until he’d more fully thought it through, supposing that it was something he should mention first to Dwight Newton.

Before he could go on, Deke Pulbrow said: ‘You mean there isn’t going to be a formulated schedule, integrated with what other sections are working on?’

Parnell decided that Pulbrow would definitely need advice about the dress code for the next seminar: beneath the regulation, nameplated laboratory coat, the man wore bib-and-braces overalls and a denim work shirt. Parnell said: ‘No, I don’t mean that at all. I very definitely expect – and intend – to work in tandem with the rest of this division. And to get channelled through to us, via the ongoing research here, anything that comes in from overseas. It’s our contribution that’s got to be innovative. The most obvious is nucleotide polymorphism of Dubette products. We’ve been set up genetically to research and develop treatments and drugs, in conjunction, if necessary, with the traditional chemical experimentation that until now has been Dubette’s established route.’ Parnell accepted that he was preaching to the converted but he hoped at least he was making better sense than the careless way in which he’d begun.

‘Bacteria are genetic,’ declared Lapidus. ‘Already there’s been complete genetic sequencing of Streptococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Helicobacter pylori, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Vibrio cholerae. Genetics – and its engineering – in the drug development for treatment of such conditions has already been scientifically accepted. Are you seriously telling us that there’s a resistance here?’

Parnell acknowledged that he was very obviously, before an audience, being tested – by the man whom Dwight Newton had judged to be a potential challenger for his job. ‘You missed off your list the genome of a prototypic streptomycete, Streptomyces coelicolor,’ reminded Parnell, confronting professional knowledge with professional knowledge. ‘And yes, that’s exactly what I’m seriously telling you. And that is my battle to fight, as head of this department.’ No one broke into the pause this time. Smiling at the Greek geneticist, determined to come out the winner of the exchange, Parnell said: ‘I’m grateful for your listing, although I know none of us needed reminding of it. Any more than any of us needed reminding of the potential of genome exploration in combating disease.’

‘Precisely what disease?’ demanded Peter Battey, the second of the original Washington-based applicants, a balding, pebble-spectacled man.

‘I’ve already told you I haven’t worked out a specific tandem schedule; I won’t until I’ve had detailed discussions with Russell Benn across the corridor. But there are obvious targets and I think we should shoot for as many as we can.’

‘So, we’re going for the top prizes: AIDS, hepatitis B, cancers, influenza variants, common cold?’ enumerated Beverley Jackson.

It wasn’t a sardonic, professionally combative list like that of the Greek geneticist, needing a matching confrontation. His unspoken idea came again into Parnell’s mind as he said: ‘Why not? I don’t expect – won’t have – any of you backing off from a project that’s taken everyone else into a cul-desac. It’s because they’ve ended in dead ends that we’ve got to try something different, something newer and better.’

‘If we can think of something newer and better,’ said Lapidus, doubtfully.

‘The only way to find out is to try,’ said Sean Sato. The Japanese-American had the deeply black hair of his Asian ancestry but was taller, almost 6'. He was immaculately and fastidiously dressed beneath the laboratory uniform, the club-patterned tie tight behind a pin-collared shirt, the trousers of his muted check suit razor-creased above mirror-polished brogues.

It wasn’t a sycophantic remark, Parnell immediately guessed. ‘You’re arriving with some already-formed ideas?’

The man’s smile was apologetic. ‘Not so much pre-formed. Projects that could be added to the list.’

‘Such as?’ This first, getting-to-know-each-other meeting was evolving far differently from how he’d expected but it was better than he’d imagined. Certainly there’d been some professional posturing but already they were scratching the surface into which he wanted them more deeply to dig.

‘I could be accused of personal interest,’ announced Sato.

‘I won’t accuse you until I hear what it is,’ promised Parnell.

‘There’s a lot of concentration upon AIDS. Rightly so,’ said the man, eagerly. His gesture towards Beverley was a polite bow. ‘There’s a lot of concentration upon hepatitis B. Rightly so again: seventy-five per cent of the thirty-five million suffering from it are in the Western Pacific and South East Asia region, which very much includes Japan. But in less than five years – with little if any reduction in that figure – it will be overtaken by hepatitis C, an obviously genetically linked but wholly different strain of the same disease. At the moment the only antiviral agent that suppresses hepatitis B is lamivudine, which is also effective in treating HIV. Already there are some indications of superbug resistance to lamivudine. If that resistance becomes established, it will reduce any fight against not only hepatitis B, but C as well. And AIDS.’

‘Which conveniently rounds the square to drug resistance…’ began Parnell.

‘Not quite,’ refused Lapidus. ‘Interferon is a very successful treatment for hepatitis C.’

‘If the disease is identified sufficiently early,’ accepted Sato. ‘The problem is that it’s usually without symptoms until it’s too late, by which time liver disease and cancer are already established. The last paper I read estimated in five years from now, ten at the most, more people will be dying of the C strain than from AIDS.’

Far better than he’d expected, Parnell thought again: it could scarcely even be acknowledged as the first step but this was exactly how he wanted them to work, arguing not to prove him or herself more knowledgeable or qualified, but properly, expertly, bouncing ideas and theories off each other.

‘That’s a chicken-and-egg situation,’ said Beverley. ‘If disease is already generally established before there are any noticeable symptoms, the answer must be in much earlier screening of risk groups. And you’ve already identified them demographically.’

‘Perhaps I haven’t explained myself sufficiently,’ said Sato. ‘Earlier screening is obviously a factor and when the seriousness of hepatitis C is globally recognized, governments will have to devise a better and quicker diagnostic system: some, indeed, have already started to move in that direction. What I’m talking about is a new drug or treatment when chronic liver inflammation or cirrhosis or cancer is already there.’