Chapter 128: The American Cancer Conference (4)

Two days later at the American Cancer Conference, the K-Cops security team’s car pulled into the AACR’s underground parking lot.[1]

Young-Joon got out of the back seat. There wasn’t anyone from the Life Creation Team; he was alone. He pulled out his schedule and checked it. The lecture schedule was about seven days long, and they were packed from nine in the morning to six in the afternoon. He was giving the nine o’clock lecture on the first day.

“Building A, Room 102, the grand seminar hall.”

Young-Joon looked around for the elevator to get to the lecture room.

“This way,” Kim Chul-Kwon said as he pulled Young-Joon’s arm. The elevator was closing with a crowd of young scientists.

“Wait!”

Young-Joon hastily ran towards the elevator.

Bleep.

Someone pressed the button to keep the doors open. The doors were almost closed, but barely opened.

“Thank you.”

The moment Young-Joon thanked them and walked inside...

“No probl...”

The scientist who took their finger off the button froze. Not just them, but all five people in the elevator froze in shock.

“D... Doctor Ryu? Are you Doctor Ryu?” one woman asked as she fixed her glasses.

“Yes, hello. I’m Ryu Young-Joon.”

“Wow!”

“Oh my...”

It got rowdy in the elevator all of a sudden.

“Wait!”

They suddenly surrounded Young-Joon and took out notebooks and pens from their bags.

“I’m a huge fan, Doctor Ryu. Could I have your autograph?”

Then, they held it in front of Young-Joon.

“... Wait, let me press the button first.”

Young-Joon pressed the elevator for the first floor, and signed their notebooks one by one. After getting his autograph, a Black scientist who was wearing a navy shirt pulled out his phone and asked, “Doctor Ryu, could I get a photo with you?”

“Pardon? Oh, sure...”

The man stood beside Young-Joon and took a photo with his phone. Everyone else quickly stood behind them so that they didn’t lose their chance.

Click!

They began introducing themselves after taking a photo.

“I’m Peter. We’re from Professor Una Biya’s lab at Johns Hopkins University.”

“Nice to meet you. You study siRNA, right? I think I saw your paper in

Nature

’s sister journal.”

“That’s right!”

The students’ faces lit up.

“You’re studying something so fun. Professor Biya is giving a lecture as well, right? When was it?”

“It’s tomorrow afternoon!”

“Oh, right. I was planning on attending it,” Young-Joon said.

Ding!

With a ring, the elevator stopped. Young-Joon thought it was the first floor, but it was not.

It was the basement level two. It wasn’t a parking lot, but it had a 7-Eleven and a print shop.

Whir...

Three middle-aged scientists holding coffee and snacks appeared as the doors opened.

“Oh...”

They flinched a little when they saw Young-Joon, then stepped inside.

“Um... Are you Doctor Young-Joon Ryu...?” a man with a good build asked as he put some potato chips in his bag.

“Yes.”

“Wow!” the three of them exclaimed together.

Then, they began asking him questions left and right.

“Did you really cure Forsberg?”

“His prognosis is very good for now. He’s going to the hospital as an outpatient now,” Young-Joon replied.

“About the chimeric immunotherapy... I noticed that BRT15 was one of the genes you edited. Why did you choose to manipulate that one?”

“It is effective in sending the immune cell to the tumor.”

“Why?”

“Overexpressing that gene can help the immune cells leak out of blood vessels. The immune cells that were in the blood vessels can go to the tumor.”

Young-Joon answered them as briefly as possible.

“...”

There was a moment of silence.

“Wow!”

The scientists looked excited all of a sudden. Una Biya’s students crowded Young-Joon as well. Questions poured in from all over.

“Doctor Ryu, how did you find the gene variants you introduced to the virus to use it to treat pancreatic cancer in humans?”

“Is Doctor Forsberg you treated fully cured now?”

“You manipulated the genes of immune cells with the dendritic cell-bypass technology, right? Do you think that can be applied to other types of cells?”

“Doctor Ryu, if we change the process you used to coat Cellicure like this...”

“Doctor Ryu...”

Young-Joon was a little stunned. Some of the questions they were asking were difficult to condense and answer in just a few sentences. However, as the author of the paper, he thought that he had a responsibility to give them an answer. As he was about to answer them one by one, the elevator rang.

Ding!

Now, they were on the first floor. The elevator doors opened to show the reception desk in the hallway and countless scientists, reporters, and company booths. When Young-Joon stepped off the elevator, all their attention was drawn to him.

“Is that Ryu Young-Joon?”

He could see a group of people whisper among themselves. However, no one approached him right away. It was difficult for people to distinguish people from different races unless they were familiar with them; since all East Asian scientists looked similar to them, they were hesitant to approach Young-Joon because it might not actually be him. Instead, they listened closely to what he was saying, which was his response to Peter, the student in Una Biya’s lab.

“Currently, no lung cancer cells are being observed in Doctor Forsberg. But with cancer, we have to see if there’s recurrence within five years before we can declare him cured, so we’ll have to wait and see.”

“Doctor Ryu!”

Scientists began swarming to him. Now, it was clear that he was Young-Joon since he was discussing Forsberg.

“Hello, Doctor Ryu. I’m Jennifer, the CEO of Jenny’s LifeTech, a bioventure company in Silicon Valley.”

A female scientist in her fifties held out her hand. Starting with her, handshake requests and introductions poured out from all over.

“Um... I’m sorry, but I have to go prepare for my lecture at nine,” Young-Joon said in shock after shaking the hands of a few people.

However, the crowd did not back away easily. Kim Chul-Kwon and two security guards were blocking people in front of Young-Joon, but it could be rude to just use force in a place like this. All they could do was stand there and block the crowd from approaching.

“Mr. Ryu!”

In the middle of that, a familiar voice resonated in the hall. Young-Joon turned around and saw David, the CEO of Conson & Colson, approaching him with his company executives.

* * *

A fight had already broken out in Room 102 even before the nine o’clock lecture. The scientists were raising their voices and pointing their fingers.

“What kind of standards did the FDA use to approve a drug that causes hyperprogression?”

“Didn’t it just get approved because of Cold Spring Lab’s name value?”

“A countereffect was only reported once in the drug! There was no report of that before.”

“Do none of you doctors know the basics of biology? There are always exceptions in the field of biology. There is no such thing as one hundred percent. If you wanted something like that, you should have done physics or math.”

“EGFR mutants are very common in cancer. What good is that drug if it is linked to EGFR mutations and hyperprogression? What kind of patients are going to want to use that?”

“Even if there isn’t a mutation in EGFR at first, it could occur as the tumor progresses. Realistically, we’re not going to be able to use that drug on anyone.”

“The paper that Doctor Ryu Young-Joon published is just the raw manuscript that hasn’t even been peer reviewed. You’re saying that we should trash something that the Cold Spring Lab has been working on for twenty years?”

“I do not understand why we are having this meaningless debate. This will be solved eventually

as we analyze other clinical cases.”

“Don’t talk about it so lightly when people’s lives are on the line. We have to revoke the approval!”

As they exchanged harsh words, the conference room doors opened. A white-haired old man with wrinkles and age spots all over his face walked in. The commotion in the hall died down at once. Jamie Anderson’s face was tense in anger.

‘That grandpa is going to cause trouble today.’

Collins, the director of the National Institute of Health sighed inside.

Jamie Anderson was someone who always caused conflict with other scientists whether it was major or trivial. And whenever there was an argument, he never backed down and fought stubbornly. He didn’t even back down from arguments that began because of his sexiest or racist comments.

A genius who has identified the structure of DNA at twenty-four and received the Nobel Prize at thirty: Jamie Anderson, the living legend of biology, was as full of pride and arrogance as his reputation. Now, he was very on-edge as he was backed up into a corner.

‘I am right.’

Jamie Anderson repeated in his head.

‘I am right. I have to be right.’

He walked into the lecture room.

Scientists were quietly watching from everywhere. They looked like hyenas who were waiting for the death of an injured lion.

‘Bastards.’

Jamie Anderson’s blood boiled with anger.

‘They were probably arguing about the immune checkpoint inhibitor until I came here. They were probably praising Ryu Young-Joon again. But I will be right. Watch.’

He clenched his fists.

‘I reigned at the top of science before that baby was even born. I was the one who led the birth of biology. But these bastards who weren’t even born then dare to criticize me? How dare someone teach me science? How dare someone say that I am wrong?’

Click.

The doors opened.

“Doctor Ryu!”

There was a small cheer at the entrance. This time, it was Young-Joon who entered the room with David. However, there was no one who rushed to ask him for an autograph or a handshake because unlike the outside, the atmosphere inside the hall was quite tense. It was because of Jamie Anderson. Everyone was both anxious and excited that Young-Joon and Jamie Anderson were in one room together, like they were watching a bomb that could explode at any moment.

“Doctor Anderson!”

When all the scientists were cautious around Jamie Anderson, one scientist bravely spoke up. It was Una Biya, a professor from Johns Hopkins University.

Una Biya was a Black woman who was from a poor family in South Sudan. Although she was put at a huge disadvantage, she became a professor at John Hopkins University after overcoming all of her hardships by studying and passion. She was not very scared of ruffling Jamie Anderson’s feathers.

“Tell us about hyperprogression. What do you think?” she asked.

“...”

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Jamie Anderson frowned.

“You can hear it when I give my lecture,” he said in a harsh tone.

“I would like to, but it’s the last day of the conference. There are probably a lot of people here who won’t be able to participate, including myself. Could you tell us just briefly? Everyone probably wants to hear your explanation.”

“...”

Jamie Anderson glared at her silently. Then, he slid past her.

“What a noisy neanderthal.”

Una Biya clearly heard what he mumbled under his breath.

“What did you say?” she said as she quickly turned around.

“Nothing much.”

“You said that I was a neanderthal?” Una Biya said with her jaw clenched.

“I did not say anything. What you should do is change your child-like English accent.”

“... I think I heard a racist comment. You said that I was a neanderthal right now. Didn’t you go through trouble before because of your several racist comments? Saying something so rude all of a...”

“I am not racist,” Jamie Anderson said. “It is not racism; I am just saying scientific facts. Like how the reason why neanderthals went extinct was because their low intelligence could not compete with homo sapiens, there is a clear difference in intelligence between races in the human race as well. I am not ashamed of that perspective because it is true.”

“...”

“It is the same for Asians as well. I believe that they are less intelligent than White people. They are mesmerized when they see nature, but White people think of a plan to develop it. The way our brains think is different. There is a clear difference.”

Jamie Anderson stole a few glances behind him as he finished his sentence. Young-Joon was about ten meters behind him, and Jamie Anderson had made a statement to provoke him on purpose.

All the scientists’s attention was drawn to them.

“I don’t know,” Young-Joon said with a chuckle. “Doctor Anderson, homo sapiens, the current human race, came over to Europe and Asia after originating from Africa. White people are the offspring of a hybrid cross between them and neanderthals in Europe.”

Jamie Anderson stopped walking. He turned around and glared at Young-Joon with anger in his eyes.

Young-Joon said, “Pure homo sapiens are indigenous Black people from sub-Saharan Africa. You are the one who has neanderthal genes, Doctor Anderson.”

“...”

Jamie Anderson and Young-Joon stood against each other. After some time...

“Doctor Ryu! Please prepare for your lecture now!” said Doctor Moore, who was in charge of the conference, from the stage.

“Of course, I’m on my way.”

Young-Joon headed for the stage.

1. AACR is an acronym for the American Association for Cancer Research ?