Chapter 131: The American Cancer Conference (7)

This was biology that was beyond art. The glass incubator that was on one side of the lecture room was like an installation. APD, the immune checkpoint inhibitor, went into the tumor on the organoid. The APD rushed to the surface of the cancer cell and attached to PTLA-L1, the immune cell shutdown factor.

Young-Joon turned on the live cell imager and connected it to the incubator. A magnified version of the tumor showed up on one side of the monitor. It still seemed like a static mass of tumor. However, there was a lot of work going on in the microscopic world. Changes began to occur inside the cancer cells as a large amount of PTLA-L1 was neutralized.

Its going crazy.

Rosaline sent a message. She was outside of Young-Joons body and observing that phenomenon.

By nature, organisms wanted to maintain a certain base level; this was called homeostasis. As such, if something was activated in the organism, there was bound to be a reaction.

In the case of cancer cells, the response to PCLA inactivation was the expression of EGFR. However, this EGFR was mutated, unlike regular cells. It malfunctioned by continuously producing growth factors inside the cell.

Replication was promoted inside the cancer cell nucleus. DNA polymerases began moving and replicating the chromosomes. The cell cycle changed as numerous additional biomaterials were produced. The cancer cells now entered mitosis and multiplied like an amoeba undergoing binary fission. The cancer cells, which had exactly half of the DNA, still had a large amount of EGFR. The cell division promoting signal was still active.

The cancer cells began preparing for their second division. It would take about two hours to completely copy the DNA and create enough biomass to divide. The initial single cell quadrupled in just four hours.

Hyperprogression has already begun.

The conference ended in eight hours. By then, this tumor, which was the size of a bean, was going to be bigger than the organoid.

Lets observe this slowly, and while the reaction is happening, I am going to present something else.

Young-Joon put up a new slide on the screen. It was information about a huge number of DNA sequences.

What we have here is data on targeted mutations.

Targeted mutations?

The audience gasped.

From now on, the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory will use gene surgery in the body to manipulate immune cells, and we will use this to cure various kinds of cancer. This is information about our first experimental candidate.

The scientists were still confused. They didnt understand why Young-Joon was presenting a candidate at the conference. It was a drug candidate, but the CEO of a pharmaceutical company was just openly revealing that at a conference?

They didnt possibly think he would do this, but Young-Joon made an announcement that shocked all of them.

We have decided not to patent this information.

* * *

This was when Young-Joon and the Life Creation Team were in a meeting with James, the director of the Office and Science and Technology Policy, and Collins, the director of the National Health Institute, at the White House before the conference began.

The base technology is dendritic cell bypass, so it will be patented by A-Bio and Professor Kakeguni, Young-Joon said. The problem would be the patent rights to the treatment method tailored to the type of cancer patient, or the selection of genes to operate on.

The base technology of manipulating the genes of immune cells in the body was developed by Young-Joon. But which genes were they going to manipulate, and in which patients? This was a huge portion of ignorance that science hadnt touched yet. If someone discovered that manipulating a certain gene was effective for lung cancer, they could patent that gene. It was a kind of intellectual property. It wasnt that the technology became an invention, like what Young-Joon made; every gene mutation pattern that could use that became intellectual property.

Humans had about twenty thousand genes. They had to figure out what gene mutation patterns in what were associated with cancer, and how that varied by race, gender, and age. And if there were multiple genes at play simultaneously? The combinations were almost infinite, and there were countless variables.

Doctor Ryu has opened a gold mine, and now, countless scientists will go on a gold rush.

Collins made an appropriate metaphor.

Now, it was time to decide the division of rewards within the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory, the most powerful team in that gold mine to collect gold.

Lets split it six to four, James said. Doctor Ryu, the support that the U.Ss government is pouring into the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory is enormous, as I am sure you are aware of. We have the right to forty percent of the invention.

James wasnt very greedy for money; he was an academic, and he valued the advancement of human medicine. However, it was a completely different story if they were talking about conquering cancer. Cancer was the second leading cause of death in humans, after heart disease. Conquering that? That huge humor was too sweet and exhilarating to give up. Unless they were Buddha, it was natural for people to expect a reward if they were to accomplish an achievement of that magnitude. And it was not a personal award but for the U.S. government. This was something that James had to fight for as the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The U.S. built A-Bios cancer laboratory right next to the National Cancer Institute, and we have shared all our platforms for cancer research that we have created. You know that, right? James said.

He acted calm, but inside, he was a little nervous. His original plan when he built the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory was to use the genius Young-Joon to advance American science. Plus, one couldnt do cancer research no matter how genius they were. It required a huge amount of patient data and genetic experiments. As such, James was going to use Young-Joons ingenuity with the National Cancer Institute, which could do that well, and take the results.

But I didnt think he was this much of a genius.

James knew that he was going to be long remembered in history when he made induced pluripotent stem cells and showed that he could cure Alzheimers, but that was it. But conquering cancer? Curing end-stage lung cancer and liver cancer in a ninety year old elderly and a child? Hyperprogression and bone metastasis?

At this point, the support the National Cancer Institute was giving Young-Joon was supplemental. The ball was in his court now. They would be able to conquer cancer faster if they used the accumulated research resources and data from the U.S., but that was it. Seeing that Young-Joon was working on a huge genome project in Korea, he was more than capable of conquering cancer on his own.

... What do you think? James asked cautiously.

He had suggested a six to four ratio, but he was actually thinking more of a seven to three, or eight to two.

However, Young-Joon gave him a shocking answer.

Lets not patent it.

What! James shouted in shock.

Collins jaw dropped, and he was speechless.

From now on, scientists from all over the world will be rushing into this business to find gene variants with therapeutic effects. We need to patent the genes to attract them, but Young-Joon said. Still, most of the gene variants will come from the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory until cancer is conquered.

Probably, since the research base that the U.S. has built on cancer overpowers the rest of the world, and youre a bigger genius than Einstein.

But I dont want to patent them.

Why! James shouted incredulously.

Because a patent is an incentive, but it also stops other people from getting into the business, Young-Joon said.

...

You compared this to a gold mine, right? What if people could get more gold by mining in the same spot we got gold from?

What are you talking about?

You can manipulate up to forty genes at once with gene surgery. Since there are about twenty thousand genes, there are about twenty thousand to the power of forty variations. The effect will change depending on how the genes are mixed and matched. But if we patent one gene? Do you think people will try to study that gene?

...

I am deeply grateful to you. You have always supported me fully. I want to give you a lot in return, but not like this, Young-Joon said. I am working on a genome project in Korea. After a few years, when the scientists working on it become better, we will have research resources that will surpass the data that the National Cancer Institute has accumulated over the years.

...

There is only one reason why I am not using that to monopolize the results and using the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory in the United States.

To conquer cancer quicker? Collins asked.

The faster the better.

... Phew

James let out a deep breath while covering his head with his hands.

Im sorry. All I can give you is honor, Young-Joon said.

Ha Im shocked. This is not something I can decide on my own.

Please discuss it with the President.

Alright. Whatever conclusion we come to, it will be better to announce it on the last day of the conference if possible. Everyone will be wondering how things will proceed at the cancer lab.

... Alright.

* * *

There was the full support of the U.S. government behind this bold decision, Young-Joon said. The scientists, who were shocked, were already sending messages to all the cancer researchers they knew. The reporters hands were trembling as they filmed Young-Joons announcement. The reporters who specialized in science already deeply investigated the establishment of the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory and James. They knew that the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory was going to take most of the gold in the gold mine Young-Joon opened.

But they are going to release all that gold for free? What are they talking about?

Are they crazy?

This huge achievement isnt just a bag of money; they could buy a building with this in cash. But distributing it freely

This was charity like no other.

Did you say that the U.S. government supported this? one of the reporters asked.

Yes, thats right.

Did the White House choose to do that?

The U.S. government had decided to honor all the support they previously promised to the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory. And they have completely relinquished any intellectual property rights to the target genes that will be discovered there. I am relinquishing them as well. The A-Bio Cancer Laboratory promises to share all of this knowledge, which will save mankind, for free.

...

The disturbance that was in the hall had now subsided. There was only the silence of shock and confusion.

Thud.

Dozens of scientists poured in as the doors to the lecture hall opened. They were the ones who had attended Jamie Andersons class. There were more people now than when Young-Joon first took out the incubator. Everyone had come here in curiosity because it was getting so loud here.

H-hey, look at that.

One of the scientists who had been here since the beginning pointed to the incubator.

It looks like the tumor has gotten bigger.

The tumor, which was the size of a bean, had doubled in size.