Chapter 134: The American Cancer Conference (10)

What are you going to do about this? asked Scott, the director of the FDA.

Scott was talking to Jamie Anderson in irritation in the lab directors office at the Cold Spring Laboratory. He had a frown on his face.

Director, the EMA[1] has asked hospitals all over Europe to refrain from using APD. And they are considering withdrawing the approval.

...

The FDA has been very kind to you and the Cold Spring Lab. You know that, right? We trusted you and used it.

But you earned that much from us, too.

What are you insinuating? There is nothing wrong about our relationship. Watch what you say.

...

The EMA has almost the same status as the FDA. Just like how the United States has the FDA, the European Union has the EMA; it is the FDA of the European Union. We cant sit on our hands if they revoke APDs approval.

Phew

And even the president is defending Ryu Young-Joon like that, so how can I take your side here, Director? Im getting out of this here. But do you have any other solutions?

...

Wheres Doctor Oliver?

He hasnt been coming to work lately. Hes probably in shock.

...

Sigh

, everything is a mess.

Honestly, Im shocked, too. I didnt know that there was such a severe side effect to the immune checkpoint inhibitor. I didnt believe it before, but now, I have no choice but to believe it.

Anyway, youre on your own now. Sooner or later, the FDA will be making an announcement to refrain from using APD, Scott said briefly and left.

The Cold Spring Laboratory had studied the immune checkpoint inhibitor for almost twenty years. They considered it to be one of the greatest achievements since the founding of the lab. There were many challenges along the way, and Oliver, the leader of the project, was so overwhelmed by the difficulty and stress that he tried to abandon the project several times. Even the executives of the lab were doubtful as well. It was because the idea of activating immune cells to cure cancer was so far-fetched at the time. They were still worried even after the mechanism was relatively well-known.

The person who pushed for it was Jamie Anderson. And when they finished the clinical trial, he thought that had done it.

Hard work can be wasted.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

It was before this huge project received a death sentence.

Jamie Andersons status was falling rapidly.

* * *

Wild dogs were bound to wander around a lion lying on the ground with a bad wound. They would come near it and sneakily nibble it a little with their small teeth.

The start of this was a post on ResearchGate, an online community for scientists.

I feel bad for Doctor Oliver, but someone got what was coming. He was racist all the time, and now, he was screwed over by an Asian. LOL

This short post quickly blew up on Twitter, and the issue of Jamie Andersons racism began to surface. He was already in the spotlight because of the immune checkpoint inhibitors side effects. But if he was also a racist?

Instinctively realizing that this was going to be a very entertaining story, media outlets like CNN and Fox News began gathering more specific tips.

And the next morning

So, are you saying that he continued to make discriminatory and offensive comments to female and Black scientists at the lab? asked Natalie, the CNN reporter.

One scientist at the Cold Spring Laboratory, who was guaranteed anonymity, let out everything she had been holding in.

Yes. It was no joke. It was worse for me especially because I was a Black, female scientist. Youre going to be shocked when you hear it.

Can you give me a specific example?

... Once, he said that Black women evolved to have a big butt due to genetics, so they are good at twerking. He said that I should practice it and perform it at the company picnic.

...

Natalie was momentarily speechless in shock.

Uh Thats really beyond my imagination

Right? Theres a lot worse than this, too. He said that Black people have smoother skin because they have a higher expression of the gene that synthesizes melanin, but melanin expression probably contributes to lower intelligence.

... Wait, youre saying that Director James Anderson said this?

He says this kind of stuff out loud in public places, like conferences. What do you think hes like in the lab? Racism and sexism happen daily in that lab. If a Black scientist gets bad data, hell say that the future of this project is as dark as your skin color during the meeting.

How could someone say that?

And to be honest, he doesnt even know half of the projects of the papers that are published from there. But he still puts his name on every single one of them, which is a violation of research ethics.

Wow

Honestly, I dont think someone like that is qualified to be a lab director. I hope he just takes responsibility for the immune checkpoint inhibitor projects failure and leaves.

Jamie Andersons untouchable charisma and prestige vanished like it was a mirage. Scientists, who no longer had to be afraid of him because he was the boss, began speaking up. The nation was stunned by the ugly side of Jamie Anderson, the Nobel Prize recipient and discoverer of DNA structure who was the hero of twentieth-century biology.

Scientists in the same field reacted like they knew that this would happen someday, but the general public was extremely shocked.

Media outlets had no time to rest nowadays. They had to cover Young-Joons declaration to conquer cancer, the presidents announcement, and the side effects of the immune checkpoint inhibitor. After working so hard, they had Jamie Andersons racism and sexism scandal to cover as well.

[The fall of the greatest scientist in the 20th century, and the rise of the greatest scientist in the 21st century.]

CNN ran a headline with a photo of Young-Joon and Jamie Anderson. They were similar to each other in terms of their ingenuity, and they had both risen and fallen around the same time. They were also sworn enemies who fought about the immune checkpoint inhibitor.

American media outlets continuously compared them and asked Young-Joon for interviews. He declined most of them, but he could not deny the request asking him to explain the experiment he did with the mock tumors at the conference. Scientists could read papers, and they could understand the explanation Young-Joon gave them at the conference. However, if it attracted this much attention from the public, it was necessary for him as principal investigator to provide an easy explanation for a lay audience.

... As such, EGFR continues to generate cell division signals, and the cancer cells proliferate rapidly.

Young-Joon concluded his explanation in the CNN interview. Then, as he feared, Natalie slyly asked a question about Jamie Anderson.

Theres been a lot of issues regarding racism in the scientific community recently.

Yes.

Its being argued that it is a naive premise to think that intelligence evolved the same way when all races have slightly different characteristics, such as skin color. What do you think about this argument?

They were probably going to use Young-Joons answer to beat Jamie Anderson; after all, the public loves a hero who takes down a villain.

Genes can affect intelligence. If genes differ significantly between races, intelligence could vary, but Young-Joon said. What exactly is intelligence?

Pardon?

Deductive reasoning, synesthesia, imagination, language, memory, arithmetic skills. There are a lot of different abilities that could be called intelligence, and it is being constructed and organized pretty well in the scientific community, but we still dont know which are superior, Young-Joon said. And how can language be tested? Do genius writers like Hemingway who can make people cry with just six words have incredible language abilities? Then what if that person is good at writing, but cannot speak? Does that person have good language abilities? Or is it bad?

Oh

And who is more intelligent between a great philosopher like Sartre and a genius mathematician like John von Neumann?

I understand what you are saying. Theres no point in comparing them.

Thats right. This is the same thing as comparing mass and length. If someone asked what was bigger between one meter and one milligram, who could answer that? There is no point in comparing biological intelligence quotients unless those preliminary questions are addressed. And Young-Joon said. There are about two thousand genes that affect language. How they are expressed in each individual brain cell determines the activity of that cell. How those cells communicate with each other determines language ability. The complexity of the microworld is far greater than we can see.

So, youre saying that you agree that genes will have an effect in some form, but that it is too complex and variable for us to understand?

Thats right.

Thank you for your interview. Theres one more thing we would like to ask you.

Yes.

Its about a paper that Doctor Jamie Anderson, the director of the Cold Spring Laboratory, published in

Nature

about the structure of DNA. There is a rumor that he stole the data from a scientist named Rosalind Franklin. What do you think about this?

...

Rosaline, who was sitting beside Young-Joon, quickly turned her head and glanced at him.

I think a lot of what Doctor Rosalind Franklin deserved went to Doctor Anderson, Young-Joon said. Doctor Rosaline Franklin produced that data, and the paper was being written; it hadnt been revealed yet. Regardless of who gave that to Doctor Anderson, it is true that her data was used without permission. There is no question about that. Its a major research ethics violation. This kind of thing should not happen.

* * *

At A-Bio, Park Joo-Hyuk laughed so hard that his stomach hurt while standing beside Lee Hae-Wons desk.

Ah, this crazy bastard He got justice all the way in America, and he made an old guard from the twentieth-century retire.

He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

He is our CEO, but he sometimes scares me, Lee Hae-Won said.

The things that were happening in the United States were major news in Korea as well.

This morning, there was breaking news.

[Jamie Anderson resigns as the director of the Cold Spring Laboratory.]

It was called resignation, but he was basically fired.

Anyways, Im happy that a racist like him was destroyed, Park Joo-Hyun said.

If youre done, you should go work as well. I have patent documents to write.

Theres another patent?

Park Joo-Hyuk chuckled.

Yes. Its from Sweden. That, um, gene surgery.

Oh, youre writing about that.

Yes. But work is manageable nowadays. No late nights either.

You got an email.

Park Joo-Hyuk pointed to her monitor. Lee Hae-Won really received an email, and it was from Young-Joon.

Click.

When she clicked on it, she saw a manuscript that looked like a rough draft of a paper and a few concepts.

[Please have the patent team review this in denial and prepare the application.]

[Patent application for technology to quickly grow cultured meat by hyperprogression.]

...

Lee Hae-Won was speechless. Park Joo-Hyuk gave her a pat on her shoulder.

Good luck tonight!

1. European Medicines Agency