Chapter 178: GSC (10)

“Everything else aside, it’s outrageous and unforgivable that terrorists would target the GSC directly,” said Brayden, a British scientist.

“Even if they are angry at the West and want revenge, what did us scientists do wrong?”

Doctor Dylan clicked his tongue.

“Yes. It’s just like people taking out their anger at Doctor Ryu because He Jiankui made a genetically engineered baby,” Doctor Lily said.

He Jiankui flinched.

“Genetically engineered babies are a necessary technology, and medicine will eventually head in that direction. You should be thankful for me starting it off,” He Jiankui said.

“We’re saying that you started it off the wrong way.”

“Funding for Cas9-related research might be cut off.”

“That baby might die early because its CCR5 is modified. How are you going to take responsibility for it?”

“What? You people shouldn’t be criticizing me!” He Jiankui said angrily. “If you all do biology and medicine, you will eventually genetically engineer embryos, won’t you? You can’t criticize me when I’m taking the brunt of the barrage of condemnation you’re going to get from religious organizations.”

“Don’t be absurd. We don’t experiment with people.”

“You have to do it for medical purposes when it’s absolutely necessary. You can stop HIV from being inherited with drugs without modifying CCR5, but you stupidly...”

“Stupidly?”

Scientists criticized He Jiankui from all over. There was an instant uproar.

“Everyone,” Young-Joon said.

All the scientists looked at him. “I will protect those babies,” he said. “Because I feel responsible as the developer of the base technology. I also knew that someone would try to genetically modify embryos.”

Young-Joon glanced at He Jiankui near the end of his sentence.

“Although I didn’t expect someone who is capable enough to conduct such an experiment to do it so recklessly in secret, without even asking me, the patent holder of Cas9, for permission,” Young-Joon said.

“Because you wouldn’t have given me permission if I requested it,” He Jiankui said, shrugging.

“We’ll discuss that later because we’re facing a bioterrorist attack,” the commissioner of the KDCA said.

“Alright. Let’s get to the point. How much does Doctor Ryu or the Korean government know about the bioweapon that the rebels are using?” asked an old, gray-haired scientist.

It was Caleb, a Canadian scientist.

“To be honest, we know almost everything.”

Young-Joon shared the presentation with the scientists. They read through all of it carefully: the DNA sequence, the various proteins made, the structure, and their mechanisms.

“Ha, this is a monstrous bacteria,” Dylan said.

“They pulled in a lot of new foreign genes here and there to make it more infective, but the biggest problem is the pumps,” Lily said, reading the bacteria’s data.

“That’s right.”

“There are thirty different antibiotic pumps. How did you figure this out, Doctor Ryu?”

“After I got the patient sample from Doctor Michelle, I isolated the bacteria and read all the DNA using the analysis equipment at A-Bio,” Young-Joon said. “Then, I used the BLAST program to match the DNA and find the genes involved.”

“But all the protein structures are here, too. How did you do this?” Lily asked.

“That’s a secret because it’s related to A-Bio’s new technology.”

It wasn’t something that was possible with current technology, but Young-Joon couldn’t say that Rosaline told him.

“You’re such a scientist. The discussion keeps going astray when something interesting comes up,” He Jiankui interrupted. “Let’s get back to the pumps.”

“We can’t kill this bacteria with antibiotics if there are these many antibiotic pumps.”

“Normally, anthrax can be treated with lots of antibiotics if it’s early in the infection, but this anthrax is different.”

The scientists expressed their worries.

“We can make a cure,” Young-Joon said.

“It’s a type of super bacteria that doesn’t respond to any antibiotics. Can we make a cure for it?” Dylan asked.

“We are going to take advantage of the fact that it has a lot of pumps, since these pumps work by active transport.”

Pumps were structures on cell membranes. If antibiotics came into the cell, the pumps would pump them back out, and that was how the bacteria gained resistance to antibiotics.

However, active transport pumps consumed energy. Pumping out antibiotics was not a natural process, but it was something that required energy from the bacteria.

“There are thirty pumps. Since there are thousands of them in total, the bacteria’s energy source will be depleted if they run wild. It won’t be able to survive,” Young-Joon said.

“Are you saying you’re going to administer all thirty of those antibiotics?” the commissioner asked.

“No, that would take a pretty big toll on the patient’s stomach and liver. Instead, we’d give them the common active factor of the pump through the patient’s respiratory system. Antibiotics can damage human cells depending on what they are, but not the active factor. The antibiotic pumps don’t exist in human cells, so it won’t affect them at all.”

“But that wouldn’t kill the anthrax, would it? The anthrax can go back to a spore and grow,” Dylan pointed out.

“Then it’s much easier. If spores are created within the body, the immune cells can eliminate them on their own,” Young-Joon said.

“Hm.”

The scientists nodded. It was convincing.

“Personally, I think it will be successful. If there’s a terrorist attack, the antibiotics won’t work, and we’ll end up treating in the way I described. However, we will be commercializing it without enough clinical data.”

“There’s nothing we can do if it’s urgent and nothing else works,” the commissioner said.

“But this drug is just in case people get infected. The best case scenario would be if there is no bioterrorism at all,” Young-Joon said.

“Is there a way?” asked Steinhauer, the leading expert in astrophysics.

“This anthrax infects the respiratory system. The terrorists will most likely bring in gas bombs and spray them in hotels and other places.”

“So we should scan for gas bombs at airports?”

“Unless the terrorists have gas in their heads instead of their brain, they won’t bring it to the airport in gas form,” Brayden said sarcastically.

As Steinhauer glared at him, Lily added, “They will probably make it into a spore and condense it using a centrifuge to make a pellet. 0.05 milligrams should be enough to paralyze a region as big as Yeouido[1].”

“They’ll bring it into the country and put it into gas cylinders,” Dylan said.

“Then if we can figure out where they are going to detonate the bomb, we can have police patrol the nearby regions and look for gas cylinder bombs,” Steinhauer said.

“Just to be clear, the terrorists’ target is the GSC, right?” Brayden asked.

“Then would the terrorists be so stupid as to come all the way to Asia, where they have no ties, and kill Koreans to make another enemy? Maybe if they have gas in their heads...” Steinhauer said to Brayden sarcastically.

“Please don’t fight,” Young-Joon intervened. “Realistically, there’s no way for us to detect micrograms of bacteria at the airport. We can’t go through every passenger’s luggage, and even if we did, we probably wouldn’t find it.”

“I suppose.”

“What I would like to ask everyone to do is to stay at the Grand Hyatt until this attack is sorted out,” Young-Joon said.

“You want us to act as bait?” Dylan asked.

“That’s right.”

“Well, alright. I’m confident that we’ll be able to stop it. It’s nothing but a biological weapon used by some trivial terrorists.”

“We would’ve run away already if we were going to.’

“But we have to make sure the terrorists don’t realize we know about their attacks. If they find out, they might abandon the GSC as a target and strike somewhere else,” Lily said.

“But we still have to evacuate the citizens, right?” Brayden asked.

“The government will take care of that,” the commissioner said.

“Well, alright. If they put in the anthracis in gas cylinders, how big will they be?” Brayden asked Young-Joon.

“It will fit into a backpack.”

“The size of a backpack...”

“So now we just need to figure out a way to find the gas cylinder? What should we do? I would like to hear from some of the physics and engineering doctors.”

He Jiankui looked back at Doctor Comat.

“Let’s increase the number of police officers on patrol and give them portable X-ray scanners. They can scan someone’s belongings with one swipe of the stick,” Comat said.

“Or what about this? We can organize plain clothes officers and have them shoot shear wave guns at backpacks or suitcases,” Steinhauer said. “If there’s gas after metal, we can figure out if it’s a gas cylinder based on the refractive index of the shear waves.”

“That’s a good idea. But can you make shear wave guns small enough to carry?” Caleb asked.

“It already exists. I developed it a few years ago, and I’ve been supplying it to the U.S. army. We can get it through expedited shitting and use it,” Steinhauer said.

“Whatever works,” Young-Joon interrupted. “Besides that, I would like to put one more safety mechanism between detecting the gas cylinders to prevent release and the cure to treat the infected.”

“What is it?” Caleb asked.

“It’s to get rid of the released anthracis in the air.”

“Is that even possible?”

“We will also release gas. However, this gas will contain bacteria that will collect anthracis.”

“...”

The scientists were quiet for a few seconds. The commissioner of the KDCA glanced at Young-Joon.

‘He’s doing something weird again.’

“There’s a bacteria called Thermoplasma volcanium that lives in hot springs that are one hundred sixty degrees Fahrenheit. Recently, it was discovered that Thermoplasma live in the hot springs at the Yellowstone National Park and the Hakone Hot Springs,” Young-Joon said. “It seemed unlikely that animals or humans transported the bacteria there. Some scientists studied it out of curiosity and realized that the bacteria can fly.”

“So if you release a large quantity of Thermoplasma, it will fly around and catch anthracis?”

“Of course, Thermoplasma won’t be interested in anthracis, but we have Cas9, the best genetic engineering technology available.”

He Jiankui flinched again.

“We can put a few genes into Thermoplasma using Cas9, and we will synthesize a protein into the cell wall.”

“What is it?”

“It’s an antibody that sticks to anthracis. When we release this bacteria into the air, it will chase the anthracis and collect as many anthracis as there are antibodies. We expect one Thermoplasma to catch two hundred anthracis.”

“What happened next?”

“Anthracis can’t multiply when they are captured by Thermoplasma, so it won’t be pathogenic. And Thermoplasma is a bacteria originally found in hot springs, so it won’t live long at room temperature.”

“How long can it live?” Dylan asked.

“Less than a day, at most. When it dies, it secretes a large amount of nuclease and protease. It will destroy the anthracis that is attached to it.”

Caleb marveled.

“That’s a real bacterial war.”

“Is Thermoplasma dangerous?” Lily asked.

“No. It’s a bacteria that lives in almost all hot springs. It’s safe to say that everyone who has bathed in hot springs has been infected with it at least once. It’s completely fine,” Young-Joon replied.

“It’s interesting.”

He Jiankui clapped.

“Doctor Ryu, let’s show the terrorists what real scientists’ biology is like.”

1. Yeouido is a large island on the Han River in Seoul ☜