Chapter 30: A Supernova In the Scientific Community (4)

“I am not against giving him stocks,” Kim Hyun-Taek said.

The attention of all the board members was drawn to him. Kim Hyun-Taek looked calm, but he had a lot of mixed feelings.

“Considering the performance Doctor Ryu showed, he will make the entire pie bigger if he becomes a major shareholder and executive.”

COO Son Jin-Gap added, “Director Kim is right. If the interview is released along with what he has shown thus far, the stocks of the company will rise. But if it becomes known that he has become a company executive and a major shareholder with four percent of the shares? If we say that we are promoting a scientist into an executive by giving them a huge portion of the company stocks and are extensively supporting him? Depending on how we play this, the increase in our stocks could be much more than four percent.”

“Then is Doctor Ryu joining the board from now on?” Kim Hyun-Taek asked.

There was a moment of silence.

“Doctor Ryu is too dangerous to let into management. His ideology is a little different from ours, and honestly, that part worries me.”

“Let’s give him the shares and put him as an unregistered director. Use that to stop him from coming onto the board of directors,” Ji Kwang-Man said.

All eyes were drawn to Ji Kwang-Man this time.

“Wait, Division Manager. Do you think he’s going to be an unregistered director when he has as many shares as Director Kim?” Go Yoo-Sung asked like he was bewildered.

“We have to gloss over it and convince him. We can go with something like because it’s a unique circumstance, we won’t be able to give him a vote on the board of directors since he is still young and inexperienced, but it’s okay since he gets this much stock and has that much power amongst the shareholders,” Ji Kwang-Man answered.

“Do you think that clever bastard will accept it? What if he makes a fuss about joining the board too? From what I saw, he’s like a beagle that chews through anything until it becomes a rag when it sees something that it doesn’t like,” Gil Hyung-Joon said with a frown.

“The only condition he gave me was just the four percent of stock for now. If we give him that, he won’t be able to say anything, right? He’s not going to go that overboard.”

“Hm...”

The directors were lost in thought.

“He definitely has to be a registered director if he is going to hold four percent,” Kim Young-Hoon said. Ji Kwang-Man glanced at him with a gulp.

Kim Young-Hoon was one of the people that the SG group had put on the board.

The largest shareholder of A-Gen was Yoon Dae-Sung’s family. Himself, his wife, his son Yoon Bo-Hyun, and his older brother Yoon Dae-Pyung had fourteen percent combined. The entirety of the fourteen percent distributed amongst them was actually being used in whatever way Yoon Dae-Sung wanted. And Ji Kwang-Man and Son Jin-Gap, who were both close friends with him, had shares as friendly shares.

Although it seemed like things between Nicholas Kim and Yoon Dae-Sung had become a little awkward, they still had a link as they attended the same school, and the lab directors still followed Yoon Dae-Sung. Their shares were quite strong in defending the management rights.

But there were other forces in the company as well. Aside from the National Pension Service, which had eleven percent, SG, a Korean company, had six percent. It was because A-Gen had gotten investments from them when they had no money when they first started out. For the same reason, Berkshire, a foreign investment company, had eight percent, which they had acquired when A-Gen was building a few labs outside the country. Conson & Colson, who was interested in A-Gen since they were a small pharmaceutical company, had four percent as well. The combined shares of the three exceeded the Yoon Dae-Sung family’s.

There hadn’t been much contact between them yet, and there weren’t any problems since Yoon Dae-Sung had a lot of friendly shares. Furthermore, the main task of SG Electronics, the core of the SG group, was to make semiconductors. Even if they expanded their subsidiaries and dabbled in a few different businesses, they did not know enough about this field to interfere with A-Gen’s management.

But since a huge potential value of A-Gen was revealed along with the appearance of Young-Joon, no one knew how the situation would unfold from here on.

‘Ji Kwang-Man, this bastard is trying to take him out of the board and work him.’

Kim Young-Hoon thought as he stared at Ji Kwang-Man. Outside directors like Kim Young-Hoon, Berkshire, and Conson & Colson had relatively less contact with Young-Joon. If he wasn’t part of the board, it became that much harder to form a connection with him.

‘That can’t happen. We have to make Ryu Young Joon the card to keep the Yoon family in check.’

“Didn’t you make the treasury stocks for the succession of management rights?” Alex asked. He was someone from Berkshire.

“I’m worried if it will be okay to just give it out like that.”

“It should be fine,” Yoon Dae-Sung replied.

“If you’re going to give him shares, give him the right to attend board meetings. It does not make sense for him to not have a vote in board meetings when he has four percent,” Kim Young-Hoon said.

“But don’t we have some problems in our company?” Ji Kwang-Man asked.

“If we let Doctor Ryu Young-Joon have a seat at board meetings, we don’t know what he will do when he finds out. He is no joke.”

“He may find out someday if we give him four percent and let him be a director. We can buy some time before he finds out if we don’t give him a seat in board meetings, but can that change his personality, too?”

“Doctor Ryu said that he will give us some of his patent royalties.”

The directors suddenly changed.

“What are you talking about now?” Gil Hyung-Joon asked.

“He took ninety percent of the royalties after complaining that he can’t give any to anyone who didn’t participate in the experiment, but he’s giving it to us again? Does he have multiple personalities or something?”

“He’s asking us to use it to get his shares from the board of directors. It’s proof that Doctor Ryu is also learning company politics. He’s smart, so he will learn quickly.”

“So, Mr. Division Manager, what you are saying is that he will be able to think from the perspective of management with time?” Kim Hyun-Taek asked.

“That’s right,” Ji Kwang-Man replied.

“Let’s take a break and gather again. I’m a little tired,” Kim Young-Hoon said.

* * *

It was a Friday. During their lunch break, Young-Joon and the Life Creation Department received everyone’s attention as they stood in line in the company cafeteria.

“It wasn’t this bad even when we got the award at the seminar,” Cheon Ji-Myung said awkwardly.

The reason everyone was like this was because of the publishing of the paper in

Science

. A huge ten thousand character paper was put on the front page. It was going to be a masterpiece that would be looked back on several times in the medical community and would boast a legendary citation index.

After the paper, there was a special on Young-Joon and his interview.

[The pioneer who is spearheading a new trend in medicine: Ryu Young-Joon, Ph.D]

In the eyes of a scientist, the paper itself was extremely shocking, but his declaration in his interview made their heads ache.

‘We will put an end to all neurological disorders.’

‘In a few years.’

In the past, any scientist would have been laughed at and called a lunatic if they said things like that, but Young-Joon had shown that he had the ability to make that happen.

All scientists read scientific papers. Like the fathers in the nineties who read the daily newspaper that was delivered to their doorstep, they all put the main article of

Science

on their front screens on Friday. This morning, they had all read Young-Joon’s paper and interview. And since news travels fast, everyone was already talking about how he was an executive and had four percent of shares.

“Um, you’re Doctor Ryu Young-Joon, right?”

A scientist in his fifties approached Young-Joon.

“Yes, I am.”

“I am Ha Hun-Wook, the department head of the Nerve Research Department. I read your paper, and it was interesting.”

He reached out and shook hands with Young-Joon.

“Would you consider working with us when you start clinical trials for the optic nerves?” He asked.

“Our department has been studying peripheral nerve regeneration for a long time, and we have a lot of hospital contacts as well. We also have experience in clinical trials as well. If you’re okay with it, we’d like to join you in your clinical trials and use stem cell technology to treat glaucoma patients or retinal degenerative patients who have dysfunctional optic nerves. We will be a lot of help to each other.”

Ha Hun-Wook handed Young-Joon his business card.

“Please give me a call if you are interested.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Young-Joon took the business card and put it into his pocket. After Ha Hun-Wook, a bunch of scientists began crowding in front of him as if Ha Hun-Wook had started this.

“Doctor Ryu, are you also thinking of growing organ tissue with induced pluripotent stem cells?”

“You’re going to focus on spinal nerves after optic nerves, right?”

“If you focus on brain diseases, you will have to work with the medical imaging team. Our department...”

“...”

Young-Joon received seven business cards even before he got his meal ticket. What was even more surprising was that they were all business cards from people who were heads of their departments.

“Wait, why do you have seven cards when Lab Six only has four departments? What lab are they from?” Park Dong-Hyun said in bewilderment.

“But is that true?” Jung Hae-Rim asked Young-Joon.

“What is?”

“That you’re becoming an executive.”

“Hm.”

Young-Joon nodded his head.

“It’s true.”

“Holy.”

“Oh my god...”

Park Dong-Hyun and Jung Hae-Rim’s jaws dropped to the floor.

“Oh, Director Ryu. You came all the way down here to this humble cafeteria. We should have known in advance and brought you to a luxurious place. We are so sorry...” Cheon Ji-Myung started joking around but was swiftly interrupted.

“Eek. Stop it,” Young-Joon stopped him as if it was burdening.

“Um, you’re Doctor Ryu Young-Joon, right?”

Three young people who looked very smart came and talked to Young-Joon.

“Yes, I am.” When Young-Joon replied, the three of them hesitated a little.

“Are you going to propose a project?” Park Dong-Hyun asked.

“No. Um, we work at the Research Support Department of Lab Six. We were wondering if we could get your business card?

“My business card?”

‘Why does the Research Support Department want my card?’

In puzzlement, Young-Joon pulled out some business cards from his coat and gave it to them. As he did, one of them handed him a pen.

“Could I get an autograph on that as well?”

“...”

“Doctor Ryu, you’re already a celebrity,” Bae Sun-Mi said.

“He’s going to get the Nobel Prize in ten to fifteen years,” The employees said as they got Young-Joon’s signed business card.

“We do science, but we can’t propose a project since we’re not scientists. But we wanted to get something like this since you’re a big star that will be long remembered in the history of science in Korea.”

“We’re cheering for you. Go Doctor Ryu!”

“Please become an executive, and I hope you’ll come to Lab Six as the lab director!”

The three of them said goodbye several times and left, giggling.

Watching them walk away, Park Dong-Hyun said, “Doctor Ryu, do you want to take some pictures? Exchange some used things. Socks you wore... or I’m wearing Guess underwear...”

“What are you talking about!” Young-Joon shouted in disgust.

“But Doctor Ryu’s reputation has definitely gone up a lot. How many project proposals have you gotten today...” Cheon Ji-Myung said.

“What are you going to do next, Doctor Ryu?” Jung Hae-Rim asked.

“Well, I am going to start clinical trials with optic nerves,” Young-Joon replied.

“What’s the next experiment with induced pluripotent stem cells?”

“I’m not getting into that right away. I’m going to decide on a target later on.”

“So are you just going to do the clinical trials?” Cheon Ji-Myung asked.

“No, I’m going to do probiotics. We have to beat everyone to it since it’s an important future market,” Young-Joon replied.

The Health Food Department of Lab Six had the best facilities and technicians to study probiotics, and they were linked to A-Gen’s giant probiotics production complex. Young-Joon was going to borrow their infrastructure.

And Celligener had a new coating technology for developed strains. He was going to collaborate with Celligener and borrow it.

Finally, he had the magic strain that Rosaline picked out for him,

Clorotonis limuvitus

. It was one of the types of bacteria that Young-Joon discovered when he gained insight into the probiotics from Roche Song Ji-Hyun gave him at the pharmacy.

The combination of the three would make a powerful item. They were going to each get a huge amount, even considering that one venture company and two departments were going to work together and split the performance. There was a high chance that they would have a monopoly in the probiotics department.

There was a reason why that was important.

The human body was made of approximately thirty-seven trillion cells, and all those cells were the person’s. It was part of themselves, something they had created by steadily dividing from an embryo in their mother’s stomach.

But actually, there was a huge number of immigrants living in this enormous biological republic: microorganisms that lived in symbiosis with the human body, like lactobacilli in the gut.

How many of them were living in one person’s body? Every paper had a different number, but the paper that was on the low end of the estimate predicted thirty-nine trillion microorganisms. The paper that was on the high end of the estimate? There were papers that thought there were ten times more microorganisms than human cells. Whether it be the former or the latter, it was embarrassing to claim that the body was human.

It was unbelievable, but most biologists in the past almost ignored the huge number of bacteria living in the body.

But as more research is done on microorganisms, more shocking facts are discovered. microorganisms that live in symbiosis with the human body could make a person’s skin smooth or keep them skinny. Conversely, if someone had more harmful microorganisms, they could get bad skin or become obese. It seemed unbelievable, but it was true.

Furthermore, those microorganisms controlled a person’s immune response, affected their mood, and played an important role in determining someone’s biological age. Scientists would be able to tell how old a person is with an error range of plus or minus two just by their gut bacteria composition.

It was the biggest buzzword of healthcare in the twenty-first century. Probiotics: the item that the pharmaceutical industry was paying huge attention to.

The next step of the genius who shook the scientific community with stem cells and optic nerves was going to be on the microorganisms market, something much different from before.