Chapter 46: A-Bio (1)

“Pancreatic cancer,” Young-Joon said. “Analyze pancreatic cancer. You can do it now, right?”

Rosaline’s level was higher now and she had more fitness; she had grown enough for her to be able to show cancer as an option.

There were two reasons why Young-Joon chose pancreatic cancer as his target. First of all, it was difficult to start the follow-up research for stem cells right now as all the stem cells experts in the company had to focus on the clinical trial for the Alzheimer’s cure. Second, A-Bio would already be created by the time this project was on track, which meant that this was the first research he would do as the CEO of A-Bio and not an A-Gen scientist. Put differently, it meant that A-Bio was entering the anticancer drug market.

It was true that the public still focused on stem cells when thinking of A-Bio. Everyone thought that it was a regenerative medicine company. But A-Bio couldn’t just be that; this company had to be the frontier that dominated all areas of the pharmaceutical industry. That was why they had probiotics, a healthcare product. Of course, cancer, the largest disease that threatened humanity, could not be an exception. This research was going to be one that showed what A-Bio was.

Then, why did Young-Joon choose pancreatic cancer as his target when pancreatic cancer only accounted for two percent of all cancer patients? It was because it was the hardest cancer to deal with. There were countless advances in almost every type of cancer, but pancreatic cancer was still undefeatable. The average survival rate of cancer patients after five years of discovering it was around seventy percent, but pancreatic cancer had an average of around ten percent. Even Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple and the most famous businessman, died of pancreatic cancer. The world’s greatest doctors would have done everything they could to save someone like him, but he still died. It meant that it was still too difficult for humanity.

Why was it so difficult? First of all, most cases were already severe once they felt pain and got checked up at the hospital because there weren’t really any symptoms. And it was almost impossible to introduce treatment drugs to the pancreas.

Anticancer drugs could kill normal cells as they were usually toxic. So the key was to only deliver it to cancer cells. This was called local delivery, but local delivery of treatment to the pancreas was so difficult that it always caused despair to numerous scientists.

This was why it would cause a huge impact in the anticancer drug field—because it was such a difficult disease.

—Let’s eliminate pancreatic cancer with a coated Birnavirus.

Rosaline said.

“Birnavirus?”

The strategy to use a virus as a transportation method to introduce drugs wasn’t a very new idea, but viruses like AAV were used.

Even Young-Joon, a biologist, wasn’t familiar with the birnavirus.

“What’s the birnavirus?”

—It’s a virus that causes infectious pancreatic necrosis in fish in the salmon family. It destroys the pancreas and causes them to die.

“A virus that infects salmon also works on humans?”

—It does not work on mammals.

‘Makes sense why I’m so unfamiliar with it.’

It was not infectious to humans, so the pharmaceutical industry wouldn’t have paid much attention to it.

“Then how do we use it?”

—We can make it selectively infect cancer cells in the pancreas if we manipulate a few of the receptors on the surface of the virus.

Whoosh!

The images Rosaline analyzed popped up into his head. There were four types of receptors protruding from the surface of the birnavirus. Originally, they were meant to pierce the surface of fish cells, but their mechanism changed as their structure changed. These biomaterials recognized transferrin receptors on the surface of pancreatic cancer cells and the structure of a polymer called ERBB2; they were both target cells that were only expressed in high quantities in pancreatic cancer cells.

The birnavirus would rip through the pancreatic cancer cell membrane and infiltrate it. A little while later, the cells infected by the birnavirus would activate the necrosis mechanism. Then, the cancer cells would die one by one.

—It is a virus that originally destroys the pancreas. It can also destroy the tumor on the pancreas. It will be able to treat pancreatic cancer effectively.

“...”

As Young-Joon calmed his breathing after seeing the hallucinations, he asked, “I have so many questions to ask. First of all, how would the virus be introduced? Through the veins?”

—It would be better to go with an ingested drug since the pancreas is part of the digestive system. That would be more convenient for patients as well.

“Alright. But that virus is dangerous. I don’t think it should be left in the pancreas.”

—They will not be able to proliferate in the pancreas if we eliminate the BVP3 gene. The viruses we put inside the body will be eliminated by the macrophages after they’ve destroyed the cancer cells. It will be safe if we administer the right amount of birnavirus to eliminate pancreatic cancer.

“Hm.”

—But there is a problem. The birnavirus is completely destroyed in the stomach.

The acidic digestive fluid in the stomach destroyed the structure of the virus. The pancreas was connected to the duodenum, just after the pylorus of the stomach. It meant that if the birnavirus was swallowed, it had to pass the stomach to have a chance to approach the pancreas.

“Then we have to make it so that it can withstand stomach acid.”

—We can change the structure so that it can tolerate stomach acid. But there is another problem. Due to the stomach’s nature of being a digestive organ, it will stay for a long period of time. The birnavirus will also infect stomach cells after that amount of time.

Everything about biology had exceptions. Even drugs that had strictly controlled functions had side effects; eventually, they would influence normal cells little by little. Of course, the more normal cells were exposed to the drug, the higher the chances were of it influencing them.

“You’re saying that it can’t go to the pancreas if it loses its function due to stomach acid, and it will infect the stomach if it withstands the acid, right?”

—Yes. So, I recommend that you coat the outside of the virus with a capsule rather than altering the virus itself to withstand stomach acid. This coat will tolerate stomach acid but will be eliminated by fluids secreted by the pancreas.

“... Okay, let’s go over this again. So, after we capsule coat it to stop both the virus being destroyed and it infecting the stomach, the birnavirus that flows out after the capsule is destroyed by pancreatic fluids will move to the pancreas to infect only the cancer cells and eliminate them by activating necrosis, which viruses naturally induce? And we’ll get rid of side effects by putting in just enough of the virus to destroy the cancer cells without the ability to self-reproduce?”

—Yes.

‘Holy, the difficulty of this is unreal.’

It was a solution that lived up to its reputation of bringing countless scientists and doctors to their knees. There was a reason why the medical community hadn’t succeeded in treating it. Young-Joon couldn't believe that it had to be treated in such a creative way.

First of all, most scientists who studied cancer most likely did not know that something like the birnavirus existed. It was probably studied by scientists in veterinary medicine and fishery.

The idea to manipulate a pathogen that infected fish and infect humans with it was a crazy idea as well. It was an extremely erratic, dangerous, and bewildering thought, was it not? But to destroy pancreatic cancer by eliminating its ability to self-reproduce and making it so that they only act on cancer cells? On top of that, it would be orally delivered, and it would only be introduced to the pancreas after it passed through the stomach with a capsule that only reacted to pancreatic juice?

It was basically a sci-fi novel at this point.

“There was a reason why you whined about not having enough fitness to analyze cancer... I didn’t know it would be this complicated.”

—Don’t worry. I can do most things now.

With Rosaline’s reply, a couple options came up.

[How to modify birnavirus genes. (Fitness consumption: 1.0)]

[How to coat birnavirus with a capsule. (Fitness consumption: 1.5)]

After opening and reading each of the options, Young-Joon picked up the company phone. Following the ARS’s instructions, he chose the option to buy experiment materials, then to buy experiment animals or genes, then to buy viruses.

—Hello, this is Kim Young-Hee from the Research Support Center.

“Hello. This is Ryu Young-Joon from the Life Creation Department.”

𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

—Hup.

Kim Young-Hee was a bit surprised.

“Hello?”

—Oh, yes, sorry. How may I help you?

She asked.

“I am trying to purchase the birnavirus.

—The birnavirus...?

Kim Young-Hee obtained her doctorate in virology and was responsible for viruses at the Research Support Center. Nevertheless, she was unfamiliar with the birnavirus.

—... I’m sorry, but what kind of virus is that?

Kim Young-Hee asked hesitantly.

It was natural for her to not know. How could she know about something like that? It wasn’t like A-Gen farmed salmon or something.

‘I didn’t mean to make her embarrassed.’

Feeling a little sorry, Young-Joon made it more clear.

“It is a virus that causes infectious pancreatic necrosis in salmon.”

She was even more confused.

—Salmon? Like the fish?

Kim Young-Hee asked in a confused voice.

“Yes. It’s a virus that infects salmon. Would we have a sample of it at the lab?”

—No... I know all the viruses we have in the lab, but we don’t have anything like that.

Kim Young-Hee replied.

“How long would it take if we purchased it from somewhere else?”

—Please give me one second.

After searching the database, Kim Young-Hee replied.

—It will take about a month.

“Alright. Please proceed with the purchase. It would be great if it is in the form of a DNA vector.”

* * *

About seven minutes away from Lab One by foot, there was a seven-floor building that was about two hundred-pyung.[1]

Originally, Lab One intended to make this building into a separate research ward and move the Anticancer Drug Research Department here. It was registered as a lab and was equipped with waste liquid treatment facilities, but Lab One could not use it due to the situation.

As such, it was put on the market, and now, it was the company building for A-Bio.

“It’s smaller than I thought. I thought you would get like a two thousand-pyung building with your name value,” Park Joo-Hyuk, who came with Young-Joon to see the building, said.

“I’m going to move to a larger building once the company and the number of people grows,” Young-Joon replied.

“But we don’t have to waste money already. This is enough for now since we’re going to use the facilities at A-Gen for manufacturing or research, and we’ll only be conducting the main research here.”

“How many people do you have?”

“Right now, seven.”

“... Does one person get one floor?”

“You think that makes sense? Oh, wait. It’s eight people including me.”

Everyone from the Life Creation Department had transferred over, and so did Choi Myung-Joon and Seo Yoon-Ju after Young-Joon was given the probiotic project. Choi Myung-Joon had passionately convinced Seo Yoon-Ju, who was hesitant on leaving a big company like A-Gen for A-Bio, saying that Director Ryu was the real jackpot.

“Do you want to work as an in-house lawyer?” Young-Joon asked.

“At A-Bio?”

“Yeah. I’m going to make a legal team when the company gets bigger. I want you to be in charge of it.”

Park Joo-Hyuk crossed his arms and thought about it.

“Alright. I don’t want to live off the money I get from being appointed.”

“Okay, so nine people. Let’s bring in Attorney Lee Hae-Won and make it ten people.”

“That’s a good idea, but why don’t you just post a job opening? You’re not going to run a company with just ten people, right?”

“I already did.”

“Saramin?”[2]

“There, too...”

Young-Joon turned on his phone. There were about forty application emails in his inbox, and all of them were foreigners.

Park Joo-Hyuk was shocked when he saw Young-Joon’s phone screen.

“Where did you post the job opening to get someone named Abdul Azeez as one of the applicants? Do people from the Middle East use Saramin nowadays, too?”

“I posted a job opening in Science Career Jobs.”

“Holy...”

“Wait. There’s a Carpentier in the applicants. Is this actually Carpentier?”

Young-Joon’s hands trembled.

“Who is Carpentier?”

“Be quiet for a little bit because I’m kinda going crazy right now.”

Young-Joon opened the email. He thought it might just be someone with the same name, but it was actually them. They wrote about their research on transplanting lipid stem cells to reconstruct skin tissue in the first paragraph; it was really the Carpentier that Young-Joon knew.

“I know that our company definitely has potential, but is he for real? What is he thinking... He’s throwing away his tenure and coming to Korea?”

“Who is this person?” Park Joo-Hyuk pestered Young-Joon for a response like he was frustrated.

“He’s a professor at Caltech. And he’s a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.”

“...”

Park Joo-Hyuk’s jaw dropped to the floor. After being speechless for a while, he asked, “Someone like that is coming to your company?”

“I can’t believe it either, but I got an application email from him.”

“... Am I going to join the company at the same time as a Nobel Prize recipient?”

“If he comes after sorting things out with Caltech, you’ll be his senior in terms of when you joined the company. Maybe not in terms of rank, though”

“When that person comes to Korea, reporters are going to ask him if he knows Ryu Young-Joon.”

“Ack!”

Young-Joon screamed at that thought, which was horrifying, but fostered national prestige.

1. Pyung is a common measurement used to measure how big a house or building is in Korea. One pyung is equal to about 35.6 square feet. ?

2. Saramin is an employment website for job openings in Korea. ?