SWDnovel Chapter 195: Micro-dust (11)
Chapter 195: Micro-dust (11)
Chapter 195: Micro-dust (11)
After the press conference, He Jiankui chased after Young-Joon. He grabbed Young-Joon and went to the emergency staircase behind the conference room.
“Doctor Ryu, why are you doing this to me?” He Jiankui said to Young-Joon.
“Do what?”
“Didn’t we make a deal? I do the micro-dust reduction plan, and in exchange, you’ll save me by keeping the CCR5-modified baby alive.”
“I said I would protect that baby, but I made no decisions about you. And the decision I made now is that you should be punished.”
“Damn it!”
He Jiankui turned around.
“Damn it!”
He swung his fists in the air out of frustration.
“Listen to me, Doctor Ryu. I thought you and I could be good friends. Genius scientists are who change the world, people like us. To be honest, small sacrifices are inevitable!” He Jiankui shouted. “But in turn, people like you and me make a better future. I thought you were like me, Doctor Ryu. I thought you were a progressive who believed that the advancement of science was always good.”
“That’s right,” Young-Joon said. “Doctor He Jiankui, I believe the advancement of science is always good, like you said.”
“...”
“But in my case, the method and the results must be good as well.”
“Sigh... There’s no getting through to you.”
He Jiankui let out a sigh.
“Doctor He, do you know about eugenics?”
“Are you trying to lecture me with some old story from undergraduate textbooks?”
“Doctor Galton, the cousin of Darwin, who wrote the theory of evolution, came up with the idea of breeding humans based on Darwin’s theory, like breeding cows or pigs. If you keep breeding individuals that produce more milk, you’ll eventually get a breed of cows that produce more milk because they will get all those genes.”
“...”
“Galton thought he could improve the quality of humans by allowing only the best people to have offspring and limiting the reproduction of inferior people. And there was a man who was so impressed with his book that he personally wrote a letter to Doctor Galton, saying that he would make this book his second Bible. Do you know who that is?” Young-Joon asked. “It was Adolf Hitler. The Nazis committed the Holocaust under the insanity of eugenics. They weren’t just killing for strategic purposes to maintain their military regime; Hitler was an actual believer in eugenics. The first people they killed were the disabled people in Germany because in their minds, they were evolving the human race by exterminating inferior genes.”
“Stop it. What are you comparing me to?” Visit for updates
“Science has to be as delicate as it is radical, otherwise you’re going to get another monster like the Nazis. I’m in favor of the genetic modification of embryos, but biology that shakes us to the core has to be handled very carefully.”
“No, no, it doesn’t, Doctor Ryu. Scientists just do what scientists can do. Philosophers are the ones who think about what humans should do,” He Jiankui said. “Doctor Ryu, the only thing a scientist should worry about is what can be done, not what should be done.”
If Atmox decided to go head-on against A-GenBio, it was obvious they were going to be absolutely destroyed. However, He Jiankui said he came up with a new way to beat them, and that was why he was encouraging Wang Wei to invest more money on the factories. For Wang Wei, who was already a well-known tycoon in China, establishing a factory zone was not a difficult task.
“Anyone would go bankrupt if they got hit with a ten billion-dollar bomb, but if I can stop it by raising the smokestacks of some factories...”
Wang Wei poured more money into the eastern coastline. As time went on, the date of the symposium became just around the corner.
* * *
“Done.”
Three scientists were doing an experiment in a small biology lab at West China Hospital. Two of them were American, and one of them was Chinese. They were scientists who came from A-GenBio for emergency assistance. They were masters of embryology and predicting protein folding. They were helping Young-Joon in developing a treatment for Mimi, the CCR5-modified baby.
“I can’t believe I’m doing research somewhere else again,” Jaob said in pain.
“But it’s nice to travel to China. And besides, Doctor Ryu paid for all our travel expenses,” said Clay.
“Yeah, but it’s no good because it’s Sichuan, it’s so dusty here. I went to Korea because of this,” said Wang Zhubing, a new doctor at A-GenBio from Sichuan.
“Speaking of dust...” Clay said. “Mimi is in a sterile room, right? But can a Delta-32 mutation in CCR5 make someone like that? It’s a mutation that exists in nature, like He Jiankui said.”
“True,” Wang Zhubing agreed.
“And I heard it’s not even because she has a major disease. But they’re keeping her in a sterile room because she’s very susceptible to various pathogens,” Jacob said.
They stared at him with wide eyes.
“What do you mean? She’s a newborn baby?” Wang Zhubing asked.
“That’s right.”
“Newborn babies are born with antibodies from their mothers, so they have almost the same immunity as their mothers until those antibodies are depleted,” Clay pointed out.
“That’s right. It’s one of the basics of immunology,” Jacob said, nodding.
“But having to go into a sterile room means either the mother’s immunity was that low, or there’s something wrong with the genes involved in the baby’s immunity...”
Wang Zhubing paused. All three of them realized the same thing. What they’ve developed now was a type of genetic modification using Cas9; they were going to correct the target DNA in hematopoietic stem cells. It was similar to the gene surgery that bypassed dendritic cells.
The target DNA was Delta-32, the mutated site in the CCR5 gene. Young-Joon had the three of them prepare the surgical procedure, which involved cutting the target location in the patient's sample DNA using Cas9 and inserting normal CCR5.
Clay glanced down at the plastic container he was holding. Though it wasn’t visible, the fifty-microliter aqueous solution contained a fragment of the normal CCR5 gene. They were going to insert Cas9 and this DNA fragment into the baby’s lymph nodes. This would spontaneously cause a break in the mutated DNA site in the cell, and then it would be repaired using the normal DNA fragment as a template. It was like patching a torn-up pair of jeans.
“There’s something other than Delta-32 at that site,” Jacob said. “He Jiankui made a mistake while using Cas9, and another mutation exists near Delta-32. That’s what destroyed the baby’s immunity.”
“God... Doctor Ryu probably already knows, right?” Wang Zhubing asked.
“Of course. He already saw the baby’s data from the DNA analysis machine at A-GenBio,” Jacob said. “Our responsibility stays the same, which is to finish this treatment. Doctor Ryu will take care of the rest.”