CHapter 026
We're talkingsubmarines," the patent attorney said to Josh Winkler. "Significant submarines."
"Go on," Josh said, smiling. They were in a McDonald's outside town. Everyone else in the place was under seventeen. No chance that word of their meeting would get back to the company.
The attorney said, "You had me search for patents or patent applications related to your so-called maturity gene. I found five, going back to 1990."
"Uh-huh."
"Two are submarines. That's what we call vague patents that are applied for with the intention of letting them lie dormant until somebody else makes a discovery that activates them. The classic beingCOX- 2 - "
"Got it," Josh said. "Old news."
TheCOX-2 inhibitor patent fight was famous. In 2000 the University of Rochester was granted a patent for a gene calledCOX-2 , which produced an enzyme that caused pain. The university promptly sued the pharmaceutical giant Searle, which marketed a successful arthritis drug, Celebrex, that blocked theCOX-2 enzyme. Rochester said Celebrex had infringed on its gene patent, even though their patent only claimed general uses of the gene to fight pain. The university had not claimed a patent on any specific drug.
And that was what the judge pointed out, four years later, when Rochester lost. The court ruled that Rochester's patent was "little more than a research plan," and ruled that its claim against Searle was invalid.
But such rulings did not alter the long-standing behavior of the patent office. They continued to grant gene patents that included lists of vague claims. A patent might claim all uses of a gene to control heart disease or pain, or to fight infection. Even though the courts ruled that these claims were meaningless, the patent office granted them anyway. Indeed, the grants accelerated. Your tax dollars at work.
"Get to the point," Josh said.
The attorney consulted a notepad. "Your best candidate is a patent application from 1998 for aminocarboxymuconate methaldehyde dehydrogenase, orACMMD . The patent claims effects on neurotransmitter potentials in the cingulate gyrus."
"That's the mode of action," Josh said, "for our maturity gene."
"Exactly. So if you ownedACMMD , you would effectively control the maturity gene because you would control its expression. Nice, huh?"
Josh said, "Who owns theACMMD patent?"
The attorney flipped pages. "Patent filed by a company called Gen-CoCom, based in Newton, Mass. Filed for Chapter 11 in 1995. As part of the settlement, all patent apps went to the principal investor, Carl Weigand, who died in 2000. Patents passed to his widow. She is ill with terminal cancer and intends to give all the patents to Boston Memorial Hospital."
"Can you do anything about that?"
"Just say the word," he said.
"Do it," Josh said, rubbing his hands.
CHapter 027
Rick Diehlapproached the whole thing like a research project. He read a book on the female orgasm. Two books, actually. One with pictures. And he watched a video. He ran it three times, and even took notes. Because, one way or another, he had sworn he would get a reaction from Lisa.
Now he was down there between her legs, hard at work for the last half hour, his fingers stiff, tongue aching, knees sore - but Lisa's body remained completely relaxed, indifferent to his every attention. Nothing the books predicted had occurred. No labial tumescence. No perineal engorgement. No retraction of the clitoral hood. No change in breathing, abdominal tension, moans or groans...
Nothing.
He was exhausting himself, while Lisa stared at the ceiling, zoned out like she was at the dentist's. Like a person waiting for something vaguely unpleasant to be over.
And then...wait a minute...her breathing changed. Only slightly at first, but then distinctly. Sighing. And her stomach was tensing, rhythmically tensing. She began to squeeze her breasts and moan softly.
It was working.
Rick redoubled his efforts. She responded strongly. It certainly was working...working...she was grunting now...gasping, writhing, building strongly...her back arched...And suddenly she heaved and screamed,"Yes! Yes! Brad! Yessss!"
Rick rocked back on his heels as if he had been hit. Lisa threw her hand over her mouth and twisted away from him on the bed. She shuddered briefly, then sat up, pushed the hair out of her eyes, looked down at him. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dark with arousal. "Gee," she said. "I'm really sorry."
At this awkward moment, Rick's phone rang. Lisa lunged for it on the bedside table and handed it to him quickly.
"Yes, what is it?" Rick snapped. He was angry.
"Mr. Diehl? It's Barry Sindler here."
"Oh. Hi, Barry."
"Something wrong?"
"No, no." Lisa was off the bed, getting dressed, her back to him.
"Well, I have good news for you."
"What's that?"
"As you know, last week your wife refused to undergo genetic testing. So we got a court order. Came through yesterday."
"Yes..."
"And confronted with the order, your wife fled rather than submit to testing."
"What do you mean?" Rick said.
"She's gone. Left town. No one knows where."
"What about the kids?"
"She abandoned them."
"Well, who's taking care of them?"
"The housekeeper. Don't you call your kids every day?"
"Yeah, usually I do, but it's been busy at work - "
"When was the last time you called them?"
"I don't know, maybe three days ago."
"You better get your ass over to your house right now," Sindler said. "You wanted custody of your kids, and you got it. You'd better show the court some parental responsibility."
And he hung up. He'd sounded pissed.
Rick Diehl leaned back on his knees and looked at Lisa. "I gotta go," he said.
"Okay," she said. "I'm sorry. See you."
CHapter 028
Bail was setat half a million dollars. Brad Gordon's attorney paid it. Brad knew it was his uncle's money, but at least he was free to go. As he was leaving the courtroom, the funny-looking kid in the Dodgers jacket sidled up to him and said, "We need to talk."
"About what?"
"You were set up. I know exactly what happened."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. We need to talk."
The kid had booked an interview room in another part of the courthouse. It was just Brad and him. The kid shut the door, flipped open his laptop, and waved Brad into a chair. He turned the laptop so Brad could see it.
"Someone accessed your phone records."
"How do you know?"
"We have contacts with the carrier."
"And?"
"They accessed your cell-phone records when you wereoff work."
"Why?"
"As you probably know, your phone contains GPS technology. That means your location is recorded whenever you make a call." He tapped a key. "Graphing your locations over a thirty-day period, we find this." The map showed red dots all over town, but a cluster of dots in one part of Westview. The kid zoomed in. "That's the soccer field."
"You mean they knew I went there?"
"Yeah. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Somebody knew that two weeks ago."
"So thiswas a setup," Brad said.
"That's what I have been telling you, yes."
"What about the girl?"
"We're working on her. She's no ordinary teenager. We think she's a Philippine national. She's appeared on a webcam, masturbating for money. Anyway, what's relevant now are the inconsistencies in her story. If you look at the hotel security camera" - he tapped another key - "you see here that she turns her body away from the camera while waiting for the elevator, opens her purse, and touches her face. We think she is putting drops, or s?ome irritant, in her eyes. When she gets in the elevator a moment later she is visibly crying. But notice: as a supposed rape victim, crying in the elevator, apparently very upset, she doesn't go right to the hotel desk to report that she has been raped. You have to wonder why not."
"Uh-huh," Brad said, eyes narrowing.
"Instead, she goes straight through the lobby to her car. Security camera in the parking lot shows her driving away at five-seventeen p.m. Depending on traffic, the drive from the hotel to the hospital is between eleven and seventeen minutes. She doesn't show up until six-oh-five p.m. Forty-five minutes later. What was she doing during that time?"
"Injuring herself?"
"No. We've had several experts look at the pictures from the hospital, and the nurse who examined her was an experienced trauma nurse. The pictures are very clear. We think she met an accomplice who produced the injuries for her."
"You mean, some guy..."
"Yes."
"Then he would have left his DNA, right?"
"He wore a condom."
"So at least two people were involved in this."
"Actually, we think a whole team was involved," the kid said. "You were very professionally set up. Who would do this to you?"
Brad had been thinking about that while he sat in his jail cell. And he knew there was only one answer: "Rick. The boss. He's wanted me out of there ever since I started."
"And you were trying to boff his girl..."
"Hey. I wasn't trying. I was doing it."
"And now you're suspended from your job, you've got nine months, minimum, before you go to trial, and you're looking at ten to twenty if you lose in court. Nice." The kid flipped his laptop shut, and stood.
"So what happens now?"
"We'll work on the girl. If we can get a prior history, maybe some video of her on the Internet, we can press the DA to drop the charges. But if this thing goes to trial, it's not good."
"Fucking Rick."
"Yeah. You owe him, buddy." He headed for the door. "Just do yourself a favor, okay? Stay away from that soccer field."
FromScience magazine's "News of the Week":
Neanderthal Man: Too Cautious to Survive?
Scientist Finds a "Species Death Gene"
An anthropologist has extracted a gene from Neanderthal skeletons that he says explains the disappearance of this sub species. "People don't realize that Neanderthals actually had larger brains than the modern Cro-Magnon men. They were stronger and tougher than Cro-Magnons, and they made excellent tools. They survived several ice ages before the Cro-Magnons came on the scene. Why, then, did Neanderthals die out?"
The answer, according to Professor Sheldon Harmon of the University of Wisconsin, was that the Neanderthals carried a gene that led them to resist change. "Neanderthals were the first environmentalists. They created a lifestyle in harmony with nature. They limited game hunting, and they controlled tool use. But this same ethos also made them intensely conservative and resistant to change. They disapproved of the newcomer Cro-Magnons, who painted caves, made elaborately decorated tools, and who drove whole herds of animals over cliffs, causing species extinction. Today we consider the cave paintings a wondrous development. But the Neanderthals regarded them as so much graffiti. They saw it as prehistoric tagging. And they viewed the elaborate Cro-Magnon tools as wasteful and destructive of the environment. They disapproved of these innovations, and they stuck to the old ways. Eventually, they died out as a species."
However, Harmon insists that the Neanderthals bred with the modern Cro-Magnons. "They unquestionably did, because we have identified this same gene in modern human beings. This gene is clearly a Neanderthal remnant, and it promotes cautious or reactionary behavior. Many of the people who today wish to return to the glorious past, or at the very least to keep things as they are, are driven by this same Neanderthal gene." Harmon described the gene as modifying dopamine receptors in the lateral posterior cingulate gyrus and in the right frontal lobe. "There's no question about its mode of action," he said.
Harmon's claim has provoked a firestorm of criticism from academic colleagues. Not since E. O. Wilson published his sociobiology thesis two decades ago has such furious controversy erupted. According to Columbia University geneticist Vartan Gorvald, Harmon was injecting politics into what should be a purely scientific inquiry.
"Not at all," Harmon said. "The gene is present in both Neanderthals and modern humans. Its action has been confirmed in scans of brain activity. The correlation between this gene and reactionary behavior is indisputable. It's not a matter of politics, of left or right. It's a question of basic attitude - whether you are open to the future, or fearful of it. Whether you see the world as emergent, or deteriorating. We have long known that some people favor innovation and look positively toward the future, while others are frightened of change and want to halt innovation. The dividing line is genetic, and represents the presence or absence of the Neanderthal gene."
The story was picked up in theNew York Times the next day:
NEANDERTHAL GENE PROVES ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
Fears of 'Rampant Technology' Justified
STUTTGART, Germany �C Anthropologist Sheldon Harmon's discovery of a Neanderthal gene which promotes environmental preservation "proves the need for sound environmental policy," said Greenpeace spokesperson Marsha Madsden. "The fact that Neanderthals lost the battle for the environment should serve as a warning to us all. Like the Neanderthals, we will not survive unless we take radical global action now."
And in theWall Street Journal :
CAUTION KILLED THE NEANDERTHALS
Is the 'Precautionary Principle' Lethal?
Oppose Free Markets at Your Peril, Club for Growth Notes
BYSTEVEWEINBERG
An American anthropologist has concluded that Neanderthals died from a genetic predisposition to resist change. In other words, "Neanderthals applied the Precautionary Principle so dear to illiberal, reactionary environmentalists." That was the view of Jack Smythe of the American Competitive Institute, a progressive Washington think tank. Smythe said, "The extinction of Neanderthals serves as a warning to those who would halt progress and take us back to a life that is nasty, brutish, and short."
CHapter 029
In thecorner of the office, the TV showed Sheldon Harmon, professor of anthropology and self-proclaimed discoverer of the "Neanderthal gene," being assaulted during a lecture with a bucket of water poured over his head.
On-screen, the event was shown repeatedly in slow motion, the water sloshing over a skinny, bald guy who looked oddly amused. "See? He's smiling," Rick Diehl said. "This is all a publicity stunt to promote the gene."
"Probably," Josh Winkler said. "They had cameras there to catch it."
"Exactly," Diehl said. "And aside from the publicity this guy is getting for his damn Neanderthal gene, he is claiming a mode of action closely related to our maturity gene. Activation of the cingulate gyrus and so on. Could steal our thunder."
"I doubt it," Josh said. "Dozens of genes work in the cingulate gyrus."
"Even so," Rick said, "I think we ought to announce. Soon. I want to get the maturity gene out there."
Josh said, "With all due respect, Rick, we'd be premature."
"You've tested the gene in rats. That's gone well."
"Yes, but it's not exactly newsworthy. Showing baby rats pushing turds in a cage - that won't make the evening news."
Diehl nodded slowly. "Yeah. True. We need something better."
Josh said, "What's the urgency?"
"The board. Ever since Brad got arrested, his uncle has been pissed. Seems to think Brad's problems areour fault. Anyway, he's pressing us to put the company on the map with a big announcement."
"Fine, but we're not there yet."
"I know. But what if we just...what if we justsay that we're ready to start human testing?"
Josh shivered. "I wouldn't," he said. "I mean, we haven't even applied to the FDA for - "
"I know. Stage one. So let's make the application."
"Rick, you know what a stage-one application requires. It's a stack of research data and forms ten feet high. That's just tostart the process. And we would have to lay out a timetable of milestones - "
Rick waved his hand impatiently. "I know. I'm saying we justannounce it."
"You mean, announce it when we're not doing it?"
"No, announce that we'regoing to do it."
"But that's my point," Josh said. "It'd be months before we could even file."
"Reporters don't care. We just say that BioGen Research in Westview Village is ready to begin stage-one testing, and is in the process of making an application to the FDA."
"For the maturity gene..."
"Yes. To be inserted with a retrovirus vector."
"And what will we say the maturity gene does?" Josh said.
"I don't know. We could say that...it cures drug addiction."
Josh felt a chill. "Why would we say something like that?"
"Well, it makes sense, don't you think?" Rick Diehl said. "The maturity gene promotes balanced, mature behavior, which is by definition addiction-free behavior."
"I guess..."
"Youguess ?" Diehl turned to face him. "Let's show a little enthusiasm here, Josh. I'm telling you, this is a great idea. What's the recidivism rate in addiction-treatment programs today? Eighty percent? Ninety percent? A hundred percent? Most rehab doesn't work for most people. That's a fact. How many addicts are there in this country? Christ, we got more than a million in prisons. So how many are on the streets? Twenty million? Thirty million?"
Josh was beginning to sweat. "That would be like, eight or ten percent of the population."
"Sounds about right. I'd bet ten percent of the American population is addicted to drugs, when you include alcohol. Ten percent, easy. Which makes the maturity gene a hell of a product!"
Josh was silent.
"What do you have to say, Josh?"
"Uh, I guess it's a good idea..."
"You wouldn't be fucking with me, would you?"
"No," Josh said. "Of course not."
"You wouldn't be holding out on me. Striking out on your own?"
"No," he said. "Why would you say that?"
"Your mother called today," Diehl said.
Oh shit.
"She's very proud of what you've done, and doesn't understand why I haven't given you a promotion."
Josh sank into a chair. He felt drenched in cold sweat. "So, what are you going to do?" he said.
Rick Diehl smiled. "Give you a promotion, of course," he said. "Did you keep records of the dosages you administered?"
CHapter 030
In a glass-walledconference room on Madison Avenue, the marketing firm of Watson & Naeme was engaged in naming a new product. The room was packed with hip young people in their teens and twenties, all casually dressed, as if they were attending a rock concert instead of a dry lecture from a professor standing at a lectern wearing a bowtie and talking about a gene calledA 58799-6B. The professor was now showing graphs of enzymatic action, black squiggly lines on white. The kids sagged, slumped in their seats, thumbed their BlackBerrys. Only a few tried to focus on the material.
Sitting in the back of the room, the team leader, a psychologist named Paul Gode, spun his finger in the air, signaling the professor to wind it up. Bowtie looked surprised, but he concluded smoothly.
"In summary," the professor said, "our team at Columbia University has isolated a gene that promotes social harmony and group cohesion. It does this by activating the prefrontal cortex of the brain, an area known to be important in determining belief and credence. We have demonstrated this gene action by exposing experimental subjects to both conventional and controversial ideas. Controversial ideas produce a distinctive prefrontal signature, whereas conventional ideas create a diffused activation - what you might call a warm glow. Thus subjects with the gene show a marked preference for conventional thinking and familiar ideas. They also show a preference for group thinking of all kinds. They like television. They like Wikipedia. They like cocktail parties. They like small talk. They like to be in agreement with people around them. Our gene is an important force for social stability and civilization. Since it's the gene that promotes conventional wisdom, we call it the conventional gene."
The audience sat silent. Stunned. Finally one of them said, "You call itwhat ?"
"The conventional gene."
"Jesus, that's terrible!"
"Suicide."
"Forget it."
"Or," the professor said quickly, "we call it the civilizing gene."
Groans in the room. "Thecivilizing gene? That's worse! Worse!"
"Horrible."
"Argh!"
"Jump off a bridge!"
The professor looked nonplussed. "What's wrong with that name? Civilization is a good thing, isn't it?"
"Of course," said the team leader, coming forward from the back. Paul Gode stepped up to the lectern. "The only trouble is, nobody in this country wants to think of themselves as joiners or civilizers. Just the opposite - we're all rugged individualists. We're all rebels. We're antiestablishment. We stand out, we strike out, we do our own thing, go our own way. The herd of independent minds, somebody called it. Nobody wants to feel they'renot a rebel. Nobody wants to admit that they just want to fit in."
"But in truth, everybodydoes want to fit in," the professor said. "At least, almost everybody. About ninety-two percent of people have the conventional-wisdom gene. The real rebels lack it, and they are - "
"Stop right there," the team leader said, holding up his hand. "Just stop. You want to make your gene valuable. That means your gene creates something peoplewant to possess - something exciting and desirable. Conventional wisdom is not exciting or desirable. It's mundane. It's buttered toast with grape jelly. That's what the group is telling you." He gestured to a chair. "You might want to take a seat, professor."
Gode turned to the group, which now looked slightly more alert. "All right. People? BlackBerrys away. Let's hear it."
"How about the smart gene?" someone said.
"Good, but inaccurate."
"Simplicity gene."
"Good direction..."
"Social gene."
"Oversell."
"Socializing gene."
"Therapeutic."
"Wisdom gene. Wise gene."
"Wise gene. Good, very good."
"Right-thinking gene."
"Too Maoist. Or Buddhist. Come on, wake up here!"
"Party gene."
"Fun gene."
"Stone-washed genes. Hip-hugger genes."
"Happy gene."
"Live-it-up gene."
Gode was frowning, and held up his hand again. "Redirect," he said. "Back up. Rewind. Rethink. What's our problem? This gene is really the gene for conventional wisdom - the conventional-wisdom gene - but we don't want to say that. So. What'sgood about conventional wisdom? What does embracing conventional wisdom do for a person? Quickly, now."
"Makes you belong."
"You don't stand out."
"You think like everybody else."
"Reduces friction."
"You fit in."
"Means you read theTimes. "
"Nobody looks at you funny."
"Makes your life simpler."
"No arguments."
"Feel safe expressing an opinion."
"Everybody agrees with you."
"You're a good person."
"You feel good."
"Makes you comfortable."
Gode snapped his fingers and pointed. "Good. Conventional thinking makes uscomfortable ...Yes! No surprises, no distress. In the world out there, everything is constantly changing, every minute. It's not a comfortable place. And everybody wants to feel comfortable, right? Old pair of shoes, comfortable sweats, favorite chair..."
"Comfortable gene?"
"Comfy gene."
"Comfort gene. The comfort gene."
"Warm and fuzzy gene. Warm gene?"
"Happy gene."
"Friendly gene? Easy gene?"
"Soothing gene. Smooth gene."
"Calm gene. Balm gene."
This went on for a while, until finally there were nine candidates scrawled on the whiteboard. A furious argument ensued as names were deleted, though of course all the names would be concept-tested with focus groups. In the end, everybody agreed the winner would be the comfort gene.
"Let's test itin the field," Gode said. "Professor? Tell us: Where is this gene going, commercially?"
It was too early to say, the professor explained. They had isolated the gene, but they didn't yet know the full range of diseases associated with it. However, since nearly everybody in the world carried the comfort gene, they believed that many people probably suffered from genetic anomalies involving the gene. For example: People who were overly desirous of joining the majority - that might prove to be a genetic disorder. And people who felt depressed when they were alone, by themselves - conceivably, another disorder. People who joined protest marches, went to sports games, who sought out situations where they would be surrounded by lots of like-minded people - a potential genetic disorder. Then there were people who felt obliged to agree with whomever they were with, no matter what was said - yet another disorder. And what about people who were afraid to think for themselves? Fear of independence from the surrounding group?
"Let's face it, that's a lot of people," the professor said. "Nobody thinks for themselves if they can help it."
"You mean all this behavior is going to be considered pathological?" someone asked.
"Any compulsive behavior is pathological," the professor answered.
"But positive behavior? Protest marches?"
"Our position," the professor said, "is that we are on the verge of identifying a range of disease states all related to sociability." These genetic anomalies involving the comfort gene had not yet been definitively established, but Columbia University had applied for a patent on the gene itself, meaning that the gene would have increasing value as disorders involving it were identified with certainty.
Gode coughed. "We've made a mistake. These are all disorders of sociability. This needs to be the sociability gene."
And so it was.
FromBusiness Online :
SCIENTISTS FIND GENE FOR SOCIABILITY
Is the tendency to sociability inherited? Scientists at the Morecomb Laboratories, at Columbia University, believe that it is. They report they have found the gene that regulates it, and they have applied for a patent on the gene...
Op-Ed Commentary from theNew York Times :
A "SOCIABILITY GENE"? WHEN WILL THIS NONSENSE STOP?
Columbia University researchers now claim to have found a sociability gene. What's next? The shyness gene? The reclusive gene? The monastic gene? How about the get-off-my-back gene?
In truth, researchers are taking advantage of the public's lack of knowledge about how genes actually operate. No single gene controls any behavioral trait. Unfortunately, the public doesn't know that. They think there's a gene for eye color, for height, and for hair curliness, so why not one for sociability? Geneticists will not speak out. They all sit on the boards of private companies, and are in a race to identify genes they can patent for their own profit.
Will this ever stop? Evidently not.
FromGrist online:
FEELING SOCIABLE? THAT'S PATENTED
The research office of Columbia University has applied for a patent on a gene that it says controls sociability. Does this mean that one day everyone on antidepressants, or ADD medications, or anxiety medications, will have to pay a royalty to Columbia? Reportedly, pharmaceutical giants in Switzerland are bidding frantically to license the gene.