Dr. Marsteller Chapter 3
3
Dr.
Marsteller mulled over the problem.
Without her funds he would lose his prestige and nearly half his
salary. As a tenured professor, he would
stay on and teach, but he would likely lose his lab to a young ambitious
assistant professor with a new grant.
His funding had been steady for 35 years and now he was in danger of
losing it. He wouldn’t be able to
continue uninhibited with his anti-aging research. When he worked with nucleotide bases in the
late 60s he discovered some of the pathways related to DNA reconstitution. It was the proudest moment of his life. Immediately he had received large grants from
the National Institutes of Health, he was even integral in the founding of the
National Institutes of Aging. They were
looking for the fountain of youth.
Besides his government funding, he was mainly supported financially by
people whose sole interest was to stop the aging process to attain eternal
life. They had all died except Mrs.
Viscane, who discovered his research in the 80s. However, in the last 30 years, Dr. Marsteller
had done little but publish papers describing convoluted molecular mechanisms
that supported his original theory but failed to lead to Mrs. Viscane’s goal.
The answer
to any question that begins with the three words, ‘Is it possible….’ is always
‘Yes,’ thought Dr. Marsteller. Anything
is possible. A therapy to extend lives
exists to be discovered, and Dr. Marsteller was determined to find it and prove
it. He hadn’t yet, but he wasn’t about
to compromise his integrity and publish something that wasn’t true to maintain
his position. Of course, he was lucky to
have Mrs. Viscane as a benefactor so he had the luxury of maintaining his
integrity, he thought. But it sickened
him when so much was published and scientists thought something was true, only
to discover years later after techniques advanced that the theory was
completely wrong. He wasn’t sure if it
was because the original proponent of the theory was incompetent, devious or
just plain wrong.
He was
flummoxed his colleagues had not decided to nominate him for the Nobel Prize
this year. His friends had made him
privy to his nominations in the 20 years previous. His work in the 60s definitely warranted the
Nobel Prize, he believed.
-If you
haven’t won yet, Sylvester, you’re probably not going to, consoled his friend
Dr. Hamilton.
As he
contemplated his colleague’s ingratitude, he picked up a pencil and tapped it
on the desk. The telomeres were the
problem. How to stop the telomeres from
being shortened in the DNA and resulting in cell death? If this could be achieved, the cells could
theoretically sustain themselves eternally.
He tapped the desk some more. An
enzyme, telomerase, can stop this process but then the cells develop cancer and
divide repeatedly, forming tumors. I’ve
thought of all this before, he thought and slammed the pencil down.
But what
would happen if we engineered the embryo with recombinant DNA so all its cells
will produce the enzyme in abundance.
Have I done this yet? Well,
that’s really the only way, by god!! He yelped and grabbed the pencil, snapping
it in his excitement. The simplest idea
is usually the best, he thought. The
more you ruminate the more pain you create.
Why didn’t
I think of this before? It’s so
simple. Was it just laziness, or am I
losing my touch? He laughed. The ironic notion of his aging brain not
working well enough to cure aging was hilarious to him.
He tried to
retrace his thoughts that led to his moment of inspiration. How did I come up with that just now? he
asked himself. The human mind is a
miraculous thing!
Then, in a
sudden fit of mania, he sprinted out of his quiet office into the lab with the
Bunsen burners, Petri dishes, pipettes and flasks. The students, in their white lab coats, sat
around a massive wide screen computer laughing.
It was situated on a long bench filled with equipment and chemicals,
which divided the room in half. The computer
was used for various multimedia purposes - making videos, manipulating microscope
pictures, analyzing data and looking at the latest internet phenomenon. It was the most powerful computer they owned
and a new computer was purchased every couple years for its purpose. Laptops for personal use where in small anti
rooms that served as makeshift offices with 2 or 3 students per room. A couple ipads were strewn in the offices and
on the benches. The students had the
Black Keys on iTunes and were watching a video of an orangutan sky-diving.
-Hey, that
guy donkeypunch755 is on the shared files.
Dude, he had that new MGMT CD. We
gotta get that one before he goes offline.
-Yeah man.
As one
student bent over to download the file, the others noticed Dr. Marsteller
walking quickly towards them. They
dispersed to look busy, one of them nudging the student over the computer.
-Hey, I’m
doing it.
Then she
looked up and saw Dr. Marsteller standing over him- and shut off the music and
the video.
-Alexandria,
can you come into my office.
The other
students raised their eyebrows from the microscopes and pipettes.
-Sure.
Alexandria followed Dr. Marsteller out of the
lab. The professor closed his door and
sat down at his desk. She sprawled on
the flowered chair. Dr. Marsteller
encouraged a casual atmosphere. He hated
uptight tedious labs. And Alexandria, a
cute, thin girl with long dark hair and a face like an impressionists rendition
of Mick Jagger, who was naturally uptight, portrayed the body language of
casualness, even though it was calculated relaxation because she knew it was
what Dr. Marsteller wanted.
-What do
you want Sylvester? (They were always supposed to use his first name)
-I want you
to change the project you’re on.
-What? Why?
I’m right in the middle of it.
I’m about to graduate with it. I
have a few cell lines running right now.
-Yeah, but
I want you to create a transgenic mouse which overexpresses telomerase.
-That
didn’t work.
-What?
-I think we
tried it; I’m not sure we published it, but I don’t think it worked.
Dr.
Marsteller’s frustration mounted. She had
to do it. He had enough of this.
-I want to
work with the lab animal people and try it again and see what happens.
-But I will
finish what I’m doing in a couple weeks, she protested, and I’m supposed to
gradu….
-Listen, I
know you are not impressed with me, which is ironic, because you are so easily
impressed. You are even impressed with
yourself. You think the work you’ve done
is worth getting a PhD?
He snapped
ruthlessly at her. Her face had
blanched. She was terrified. What would she do if he kicked her out of the
lab? All the work she’d done, with no
reward. Dr. Marsteller had the upper
hand and he was not interested in discussion.
-Can you at
least assure me I’ll graduate soon if I do this?
-Why would
I do that? Dr. Marsteller belittled her. Why would I let you know that
information? That information is
valuable to me. Why? Because you only work when your butt is on
the line. Because to you this is just a
job. And you wouldn’t do shit if it was
secure. You don’t know how lucky you are. Because you don’t give a shit about those
people with disease, the elderly or saving anyone. You only care about yourself.
She was
astonished. He had gone too far. He was under a lot of pressure now and she
knew it.
-I take
exception to that.
-Try it now
Alexandria. We are not having a
discussion about this, he said pointedly.
She knew she had to. He had
issued the ultimatum. It was do it or
quit.
-What do
you want me to do? she asked, sitting up straight now in her more comfortable
position, and taking fervent notes.
She was the
senior graduate student in the lab and was writing her dissertation. She planned on graduating at the end of the
semester, but it was up to Dr. Marsteller and her graduate committee – a
committee of his friends. She had every
right to be angry. Getting violently
angry around sensitive chemicals and delicate experiments was not the best
idea. So Alexandria repressed her anger,
went outside and bitched to Johnson, another student taking a cigarette
break.
I hate to do
it to her, thought Dr. Marsteller, but she is the only student capable. It shouldn’t be a huge problem. And if it worked? Well, if it worked, they’d have an ageless
mouse on their hands and a Nobel Prize in their pocket. Not to mention unlimited funds.
This originally appeared in Dr. Marsteller