Chapter 36: Independence (3)
Son Soo-Young and her husband were having a serious conversation together.
“An experimental treatment...?”
Son Soo-Young became a little depressed.
“We have to consider that the nitric oxide treatment has failed. She keeps getting more resistant. We’re reaching a limit.”
“...”
“There’s a new drug called Veratex. It’s a drug derived from natural products, and it can expand the blood vessels to decrease blood pressure. The risk will be low since it is a very safe drug.”
“But that’s just the prediction, right?” Son Soo-Young’s husband asked.
“Yes. There’s no record of it being given to an infant, only on a five-year-old child. It was successful then.”
“Five-years-old... That’s a lot more than our little girl...” Son Soo-Young said in a depressed voice.
“But since it’s a substance that is naturally produced by the infant’s body...”
“Doctor.” Son Soo-Young held her husband’s hand tightly and barely spoke as if it was difficult for her to say this.
“From a long time ago, I wondered whether I was holding onto our daughter because of my greediness and making her suffer for a long time.”
“...”
“Maybe it’s time for us to let her go. I don’t want to torture her anymore.”
Son Soo-Young bowed toward Hong Ju-Hee.
“I am sincerely grateful to you, Doctor, for looking after our daughter...”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Hong Ju-Hee replied.
“It’s a shame to admit it myself, but even I thought that there was no hope now. But yesterday, Doctor Ryu Young-Joon came to me.”
“Doctor Ryu Young-Joon?”
Son Soo-Young’s eyes widened. Hong Ju-Hee could see a little bit of hope bloom on her face.
It was normal for Hong Ju-Hee, who had treated newborns for a long time, to know a lot more about persistent pulmonary hypertension than Young-Joon, who was only a pharmaceutical scientist. There was no way that Young-Joon could solve something that Hong Ju-Hee couldn’t.
However, Son Soo-Young was an ordinary office worker who didn’t know much about medicine or pharmaceuticals, and to her, Young-Joon was more than just some doctor or scientist. After receiving stem cell therapy, she could feel her vision returning by the second, and that was truly astonishing. Since everyone praised that great achievement, she was even more convinced.
Maybe... If it was Young-Joon, maybe he could do something.
Now, Son Soo-Young’s eyes shone with hope. She was hoping that the person who proposed they use Veratex was Young-Joon.
“Doctor Ryu recommended it,” Hong Ju-Hee said.
“And I chose that drug as a doctor. Veratex is the safest drug for high blood pressure that is allowed to be sold.”
“Then...”
“Let’s try to do everything we can. Blue held up until now, right?”
* * *
After contemplating long and hard, Young-Joon had decided on the next target for iPSCs to be used.
‘Alzheimer’s.’
He had chosen it among the eight possible choices. He thought a lot about arthritis and spine damage, but he chose Alzheimer’s.
A lot of people confused dementia with Alzheimer’s, but they were subtly different. Dementia included symptoms such as not being able to recognize people and objects or having problems with memory, and one of the causes of this was Alzheimer’s. The former was the symptom, and the latter was the disease.
For example, dementia was like having a runny nose and coughing, and Alzheimer’s was like the flu. Similar to how having a runny nose and coughing could also be symptoms of a cold, it could not be Alzheimer’s even if someone showed signs of dementia; there were things such as vascular dementia or senile dementia. But Alzheimer’s disease was a serious and severe illness since half of dementia patients had it.
Then, what was Alzheimer’s exactly? Alzheimer’s was when a substance called beta-amyloid accumulated in the cell and induced nerve cell death by causing neurotoxicity. Dementia symptoms would begin as the nerve cells died.
The new drugs that Pfizer and several other pharmaceutical companies developed and were developing broke down beta-amyloid, therefore slowing the progression of and preventing Alzheimer’s. However, it was unable to recover the nerve cells already destroyed by the beta-amyloid protein. This meant that it could stop the progression of Alzheimer’s, but wouldn’t be able to fix dementia if it had already begun. Conversely, one could cure Alzheimer’s and treat dementia symptoms if those nerve cells were revived.
Even people who did not study biology would be able to predict how difficult this would be; there was no need to explain it. Even if Young-Joon made iPSCs and broke the closed doors to stem cell regenerative medicine, they had a lot more mountains to climb ahead.
First of all, the method to differentiate iPSCs into brain nerve cells; it was something that ordinary scientists would study for ten years, but let’s just say that Young-Joon somehow did it. There was a difference between being able to produce it and mass-producing it. Since there were about one hundred billion nerve cells in the brain, they would have to fill in a billion nerve cells even if just one percent of brain cells were damaged. Since some of the ones that the doctor put in would not establish themselves and die, the actual amount that would need to be injected would be more than a billion.
Let’s assume that Young-Joon was able to solve that problem by inventing a miraculous way of growing cells. When he was curing glaucoma, he had to inject the optic nerve cells into the retina. Then, would he have to use the same method with nerve cells? Should he cut open the patient’s skull with a saw, check the necrotized region, pierce it with a needle and inject new nerve cells into it?
Young-Joon had to consider the fact that most Alzheimer’s patients were over sixty. It was difficult for an elderly patient with a significant lack of physical strength and recovery speed to endure such a stressful operation.
For ordinary scientists who weren’t Rosaline, treating Alzheimer’s with stem cells was probably as difficult as terraforming Mars. As such, Young-Joon had to take a different route with this Alzheimer’s cure. Rosaline told him the way to do that.
[Advice: About the differentiation of stem cells in tissue. Fitness consumption rate: 2/second.]
[Advice: About the mass production of stem cells. Fitness consumption rate: 2.3/second.]
[Advice: About the injection of stem cells into the veins. Fitness consumption rate: 1.8/second.]
‘The consumption rate! Are you serious?’
“Doctor Ryu!” Park Dong-Hyun shouted as he ran out of the lab.
“Yes?”
“The stuff you ordered from Sigma-Aldrich came.”
“Oh, yes, thank you.”
“But why did you order ATP in bulk? I saw that you spent like three million won.”
“There’s just something I want to try, personally.”
Young-Joon made up an excuse and went out to the hallway. The salesperson was writing something on his notepad with the two large ice boxes of ATP on the ground.
“Hello.”
As Young-Joon greeted him, his face lit up.
“Hello! Doctor Ryu, this is the ATP you ordered. This is the statement.”
“This isn’t going to be paid with the budget because I’m buying it out of my own pocket. Could I pay by card?”
Young-Joon pulled out his card.
“You’re getting it on your own?”
“Yes.”
“Alright.”
The salesperson looked a little puzzled, but he gave Young-Joon the card reader.
As Young-Joon purchased it and was about to bring the materials in, the salesperson reached out to Young-Joon with a notepad.
“Um, Doctor Ryu.”
“Yes?”
“Could I get an autograph?”
“...”
“I also did my master's in biology. I’m in sales now, but I did research as well. I’m a fan.”
The salesperson smiled like he was embarrassed.
* * *
Young-Joon’s reputation changed every day after he came to Lab Six, but this upward trend was way too steep.
In the beginning, no one even knew who he was when he went down to the cafeteria for lunch. After the year-end seminar, they began to steal glances at him, and after the publication in Science, they began coming up to him and asking for meetings and collaborations.
But after that, he succeeded in his clinical trials, raised the company stocks to an all-time high, and swept the news and papers.
Now, Young-Joon saw that all the scientists became silent when he came down to the cafeteria. And they began to whisper among each other from afar as if they were seeing something amazing.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this...’
Honestly, it was burdening and uncomfortable. He wished that they would just not care.
“It’s happening since you’re in stardom now. You can’t help it,” Cheon Ji-Myung said as they had lunch.
“But I think it would be uncomfortable, Doctor Ryu. To be honest, even I’m just uncomfortable watching you,” Jung Hae-Rim said.
“It will be okay when you become a director since you won’t come to the cafeteria often,” Park Dong-Hyun said.
Usually, directors met up with one another and had lunch outside rather than using the cafeteria.
“Doctor Ryu can have lunch with Gil Hyung-Joon,” Cheon Ji-Myung said while smirking.
“Eek. I can’t stomach food when I’m with people who make me uncomfortable.”
“I think Gil Hyung-Joon will be the one who will get indigestion if he has a meal with Doctor Ryu.”
Park Dong-Hyun imitated Young-Joon, “Director! It’s against meal ethics to pour sauce on a shared tangsuyuk without permission![1] Since we each paid half for this tangsuyuk, you only have half the shares. Take your half and pour sauce on it; I will take the other half and dip it. And let’s draw up a contract to take turns choosing the restaurants from now on!”
“Pfft!”
Jung Hae-Rim spat out a little bit of water.
“Is my image that bad?”
Young-Joon’s ears were flushed.
“You’re kind of like an incarnation of research ethics from hell...” Koh Soon-Yeol said while propping up his glasses.
“But Doctor Ryu, when are you becoming a director?”
“It will come up during the next shareholders meeting,” Young-Joon replied.
“Oh my. So only a week left?”
Bae Sun-Mi’s eyes widened.
“It pains me that we only have a week left to see you, Doctor Ryu, since you’ll get your individual office and move there,” Cheon Ji-Myung feigned a cry.
“About that...” Young-Joon began. “If I was to create a company, what would you think about working with me?”
“Starting your own company?”
Cheon Ji-Myung tilted his head in confusion.
“I thought you were going to be the CEO of A-Gen? And be the largest shareholder as well?’
“Yes, of course. That goal hasn’t changed. And since it will be difficult to do any follow-up knowledge on stem cells if I leave A-Gen’s infrastructures, I will have to stay here.”
“Then what are you talking about? Starting your own company?” Park Dong-Hyun asked.
“The optic cell treatment has been successful in clinical trials, and we are getting investments from all over. The board is probably going to try to make the investments as big as possible.”
“Hm.”
“I thought of an item that will be that big. If I succeed in this, it will have such a huge impact that it will make glaucoma seem like it was nothing.”
“I’m scared already about what kind of crazy idea you will propose and start it.” Park Dong-Hyun’s face was filled with excitement.
“I am going to cure Alzheimer’s.”
“...”
There was nothing but silence around the table.
“If that happens, it’s no longer something that can exist only as a department. Then, two huge pipelines that are connected to iPSCs will be made. And among that, an Alzheimer’s cure is as valuable as a mid-size company.”
“You’re right. If it’s Alzheimer’s, it will be that big.”
Cheon Ji-Myung nodded his head.
“But the problem will be that one director will own all of that. For the company, they will be happy, but in a predicament at the same time since I will get too much power. There will be people who are going to try to use me to keep CEO Yoon Dae-Sung in check, which will make him uncomfortable with me.”
“You’re saying that there might be a division in the board?”
“Yes. I’m going to use that to make A-Gen into a group, and I’m going to propose that we create an affiliate company. Something that will pay a set price and use all of A-Gen’s infrastructure. And I will be the owner and CEO of that place.”
“Hah... It’s too unrealistic. Do you think that it will be easy? It’s a different story if the company was a subsidiary, but places like affiliates that have no governance and share-division structure are usually made by royal families who are connected by blood...” Cheon Ji-Myung said while stroking his chin.
Young-Joon smiled.
“I have a few things I’ve planned.”
1. Tangsuyuk is a Korean-Chinese dish that has pork strips and comes with a sweet and sour sauce. Some people like dipping the sauce to keep it crunchy and some people like pouring the sauce on it. ?
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