The Eternal World Read Online Free PDF Page B

science expecting lap dances and body glitter. No offense, but I’ve got a serious problem I want to solve.”
    “Not having a whole lot of luck, though, are you?” Simon asked. “I understand you’re still working on telomeres. And by ‘working,’ I mean ‘failing spectacularly.’ ”
    David felt his face get hot. Telomeres were the sequences at the ends of chromosomes that kept the cells dividing properly. When the cell ran out of telomeres, it got old and eventually died. David had been trying to increase the length of telomeres and increase the life of the cells.
    Unfortunately, lengthening telomeres in a cell was also one of the first steps in the cell dividing out of control. Increasing the lifespan of a cell was also opening the door to cancer. That’s why David’s current experiments had all failed.
    David wasn’t sure how Simon knew that—his latest research wasn’t published yet—but he was more surprised that Simon even knew what a telomere was.
    Simon could see it on his face. “You weren’t expecting that question in this club, were you?”
    All right, David thought. Let’s see how much the boy billionaire learned from whoever gave him the CliffsNotes version of DNA manipulation. “Telomeres are the most efficient way to increase cell life,” he said. “Highest reward, least amount of risk. If we can increase error-free replication, the entire body lives longer.”
    “But the body will still age. Cellular breakdown and disease will still be a problem, maybe even more so,” Simon shot back. “What about other solutions? Like, say, boosting mitochondrial life, as suggested by de Grey?”
    “Altering the mitochondria?” David asked. “The problem there is the genes identified by de Grey can’t survive outside the mitochondria. Move them, and you end up killing them.”
    “Then why not decrease cell toxicity by improving the cell’s ability to remove waste products?” Simon asked, not letting up. “Engineer a tiny little DNA garbageman who takes out the trash.”
    “Where does the waste go, then? You shuffle it outside of the cell, it can build up in other places and do more damage there. You cure a guy’s wrinkles and give him amyloid plaques in the brain and Alzheimer’s.”
    “So we use specific cleansing enzymes, like hydrolases. Regular injections to go after the stuff between the cells and clean it out. You could even apply a modified variant of the same thing to clean up the extracellular cross-links and break them down before they start collecting and causing problems.”
    David shook his head. “Which could start to erode cellular material indiscriminately if the genetic delivery system mutates. It would make Ebola look like a bad flu.”
    “Exactly,” Simon said, as if David had just made his point for him. “That’s why Revita works on transcription errors,” Simon said. “Zero defects. Perfect cellular copies. That’s the key. Not telomeres.”
    “Your own research trials show that Revita doesn’t fix all the errors. It’s more like bleach in the laundry—you erase the stains, but most of the color, too. And that’s why you’re getting such a high incidence of brain tumors. You’ve wiped out one of the gene sequences that prevents cancerous cells from forming in nerve tissue.”
    “None of our other researchers have said that.”
    “Probably because they’re too scared. Like I said, I don’t work for you yet. I bet your next set of lawsuits comes from people developing spinal-cord cancer.”
    Simon gave David a cold look.
    Just when it seemed like this job might be interesting, David thought.
    Then Simon smiled. “You’re right. We’re getting some feedback from the FDA about that already. It’s probably going to be a class-action suit by Christmas.”
    Simon didn’t appear too worried. In fact, he looked pleased that David had just found a flaw in the company’s most lucrative product.
    “I think you’ve got to combine our transcription