Tracye Overby (left) and Christopher Reeves (right) with Jim Murphy lying between them. He seems quite entertained. (Note his sock-wrapped hand resting on Reeves’s left arm.)
Richard Preston
I popped a beer and handed it to Elrod. “Are you okay?”
“Just fine.”
I opened a beer for myself. “There’s chicken in the cooler. Do you want some?”
He ate pieces of chicken with his gloves on, and asked me not to hand him any pieces that had sharp bones.
It was a cloudless day in spring, without a breath of wind. The Santa Cruz Mountains stretched into the distance, blanketed with many colors of green. Canyons wandered down through the mountains, jammed with the dark spires of redwoods. A flock of coots burst from the willows and flew straight across the lake bed, heading west toward the sea. Overhead, violet-green swallows dodged and looped. The birds were behavioral phenotypes, their movements controlled by their genes. A streak of dust appeared in the east, at the edge of the lake, and extended toward us: something moving fast. Speed of Light Towing was coming for us. A battered pickup truck with fat tires stopped a good distance away. A young man got out. He walked over to us, dragging a chain and stomping his feet on the sand as he went along, testing the sand. His name, it turned out, was Robert, and he was the same person I’d spoken with. He glanced at the Lesch-Nyhan men. “Hey, how are you?” he said in friendly way.
“Fine,” Murphy answered in a slushy voice.
Robert said to me quietly, “What’s with them?”
“It would take a while to explain,” I said.
“We’ll need to dig,” Robert added.
All of us (except Elrod and Murphy) got down on our knees and began scooping sand from under the vehicle with our hands, Robert working along with us. Ten minutes later, we’d dug a tunnel under the vehicle. Robert crawled into it and got the chain hooked into the chassis. He crawled out. “Start your vehicle,” he said to me. “Give it gas when the chain goes tight. If the chain breaks, watch out. It could come back through the windshield and cut your head off.”
He started his truck, gunned the engine. The truck shot forward in a running start, and chain snapped tight.
There was a sound like a gunshot; the chain had broken. It whiplashed back and hit the Speed of Light truck with a booming sound that echoed over the lake, leaving a dent in the tailgate.
Robert got out and studied the damage to his truck. He seemed philosophical about it. “I should’ve used the big one.” Then he reached into the bed of his truck and unfurled a massive chain—the big one. He dragged it slowly over to us, and got it attached. “This’ll definitely pull something out of here. I just hope it’s not your axle.” He floored his truck, the chain went tight, and the Expedition was yanked out, bouncing and fishtailing over the lake bed. Perhaps having Lesch-Nyhan syndrome is like being stuck in mud all your life while waiting for help that never arrives.
Jim Murphy soon after being rescued from quicksand by Speed of Light Towing, Watsonville,
California. He is sticking his tongue out at the photographer. “No more off-roading with you.”
Richard Preston
A COUPLE OF YEARS LATER, Jim Murphy came down with pneumonia, and he went downhill fast. When it was clear that he was dying, I called him to say good-bye. As he got on the line, I could hear a hubbub of voices in the background. A lot of people had come to see him, and they were milling around in his hospital room and in the hallway. He seemed to be handling his situation calmly. “I’ll be all right,” he said to me, and added, “Take care with your driving.”
Another day, before Jim Murphy died, I visited James Elrod. Tracye Overby, who was working as Elrod’s assistant that day, needed to change the silk liners he wore inside his motorcycle gloves.
Elrod did not like to see his bare hands. He asked me to hold his wrists while Overby removed his gloves. It occurred to me that I had never seen his hands. The hands that emerged were pale, with spindly fingers that had been gnawed close to the bone in places, and a finger was missing. “Danger,” he said. His eyes took on a strange, bright, blank look. He was staring at the right hand. His arm was tense and trembling. As if a magnet were pulling it, the hand moved toward his mouth. His mouth opened, wider and wider, baring his teeth…. “Help!” he called in a muffled voice.
We threw ourselves on Elrod. It took all our strength to restrain his hand. As soon as we got control of it, he relaxed. Overby got the gloves back on him.
“Nobody knows about this disease. Every day I’m hoping for a cure,” Elrod said. “I wanted you to see that.”
Glossary
arthropod A segmented invertebrate with a hard exoskeleton made of chitin. Examples: spiders, mites, insects, crustaceans.
basal ganglia An area in the lower part of the brain, the size of a lemon, that influences many aspects of behavior.
behavioral phenotype A pattern of actions and behavior traceable to the influence of a gene or genes in the DNA.
biohazard space suit A pressurized whole-body protective suit made of soft, flexible plastic, with a soft helmet, worn by researchers working in Biosafety Level 4 (BL-4) laboratories.
Biosafety Level 4 (BL-4) The highest level of biocontainment security.
Celera Genomics A division of the Applera Corporation devoted to genomic and proteomic discovery to advance the practice of medicine.
CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a federal organization, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, responsible for the detection and prevention of human disease, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
chromosome A small elongated body in the nucleus of a cell in which a portion of the organism’s DNA is tightly coiled, for storage. Human cells have two sets of twenty-three chromosomes (for a total of forty-six chromosomes).
Chudnovsky Mathematician, the The brothers David and Gregory Chudnovsky assert that functionally they are a single mathematician who happens to occupy two human bodies.
decon shower A chemical decontamination shower used in the air lock entry/exit module of a Biosafety Level 4 lab.
DNA sequencing Determination of the sequence of nucleotides, or letters, in a strand of DNA.
ecotone A boundary-like habitat in nature where different kinds of ecosystems come into contact and mix.
Eddington number, the The number of protons and electrons in the observable universe. The Eddington number is roughtly 1079, or a 1 followed by seventy-nine zeros; it was first proposed by the British physicist Sir Arthur Eddington in 1938.
epistaxis Nosebleed.
EST Expressed sequence tag. An easily identifiable sequence of letters in DNA, typically located near the end of a gene.
gene A stretch of the DNA, typically a thousand to fifteen hundred letters long, that holds the recipe for making a protein or a group of proteins in an organism.
genetic disease An inherited illness or impairment that is passed from parents to their offspring in a gene or genes in the DNA. A genetic disease is not contagious.
genome, human The total amount of DNA that is spooled into a set of chromosomes in the nucleus of every typical human cell.
genomics The sequencing and study of genes in DNA.
gout A disease, first identified by doctors at the time of Hippocrates, in which crystals of uric acid build up in the extremities, especially the big toe, causing severe pain.
Home Depot thing, the (or It) A powerful computer built by mathematicians David and Gregory Chudnovsky.
host An organism in or on which a parasite lives.
hot zone, hot suite A Biosafety Level 4 biocontainment laboratory.
HPRT protein A protein produced by all cells in the human body, used for recycling purines (by-products of the processing of DNA). When HPRT is absent from cells, due to a defect in a gene, the result in humans is Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. The full name of this protein is hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase.
Human Genome Project, the A nonprofit international re
search consortium that deciphered the complete sequence of nucleotides, or letters, in the human DNA.
IMAS Institute for Mathematics and Advanced Supercomputing, at Polytechnic University, Brooklyn. Principally occupied by David and Gregory Chudnovsky (the Chudnovsky Mathematician).
Institute, the Nickname for the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), at Fort Detrick, Maryland.
It See Home Depot thing.
J. Craig Venter Institute A nonprofit institute dedicated to research in genomics, founded and run by genomic scientist J. Craig Venter.
Lesch-Nyhan syndrome A rare genetic disease, almost invariably expressed in males, in which the patient engages in compulsive acts of self-injury. It was first characterized in 1962 by medical researcher William L. Nyhan and medical student Michael Lesch at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
Ludolphian number, the The same number as pi (p). The name is derived from Ludolph van Ceulen, a German mathematician of the seventeenth century who approximated pi to thirty-five decimal places and had the digits engraved on his tombstone.
m zero A powerful supercomputer constructed largely of mail-order parts by the mathematicians David and Gregory Chudnovsky. Predecessor to the Home Depot thing.
Mbwambala A patch of disturbed woodland about three miles long and half a mile wide that wanders along a stream about six miles southeast of the city of Kikwit, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) A federally funded collection of medical research institutes situated on a campus in Bethesda, Maryland, that both conducts and funds many billions of dollars in medical research every year.
nucleotide An information-carrying building block, or “letter,” of DNA. There are four nucleotides in DNA: adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine; they are designated by the letters A, T, C, and G.
number theory The mathematical study of the properties of numbers.
parasite An organism that lives on or inside another organism, its host, and feeds on the host, being harmful to the host or of no benefit to it.
pi () The ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Expressed in decimals, pi goes 3.14159…and continues infinitely, without periodically repeating. Pi is a transcendental number.
pubic symphysis An area in the lower front of the pelvis where the pelvic bones join in a suture filled with cartilage.
red diarrhea, the The local Congolese term for an Ebola virus infection during the 1995 outbreak in Kikwit, Congo.
self-mutilation, compulsive Uncontrollable physical self-injury, such as self-biting. In Lesch-Nyhan syndrome it arises ultimately from a defect in the gene that codes for the HPRT protein, though the exact mechanism of the disease is unknown.
strebelid flies Parasitic wingless flies that crawl and live on bats. A conjectured possible natural host of the Ebola virus.
supercomputer One of the world’s most powerful computers for its time.
TIGR The Institute for Genomic Research, a nonprofit research institute dedicated to sequencing genomes, now part of the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland.
transcendental number A number that is not the exact solution to any polynomial equation that has a finite number of terms with integer coefficients. See pi.
tubular cast, throwing a Expelling through the anus a sleevelike lining of the intestines and rectum.
Unicorn Tapestries, the Seven tapestries of large size and exceptional preservation and beauty (though one of them is now in fragments), originally woven around 1500 in Brussels or Liège, now hanging in the Cloisters Museum in New York City. The Unicorn Tapestries are considered to be among the great works of art of all time.
virus A disease-causing agent smaller than a bacterium consisting of a shell made of proteins and membranes and a core containing DNA or RNA. A virus is a parasite that can replicate only inside living cells, using the machinery of the cell to make more copies of itself.
warp, weft Strong, straight noncolored threads (warp threads) and delicate undulating colored threads (weft threads) are woven to form a tapestry. In many late medieval tapestries, including the Unicorn Tapestries, the warp threads run horizontally and the weft threads run vertically.
wet lab An underground room at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art where tapestries and works of fabric art are washed, conserved, and photographed.
Zarate procedure A surgical procedure whereby the bones of the pelvis are cut in front, at the location of the pubic symphysis, the cut running through a suture of cartilage there. It causes the pelvis to spring open. The Zarate procedure is a crude but effective way of releasing a baby stuck in the birth canal.
Acknowledgments
The principal thanks in this book must be given to the people who are portrayed in it. They often patiently and generously submittted to the sort of tedious questioning that I gave Nancy Jaax when I examined her hands. I’m especially grateful to: Nancy Jaax; “Jeremy” “Martha” Gregory and Christine Chudnovsky; David Chudnovsky and Nicole Lannegrace; the late Malka Benjaminovna Chudnovsky; the late Herbert Robbins; Richard Askey; William T. Close; Will Blozan; Heidi Blozan; Rusty Rhea; Kristine Johnson; Tom Remaley; Tim Tigner; Lee Frelich; Carolyn Mahan; Richard Evans; James Åkerson; Christopher Asaro; Stephen C. Sillett; D. Scott Sillett; Robert Van Pelt; J. Craig Venter; Claire Fraser; Hamilton O. Smith; Marshall R. Peterson; James D. Watson; Eric S. Lander; Norton Zinder; Francis Collins; Gene Meyers; Jeffrey and Tondra Lynford; Morton H. Meyerson; Tom Morgan; Peter Barnet; Barbara Bridgers; Scott Geffert; Joseph Coscia, Jr.; Oi-Cheong Lee; Timothy Husband; William L. Nyhan; Michael Lesch; Nancy Esterly; James Elrod; James Elrod’s sister; the late and beloved Jim Murphy; all the members of the Murphy family I met, who gave so generously of their time and thought; Andy Pereira; Steve Glenn; Tracye Overby; Michael Roth; Christopher Reeves; Brad Alerich; H. A. Jinnah; Takaomi Taira; Philippe Coubes.
Many thanks to Tim Bartlett, my editor at Random House, who is the overall editor of this book. Many thanks also to Tina Bennett and Lynn Nesbit at Janklow & Nesbit Associates. At The New Yorker, past and present, I’m grateful to the following people for their contributions to various parts of this book: Robert Gottlieb, Tina Brown, David Remnick, John Bennet, Sharon DeLano, Dorothy Wickenden, Amy Davidson, Peter Canby, Martin Baron, Ann Goldstein, Elisabeth Biondi, Elizabeth Culbert, and the late Miss Eleanor Gould (Eleanor Packard); while the following checkers worked on certain parts: Hal Espen (“The Mountains of Pi”); Christopher Jennings and Michael Peed (“A Death in the Forest”); Bill Vourvoulias and Daniel Hurewitz (“The Search for Ebola”); Andy Young (“The Human Kabbalah”); Marina Harss (“The Lost Unicorn”); and Lila Byock and Jessica Rosenberg (“The Self-Cannibals”). Any errors of fact in this book are my responsibility, though where I got things right, very often a checker was involved.
My wife, Michelle, and our children, Marguerite, Laura, and Oliver, with their endless curiosity and openness to new things, inspired this book. They were also present for some of the interviews in “The Lost Unicorn,” and they have had their own friendship with the Chudnovsky family and asked their own questions. Michelle, who worked as a checker at The New Yorker, inspired me in fact-checking. She continues to inspire me in far greater ways than that.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RICHARD PRESTON is the bestselling author of The Hot Zone, The Cobra Event, The Demon in the Freezer, and The Wild Trees. A writer for The New Yorker since 1985, Preston won the American Institute of Physics Award and is the only non-doctor ever to have received the CDC’s Champion of Prevention Award. He also has an asteroid named after him. He lives near New York City with his wife and three children.
ALSO BY RICHARD PRESTON
First Light
American Steel
The Hot Zone
The Cobra Event
The Demon in the Freezer
The Boat of Dreams: A Christmas Story
The Wild Trees
Copyright
© 2008 by Richard Preston
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Portions of this book appeared in different form in The New Yorker.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Jean-François Ruppol, M.D., for permission to reprint an excerpt from his unpublished narrative “Ebola 2,” translated into English from French by Richard Preston and William T. Close. Used by permission of Jean-François Ruppol, M.D.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Preston, Richard
Panic in level 4/Richard Preston.
p. cm.
“Portions of this book appeared in different form in The New Yorker.”
eISBN: 978-1-58836-728-0
1. Medicine, Popular. 2. Science. 3. Science writers. I. Title.
RC81.P856 2008 616.02'4—dc22 2007041770
www.atrandom.com
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FOOTNOTES
*1Hal Espen later became a senior editor at The New Yorker and later the editor of Outside magazine.
Return to text.
*2More precisely: a transcendental number cannot be expressed as the exact solution to any polynomial equation that has a finite number of terms with integer coefficients.
Return to text.
Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science Page 23