by Cara Charles
“Believe me when I say I’m obsolete. If I had even the slimmest chance of catching up with these marvelous young scientists, I’d be there first thing tomorrow morning. I appreciate that you are stroking my ego Miss Kimirov, but I’d be in their way. I’m not the one you need. Let me tell you why...”
Dr. Titus rattled on like he was back lecturing his students. As Dr. Titus lectured on, he read her and her body-language. He’d seen that dead-eyed look for forty years. By listening, she was patronizing him. She hadn’t gotten her way, so she’d tuned him out.
He was watching and hoping for the fire of her “ah-ha” moment. But nothing came. She was lost in preparing the question he knew was coming. ‘She’s just the funding source. Her agenda is to make money, not innovation. And, here it comes.’
‘He’s anxious to be onstage again,’ Mavra nodded not hearing a word. “Tell me about Herta and your involvement in the genetic research at Ravensbruck.”
“Let’s refresh our tea. That’s a long story. One I think you’ve found through accident or deliberate research? Which is it?”
“Both. My Grandfather, I just learned rescued a woman named Herta and her dorm mates, took them to the Danish Underground, then got the two of them asylum in the States just after the surrender.”
“Really? That’s a fascinating story, one of extraordinary heroism. You must be very proud of him.”
Mavra froze. He’d hit a nerve, a raw nerve. While she was stunned, Johan added a sugar cube to his wife’s teacup and poured. His wife was smiling down on him.
“So that’s what happened to her. All this time, I thought the Russians had taken her and because of the rumors surrounding her, they started their own genetic research in the 60’s. This is what I remember about her. I didn’t believe in the Nazi agenda to prove the African folklore superstition. They were determined to investigate every legend they could. I’m a scientist who needs empirical data to convince me. I was convinced she was a very beautiful, near perfect young woman from East Africa. Nothing more, there was nothing extraordinary or special about her. Except, her beauty. We didn’t have the science to prove their wishful theory she was a super human. She was perfectly beautiful, intelligent, and multi-lingual. The Nazis treated her with great respect, even though she was African. That I’ll never forget. We all thought it extraordinarily curious. They were hedging their bets against old African folktales brought to them by German pioneers in Africa. It wasn’t important what I personally thought in those days. They kept you around according to your exceptional abilities. If your politics or religion were a threat to them or you bored them, you were the walking dead. It was important to keep the Nazi bosses happy, much like the avenue you are about to take. Who are you going to trust, Miss Kimirov?”
“Precisely why I’m here, Dr. Titus. I’d believe you. I want you to oversee the lab’s work, because I know you’d never lie to me.”
“I am obsolete, darling. I can see you haven’t heard a word I’ve said. I don’t believe I could catch up at my age. I hope I can convince you, Herta and the idea of her was never proven. Because of her breathtaking beauty and demeanor, her people believed she was an immortal goddess like all the other myths that created religions that came from generations of all those Desert tribes. To those of us who were forced to work under their brutal, inhumane, and oppressive circumstances we believed Herta was a mere mortal, but an extraordinary human woman. She was a living piece of art. Human. Living, breathing, natural perfection, you couldn’t take your eyes off of, but mortal. She bled like you and I. We’ll be dead someday, including her and she’s probably old, no longer the beauty she was if she’s alive at all. And considering how long ago this was, Herta is probably a dead, but still beautiful corpse.”
“If I can prove to you she is extraordinary, possibly immortal, and probably still alive, will you reconsider?”
“Of course. Then I’d kill myself in the effort to catch up. I’d have something to get up for in the morning. This is why I want you to go into your project fully aware...”
Mavra relaxed as he replenished her cup and she sipped her tea.
Johan replenished it often while he told Mavra the story of testing Herta at Ravensbruck, occasionally glancing at the clock, when she looked away.
Johan continued. “We’d taken her hair and blood samples. She’d been typed. She was O positive, compatible with people of African decent. O stood for “original,” the original people. We’d run the new test for detection of syphilis and antibodies in her blood. It was clean. We’d transfused Hitler with her blood at his request. We were looking at her genes as compared to the other ethnic women they held prisoner. We only found very small variations in her genes. But our microscopes were not powerful enough in those days to go beyond that…”
Mavra held up her hand, “I’d like your opinion of this.” She pulled out a small box from her purse. She opened the box and showed him a silky black hair sample. “Here is Herta’s hair sample. If her DNA is special and proven to be very old, do we have a deal?”
Dr. Titus took the box. It looked like what he remembered, thick, shiny and jet-black. “This is how I remember her hair, thick, shiny and jet black.”
Unexpectedly, tears came to his eyes. His little dog jumped into his lap and licked his face.
“Where’d you get this?”
Mavra smiled. She’d hit a cord.
“My Grandfather must have believed in her, Dr. Titus. Why else keep a part of her? I can see you recognize this as her hair sample. I found it in a briefcase full of Rommel’s interrogation papers about her. I believe there is more to her than the ordinary. Your own tears gave you away.”
“Darling, girl. You have brought into my sanctuary, my very home that has never been tarnished with a shred of memory of those days, a viable reminder of a vicious, unimaginable period of my young life. I’m as surprised as you are at my reaction. Deep down, I can’t ever escape my remorse and regret at playing their game. I did my very best to hide my findings, lie about my discoveries to survive, while simultaneously thwarting the advancement of their agenda. I know I saved many. I guess I’m still human after all and yes, a recognizable sample of her makes it all fresh again, as if it were yesterday. All right. If there are roots here you’ll have a very close analysis, otherwise and probably, the DNA will be very degraded. And yes, we have a deal but only when you prove it to me with the choice of the right man, who will keep your confidentiality. Do you have any idea how hard that will be for him?”
“Nothing is hard with money. Dr. Titus, will you...?”
“No, my dear. Not everyone can be bought. Don’t count on it. Now let me finish. You must go into this fully informed.”
Dr. Titus bored Mavra with the story of the progress of typing the human genome.
“Mapping the Human Genome began in 1911 with the discovery of the color blindness gene. In 1925, young Howard Hughes’ first will and testament signed at age 19, stipulated that a portion of his estate should be used to create a medical institute bearing his name. Hughes gave all his Stock in Hughes Aircraft Company to the Institute, thereby turning the aerospace and dogged contractor into a tax-exempt charity. In 1953, Hughes launched the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland formed with the express goal of basic biomedical research including trying to understand in Hughes’ words, the “genesis of life itself.”
“In 1976, as Howard Hughes billionaire was aging and dying, isolating himself from the world in his Vegas Desert Inn penthouse, he was desperately waiting for results that would benefit his old body. He had funded an anti-aging research project to sequence genomes that continues today at H.H.M.I. Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Utah University called THE FRANKENSTEIN PROJECT. Howard Hughes died in 1976. But he lives on, having started a scientific revolution. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute's new board of trustees sold Hughes Aircraft in 1985 to General Motors for US $5.2 billion, allowing the institute to grow dramatically. The H.H.M.I. are sponsors of NOVA and other PBS p
rograms. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is America’s second largest private foundation and the largest dedicated to biological and medical research, with an endowment of US $16.1 billion as of November 2011.”
“The Department of Energy and the O.S.T.I., Office of Science and Technology, began funding the Human Genome Project. Governments and private industries were racing to map the human genome for future use. Anthropologists and scientists trekked into remote villages across the globe to swab cheeks of unsuspecting Villagers. Exploitation of their genes is firmly denied.”
“The gene patent gold rush bioprospecting was on until June 2013 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled “…naturally occurring DNA sequences are ineligible for patent.” Biopiracy began with the rosy periwinkle, the Neem tree, the yellow Mexican Enola bean, basmati rice, and the Mayan ICBG case to name a few. The Indian government has created a repository for all of their traditional medicines and yoga practices. The South African San people’s Hoodia plant was exploited by a pharma company and not scheduled to receive any compensation for their plant only found native to their homelands. After demanding a place at the profit table, the San people eventually were to receive 8% but the drug never made it to market. Read up on March 20, 2012 Mayo v Prometheus ruled some diagnostic tests were unpatentable and TRIPS (TRADE RELATED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS). Industry wide common disease gene patents for diabetes, and breast cancer were applied for. Patents exist for B-12, insulin, and adrenalin. Then the genetic research companies created lab tests to identify the suspected disease gene in symptomatic patients. Before June 2013, every time a woman needed a test for breast cancer or cervical cancer, some big company who took ownership of that disease and created the lab test, was paid an unethical royalty. The U.S, Supreme Court invalidated 4000 human genome-sequencing patents. A substantial victory. For patients and researchers who had reduced research by 50 percent due to litigation concerns of the patent holders. To date, over three million gene patents have been granted. Their information was secret until they were issued the patent, only then, what they wanted to claim as their own would be released publicly. See how much competition you will have even before you’ve started? As I see it darling, money is the root of all evil. Whatever you decide to do, you must obtain an informed consent. By 1995, they were spending millions on genome research. The scientists grouped their research in five year intervals beginning in 1993-98, 98-2003, 2003-2008, the last completing their tasks sooner than expected. In 2006, Genetic Scientists found the genetic footprint of a single woman who lived in Tanzanian Africa around 100,000 years ago. She is the original ancestor from which all humans living today could call mother, now called m-Eve. She is our MCRA, our Most Common Recent Ancestor. Now a new argument has surfaced. Some scientists say our MCRA lived 5000 years ago. In 2008, mAdam was found. He lived in China about 80,000 years ago. By 2008, you could buy a DNA kit, swab your cheek, send it to one of the several labs around the world, and weeks later, learn where your ancestors had come from. The question is why do we need to know this? The Pros of patenting: Scientists are compensated for their life’s work, the money pays for further innovations, competition is curbed. But that is a monopoly and will probably result in future court cases. Creation of new ideas is therefore forced upon the research community; indirectly avoiding duplication of years of effort and the new knowledge is shared openly. The Cons: Patents inhibit the free flow of ideas, especially when a company owns the first part of a sequencing process, thereby the cost to proceed in development is prohibited, by the cost to use the first discovery. Costs are always passed along to the consumer. Breast cancer tests in the U.S. still cost $900-3500.00 due to gene patent ownership. Pretty soon medicine will only be accessible by the wealthiest people. If that is your goal, heed my warning. What the wealthy don’t realize is they are in the minority, one percent of any population. Disease will still reach them. There is no immunity from disease. Disease favors no one. Worst of all, nature is now a profit margin to be exploited at a heavy cost. Corporations own diseases. Seems like a sad situation to me. Everyone will be held hostage. Once again ‘money’ will be the root of this evil. Will it stop global warming, clean the polluted oceans and rivers? Or will this information have a more sinister meaning to someone or some government? Now that we know where we’ve come from, where are we going as a species? What human genome typing has already evolved into are drugs to fix bad, disease-causing genes. Although the current scientists have discovered many disease pathways the variant genes took, and Antisense drugs are a form of treatment for genetic disorders or infections, specifically when the genetic sequence of a particular gene is known to be the cause of a particular disease, it is possible to synthesize a strand of nucleic acid that will bind to the messenger, produced by that gene and inactivate it, effectively turning that gene "off". This is because mRNA has to be single stranded for it to be translated. Alternatively, the strand might be targeted to bind a splicing site on pre-mRNA and modify the exon content of an mRNA. This synthesized nucleic acid is termed an "anti-sense" because its base sequence is complementary to the gene's messenger, which is called the "sense" sequence, therefore it would be blocked by the anti-sense mRNA segment.”
Johan stopped, assessing her expression. “Good. Continuing on. Antisense drugs are being researched to treat, lung, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, malignant glioma and malignant melanoma, diabetes, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, asthma and inflammatory arthritis. Other drugs have been made to combat some of these variant gene pathways like statin drugs, to block the liver’s production of cholesterol and Gleevac for diabetes for instance. Scientists had found that genes when treated with one drug that blocked the pathway, mutated and found a way around the drug and like cancer, the cancer cells would grow again. In treating AIDS, genetic scientists and pharmaceutical companies have learned to outsmart the mutation virus gene and they’ve hit the variant with three to four drugs all at once, out-maneuvering the cell’s will to survive. It will take super computers to work out the variant gene pathways. You and your scientists should concentrate your lab’s focus on a certain disease pathway and make drugs for that pathway. Containment of your lab’s information, mission and progress, and of possession of Herta’s DNA will be the hardest gem of advancement in the genetic sciences to contain, if she proves to possess something special and if she is still alive. I doubt you can do this. Not every rogue genetic scientist is self-serving. Their calling is for the greater good. Pharmaceutical drug creation will take you ten to fifteen years, Miss Kimirov.”
“What? I don’t believe you.”
“Why would I lie my dear? It would serve no purpose. Only because you’re in a dream state and not educated about the real world of pharmaceutical innovation. With the right resources it could be four years or less. If you could marry those two components, you would control the world of pharmaceuticals.”
“My goal is to sell my products to the world’s wealthiest top one percent.”
“You would, because that’s your circle of influence. Your better option would be to make the drugs affordable to the masses. It is in mass consumption of common, but life changing drugs that would bring you your greatest financial return. You could classify drugs by strength, saving the most expensive for the top one-percent or the patients who show the most promise for the betterment of humanity, like artists, writers, architects, computer designers, any of the creatives. You’d have to control populations, because once you increase longevity, and decrease the death rate you increase all consumption. You are about to upset the natural balance and the Earth has a finite amount of resources devoted to food. If you were truly thinking on a circle of life investment, you might want to find a way to make plants more productive without using polluting, long half-life systemic seed coated weed killers or fertilizers to enhance their growth which is already killing us all, and reward decreasing the birth rate in over-populated areas and clean up the water supply.”
Mavra said, “let’s get back to the sub
ject of your involvement with Herta.” ‘His longevity statement has me intrigued. He’d glossed over it purposefully.’
“Fine. I remember there was much anger over her entire brothel block being taken right out from under their noses. Ravensbruck was destroying evidence. Human Beings! Miss Kimirov! I’m overjoyed to hear those women got out, safely. Tears generated from that miracle, probably. Think over what I said. I’ll wait on your results. Try Dr. Herman Wise, formerly of HHMI in America. I think he’d jump at the chance to have his own deep pockets benefactor.”
Johan stood and stretched, signaling his time with her was over. “I’m sorry darling, I have an appointment in a few minutes I cannot miss. But come back with your selection news, soon.”
Johan showed her to the door as Hansie followed, growling. He shook her hand. “Also, come back with your proof, and we’ll have a different conversation.”
“Thank you Dr. Titus for your time, your insight and all of your information. I will be back and win over both of you. Until, then.”
“Until, then.” Johan closed the door. He had little time to get away. The LSD he used on himself often to be more insightful in his own science, he knew was powerful. He had quadrupled the dose he put on her sugar cube with the delay compound. Her first trip would be kicking in, in about thirty minutes.
After Mavra left, Johan felt the stirring of the old feelings of fear and anxiety long buried since the war. He smiled at his wife. She’d always called him clever.
Hansie had known.
Johan took down her photograph and started packing his worldly possessions. The Russians had come calling on him in the 60’s when they’d become interested in genetics again. Before that genetics was taboo, and called the “Nazi science.” He hadn’t had to worry for fifty years. He’d worried about the expected visitor everyday, since the former Soviet Union gained capital and created instant billionaires like Ivan Kimirov.