Chapter 19
Wednesday 11:43 a.m.
“It won’t work, David!” I say, pacing next to him along the corridor while he walks back to his office. “I need to have a specific blocker. I can’t just use my Streptococcus blocker and throw it at Thermus. The bacteria won’t even register it. They are such different strains that—”
“I know, Jane. But you have the blocker ready. Just give it a go. With these cells it will take, what, five minutes to run your experiment?”
I shrug, lifting my arms in a helpless gesture. “I could, David, but it’s not logical at all. I mean, we are doing science, based on facts and premises, not simply throwing reagents at different bacteria just in case they work. There’s got to be some logical reasoning behind it, and here, there is none.”
“How long will it take you to design a new blocker specific for Thermus?”
I look away, thinking. “I don’t know. First I need to get a real sequence, then I need to check the sensor—”
“Sorry? What sequence?”
“Didn’t Flo talk to you?”
He frowns. “She tried to reach me, but no. Why?”
“Well, she found out that the sequence we have in Dr. Rosenberg’s folder is just Thermus, without the fast-growth mutation.”
“Are you serious?”
I nod. “Yes.”
He lowers his head, combs his gray hair back with his hand, and takes a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, fine. So we need to do the sequencing again.”
“I already sent the sample to the genomics department. It’s on its way.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “Oh! Okay. So you guys don’t need me around much, do you?” Then he laughs.
It doesn’t feel like a joke, but I smile anyway.
“Do you know when the results should be ready?” he asks.
“End of the week, they said.”
“End of the week? Bloody hell, it’s not a human genome they need to analyze! Why do they need so much time?”
“They are booked out. We’re standing in a queue.”
He closes his eyes and rubs the base of his nose with his thumb and index finger, his glasses sliding down his nose. Then he pushes them back. “Fine, fine. Just let me know once you get the results, okay?”
“I will, boss.”
“Good.”
He wants to leave, but then he stops and turns around. “Was there anything else?”
“No, that’s all.”
“Good. Thank you, Jane.” He smiles a tired I’m-too-old-for-this-shit smile and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks for doing such a good job.”
I’m about to tell him I didn’t make any progress on Crazy Gro, but I refrain. “Thanks, David.”
He nods, then leaves, walking down the corridor and turning right into his office.
I look down at the floor, then turn on my heel and slowly walk to the stairs.
He must be operating in a different dimension. It’s like he totally didn’t get the concept of how the blocker works. The point of the blocker is that it’s specific to only one type of a sensor protein, and sensors are strain specific. Thermus and Streptococcus definitely don’t have the same sensor. Hence, the blockers won’t be the same either.
I shake my head as I walk out of the staircase and enter my lab. Frank is there, just opening the lid of a small hot water bath next to the laminar hood.
“Hey, why so angry?” He puts a thick heat-resistant glove on his left hand and takes out two glass bottles out of the water bath, transparent liquid inside.
“Ah!” I wave my hand once. “David wants me to throw the Strep blocker reagent at Crazy Gro. It doesn’t make sense.”
Frank takes off the glove and makes a few notes in his lab book. “Well, you might try.” He reaches for a bottle. “It will only take you a min—aaah!” He drops the bottle back onto the lab bench and it clangs loudly as it hits the glass desk, but it doesn’t break.
Oh, no, he forgot to put the glove back on!
Frank is squeezing his hand between his legs, hopping from one leg to the other and silently cursing in Italian. It would almost look funny, except that it’s not. He’s clearly in pain.
“Frank, come here! Let’s get this under cold water!” I rush over to the large metal sink next to the lab entrance, pulling him with me, then let the cold water run. I have to literally push his hand under the running water. After a few moments, his heavy breathing stops, and his pain-contorted face relaxes somewhat into an uncomfortable grimace.
I look back at the hot water bath. “Well, at least it wasn’t boiling,” I say, reading the temperature display. Then I turn back to him. “Now you know what it would feel like if we worked on Crazy Gro with our hands!” I laugh, trying to make him feel better.
“How could I have been so stupid?”
“Hey, it happens to the best of us. So, what were you doing?”
“Oh, just trying another protocol.”
“Well, I certainly hope it works.”
He slowly pulls his hand out of the water and looks at it, then smiles at me. “Thanks, Jane.”
“No problem. How does your hand feel?”
“Better, but . . . my skin feels tight.”
“Come with me,” I say and head for the door. “I think there’s something in the med kit that might help.”
In the office, I find the kit and look for a small red tube. “There it is!” I take it out and hand it to Frank. “Here. Try this.”
“How did you know that was there?” he asks as he applies it to the burn.
“Oh!” I wave my hand. “I’ve checked it out before.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You checked out the medical kit?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Sure. What’s the use of having one if I don’t know what’s inside? Especially in emergencies, when you need to think fast.”
He nods once. “Fair point. Well, good to have you around.”
I smile.
Just then Miyako peeks her head into the office. “Lunch? Oh, what happened to you?”
Frank turns to her. “Terrible, terrible accident!” he says, wavering his voice in a theatrical way.
Miyako tilts her head to the side, reading him like an open book. “Fine. You’ll tell me all about it at the table.” She looks at me. “Shall we?”
Frank hands me the red tube and I stuff it in my handbag as I head for the door.
***
I slide my tray forward and look into the warm chafing dishes to check what’s on offer. Miyako and Frank are right behind me, talking about Christmas presents for her parents.
The Thai dish on the right catches my eye. It’s not pad thai, but it inevitably reminds me of the dinner I had with Sam.
Wow. I still can’t believe I invited him for dinner. And he accepted! Just like that. Not a real date, but still—just him and me.
The side of my lip twitches and I strain not to smile.
“Did you decide who are you inviting to the game?” asks Miyako.
“Sorry, what?” I turn to look at her.
“The Bruins? Did you ask anyone already?”
“Because if not,” adds Frank, leaning in behind Miyako so that he can see me, “I’m sure Kevin would be out of his mind with happiness if he could—”
“I did. I asked someone.”
“Really?”
“Who?”
“A friend,” I say.
“Do I know her?” asks Miyako.
I take a deep breath; my insides go all bubbly whenever I think about Sam. “It’s not a her, it’s a him.”
Miyako and Frank look at each other, then back at me. “Him? Really? Well, do we know him?”
I smile. “No.”
“So, who is he?” Frank moves his tray forward and looks at the man behind the counter. “Hi, could I please have chicken and chips?”
“He’s just a guy, Frank. Not a big deal.”
It’s actually a huge deal, but I can’t say that. I’m afraid I’ll jinx it.
“Well, Miya’s been bugging me to set you up with my friends forever, so I need to know if I’m finally off the hook.”
Miyako elbows him in the stomach.
“Ouch! It’s true.”
“Yeah, only you don’t just say it to her!”
I laugh. “Guys, it’s not a big secret. I figured it out.”
“Really?” Miyako turns back to me.
Frank rolls his eyes. “The woman’s got two top papers and the next one is around the corner. Did you really think she wouldn’t get it?”
Miyako shrugs, then turns to me. “So is something, kind of, happening with this mysterious person?”
I turn to them, looking back and forth between them. “Guys, I’m not dating him. I only just met him. Give me a break.”
Frank laughs. “If you wanted a break, you shouldn’t have told Miya about this guy in the first place. She’ll be all over you now, you know that,” he says, then he quickly lowers his arm, protecting himself from another elbow punch.
I shake my head and turn back to the counter of chafing dishes. “Can I have the phad phak? Thanks!”
Once Miyako has her plate, she slides closer to me and then asks under her breath, “So, Jane, is he your type?”
My breath hitches. He must be everyone’s type.
I reach out to take the plate and then move to the checkout counter. “He’s okay,” I say and move forward.
Miyako and Frank stand still.
I turn back to them. “What?”
They are both staring at me.
“What?” I say a bit louder.
They finally move, releasing the queue behind them.
“We know this expression, don’t we, Francesco?”
“What expression? What are you taking about?” I ask, my voice a bit louder then needed.
After a few well-timed seconds, Miyako says, “You’re in love!”
“No!” I say, louder than I intended to. Then I look around, but no one seems to be paying any attention. I turn back to them and say quietly, “No, I’m not in love. It’s—”
“Are you going to pay or what?”
I turn to the woman at the checkout. “Oh, I’m sorry.” I take out my new ID card and press it on the screen.
“Thank you. Next!”
I take my tray and move away, Miyako stepping into my place.
“I’m right here, lady, you don’t need to shout,” she says, paying with her own ID card.
The woman frowns but doesn’t say anything. I need to lower my head to hide my smile.
Once we are a few feet away, I turn to Miyako and say, “You know, I’ve always wanted to say that!”
She laughs out loud. “Me too!”
We all sit at the table, but before Miyako manages to continue her line of questioning, Chris barges over to our table.
“Sorry I’m late, guys!” he says, dropping his tray on the table, shaking all of our plates as well, then pulling a chair from another table over to ours.
Before we manage to comment, he says, “I know what stops Crazy Gro!”
“What?” we say all at once.
“The food.”
“What do you mean, the food?”
“The food. The bacterial agar. So”—he lifts his hands up—“there I was, working on my classical protein synthesis inhibition experiment, right? As always, I have different reagents that block protein synthesis, and for all my experiments, as you guys know, I always use a gradient of the reagent on the bacterial agar plate.”
We all nod. We’ve heard him talk about similar experiments before.
“So, the food on one side of the Petri dish has no reagent, and the other side has the highest concentration of reagent, and in between are all the gradients—”
“Chris, we know what your gradient experiment looks like. Tell us about the food,” I say.
“I’m getting there. So, to create my gradient”—he pointedly looks at me—“I had to use my own Petri dishes from our lab upstairs, because I already have them prepared, and anyway, I don’t know how to do a gradient using a robot. My point is: I used my own Petri dishes in the lab downstairs, and—”
“Wait—you can put your own Petri dishes inside the Crazy Gro lab? How?” I ask.
“Oh, there’s a conveyer belt for that. You can get equipment, reagents, in and out, no problem. So, I put a few of my gradient Petri dishes in, okay? What am I expecting? Best case, they grow on one side, where I have no reagent, and they are inhibited with the high concentration of the reagent on the other side of the Petri dish. Right? Best case. Worst case, they grow on the entire Petri dish as if there’s no reagent in the food agar at all, and you end up with a plate full of bacteria. You’re with me? Now, what I’m not expecting is for them not to grow at all.”
We are all leaning in on the table now.
“You’re saying you didn’t get any growth.”
Chris now leans back in his chair, swinging his arm over the backrest. “That’s exactly right. No growth. Nothing. The dish was empty, clean, as if I hadn’t put any cells on it at all.”
“And you are sure your cells would grow otherwise? You had a negative control?”
“Of course, Jane! But if I use normal classical bacterial agar from our lab, the cells don’t grow. They should, because Thermus normally grows on classical bacterial agar, but not this one. Not. This. One. This Thermus wants something else.”
Chris is shaking his head, his whole body animated, his surfer-blond hair swirling around his head. “And that something else is on those Petri dishes in the dungeon—and by the way, I have no idea who supplies them, do you?”
We all shake our heads. They are just there. I thought restocking must be done by some of the technicians.
“To cut a long story short,” Chris continues, “these provided Petri dishes that we have downstairs are not the common bacterial food.”
I look at Miyako and Frank, then back at Chris. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“Damn right I’m sure. I’ve tried the whole experiment three times!”
We are all silent for a moment.
“Could it be that the Petri dishes you brought in from outside were infected with bacteriophages?” Frank asks.
“No. I took sterile dishes and only opened them inside the Crazy Gro lab. They were clean.” He crosses his arms on his chest. “I have left them now overnight to see what happens tomorrow.”
“All right. Let’s see if they grow at all,” I say. “But if they don’t, that really means that the bacterial agar we have in the dungeon is not the classic bacterial food we use for all our other cells. It’s something else.” I look at my empty plate, my eyes unfocused. “We might need to get some of those Petri dishes to see what’s in that medium.
“Miyako.” I look up at her. “Could we use the robotics system down there to get a sample of one of those Petri dishes?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“What do you plan to do with it?” asks Chris.
“I want to send it to a mass spec analysis. I want to find out what’s in there.”
Frank and Chris nod. “Good idea.”
“Frank,” I say, “tell me again—you said none of your antibiotics worked, right?”
“That’s right. And I’ve used all I have in my arsenal.”
“But you did see a small halt in replication just after adding them, right?”
“Yes. But just for a few seconds. After that, they continued as usual.”
“They stop for a moment, but then continue,” I say, almost to myself. “Very strange.”
“Do you know what it means?” asks Frank.
“It definitely means that antibiotics affect them somehow,” I say. “But they find a way around it. Which is super interesting.”
“And scary too,” says Frank. “I hate resistant bacteria!”
“Oh, me too!” says Chris.
“We need to find out what is happening right at the point when the antibiotic is added,” I say, looking at Frank but not really focusing on him.
Whatever they do to resist the antibiotics, they do it fast, just like their crazy growth. And we need to find out what.
“I’ll do basic staining to see if that tells us something,” says Frank.
I nod and say, “Let’s also do Schaeffer-Fulton staining.”
“Schaeffer? You want to check for endospores? That won’t work on Thermus. They don’t do endospores.”
“I know. I know.” I allow my gaze to unfocus again. “Let’s try it nevertheless . . . I just have a hunch.”