Kaye felt as if she had traveled back in time, as if thirty years of research had never happened. Jackson had refused to change despite massive strides; he simply ignored what he could not believe in. And he was not alone. The number of papers produced each year in virology alone could fill the entire meeting room. To this day, most such papers stuck to a disease model for both viruses and mobile elements.
Jackson felt safely enclosed by thick walls of tradition, away from Kaye’s mad, howling winds.
Cross turned to the sole woman on the review committee, Sharon Morgenstern. Morgenstern specialized in fertility research and developmental biology. A nervous-looking, thin woman, reputedly a spinster, with a withdrawn chin, prominent teeth, wispy blonde hair, and a soft North Carolina accent, she also chaired the Americol jury that approved papers before they were submitted to the journals—in-house peer review set up in part to quash publications that might reveal corporate secrets. “Sharon? Any questions while we’re jumping up and down on Robert?”
“Your test animals, when given candidate vaccines, have also been known to suffer the loss or reduction of key sexual characteristics,” Morgenstern began. “That seems exceptionally odd. How do you plan to get around those problems?”
“We have noticed reduction of certain minor sexual characters in baboons,” Jackson said. “That may have no relevance to human subjects.”
Nilson moved in once more, ignoring Morgenstern’s irritated expression. Let the woman finish, Kaye thought, but said nothing.
“Dr. Jackson’s vaccine could be of immense importance in our attempts to neutralize viruses in xenotransplant tissues,” Nilson said. “Dr. Rafelson’s endeavors also hold tremendous promise—to knock out all ERV genes in these tissues has been one of our holy grails for at least fifteen years. To say we’re disappointed by these failures is an understatement.” Nilson shifted in his seat and referred to his notes by leaning over sideways and looking through the edge of his glasses, like a bird examining a seed. “I’d like to ask some questions about why Dr. Jackson’s vaccines fail.”
“The vaccines do not fail. The organisms fail,” Jackson said. “The vaccines succeed. They block intercellular transmission of all ERV particles.”
Nilson smiled broadly. “All right. Why do the organisms fail, time after time? And, in particular, why do they become sterile if you’re blocking or otherwise frustrating a viral load—all the disease-causing elements within their genomes? Shouldn’t they experience a burst of energy and productivity?”
Jackson asked that the overhead projector be lowered. Liz sighed. Kaye kicked her gently under the table.
Jackson’s presentation was classic. Within three minutes, he had used nine acronyms and six made-up scientific terms with which Kaye was unfamiliar, without defining any of them; he had entangled them all in an ingenious map of pathways and byproducts and some deep evolutionary suppositions that had never been demonstrated outside a test tube. When he was on the defensive, Jackson invariably reverted to tightly controlled in vitro demonstrations using the tumor cell cultures favored for lab research. All the experiments he cited had been tightly designed and controlled and had, all too often, led to predicted results.
Marge Cross gave him five minutes. Jackson noticed her impatience and drew his sidebar to a close. “It’s obvious that ERVs have devised ways to worm themselves into the machinery of their host’s genome. We know of many instances in nature where trying to remove a parasite can kill a host. It’s even likely they’ve created safeguards against removal—pseudogenes, multiple copies, disguised or compressed copies that can be reassembled later, methylation to prevent restriction enzyme activity, all sorts of clever tricks. But the prime proof of the malevolent nature of all retroviruses, even the so-called benevolent or benign, is what HIV and SHEVA have done to our society.”
Kaye looked up from her notes.
“We have a generation of children who can’t fit in,” Jackson continued, “who arouse hatred and suspicion, and whose so-called adaptive characteristics—randomly invoked from a panoply of possible distortions—only cause them distress. Viruses cause us grievous harm. Given time, our group will overcome these unfortunate delays and eliminate all viruses from our lives. Genomic viruses will be nightmares from a rough and nasty past.”
“Is that a conclusion?” Cross asked without letting Jackson’s dramatic effect sink in.
“No,” Jackson said, leaning back in his chair. “Something of an outburst. I apologize.”
Cross looked at the questioners. “Satisfied?” she asked.
“No,” Nilson said, once again with that special Olympian frown Kaye had only seen in older male scientists, winners of Nobel prizes. “But I have a question for Dr. Rafelson.”
“Lars can always be relied upon to keep these sessions lively,” Cross said.
“I’m hoping Dr. Nilson will ask equally probing questions of Kaye,” Jackson said.
“Count on it,” Nilson said dryly. “We realize how difficult it is to work with early-stage embryos in mammals, mice for example, and how much more difficult it is to work with primates and simians. As far as I have been able to review, your lab techniques have been creative and skilled.”
“Thank you,” Kaye said.
Nilson waved this off with another frown. “We also know that there are many ways in which embryos and their hosts, their mothers, work together to prevent rejection of the paternal components of embryonic tissues. Isn’t it possible that by removing known ERVs in chimpanzee embryos, you have also shut down genes crucial to these other protective functions? I am thinking in particular of FasL, triggered by CRH, corticotropin releasing hormone, in the pregnant female. FasL causes cell death in maternal lymphocytes as they move in to attack the embryo. It is essential to getting born.”
“FasL is unaffected by our work,” Kaye said. “Dr. Elizabeth Cantrera, my colleague, spent a year proving that FasL and all other known protective genes remain intact and active after we knock out ERVs. In fact, we’re tracking the possibility now that a LINE element transactivated by the pregnancy hormone in fact regulates FasL.”
“I do not see that in your references,” Nilson said.
“We published three papers in PNAS.” Kaye gave him the citations, and Nilson patiently wrote them down. “The immunosuppressive function of particles derived from endogenous retroviruses is indisputably part of an embryo’s protective armament. We’ve proven that over and over.”
“I’m concerned in particular about evidence that a drop in corticotropin releasing hormone after pregnancy induces rapid expression of ERV responsible for triggering arthritis and multiple sclerosis,” Nilson said. “The ERV in this case are reacting to a sharp drop in hormones, not a rise, and they appear to cause disease.”
“Interesting,” Cross said. “Dr. Rafelson?”