Megan's Cure (17 page)

Chapter 34

IT WAS WELL past midnight.
 
Novak had waited until Megan was asleep before telling his story to the reporter.
 
A pot of coffee and a laptop computer sat between them.
 

“The body makes a lot of mistakes,” Novak began.
 
“Fortunately, it fixes almost all of them.
 
It has safety systems built in at the cellular level that would make NASA proud.
 
Redundancy after redundancy.

“A key one is a way to check on the new cells that your body is constantly creating.
 
A quality control mechanism.
 
It looks for any change in the chromosomes – mutations in the DNA really.
 
If it spots any, quality control steps in and fixes the DNA, or that cell is eliminated.

“Another safety system is stopping the cell reproduction when enough is enough,” Novak added.
 
“It’s why your skin isn’t an inch thick.
 
It’s also why you don’t have tumors and other strange growths popping out all over.”

Lee couldn’t help looking at his arms resting on the table.
 
Normal.
 
Nothing strange growing out of them.

“Thank, God, huh?” said the reporter.

“Well, thank someone or something,” replied Novak.
 
“Natural selection…God.”

 
“Right,” said Lee.
 
“Another discussion, I guess.
 
Okay.
 
Go on.”

 
“This leads us to cancer,” said Novak.
 
“You realize I’m vastly oversimplifying this, right?”

“Thanks,” said Lee.

“But the typical case is that there is a two-step process,” continued the scientist. “A genetic mutation occurs that blocks the ‘enough-is-enough’ control mechanism.
 
And then the protection that would detect and fix this mutation – the flaw in the DNA – fails as well.

 
“The result is uncontrolled cell growth – otherwise known as cancer.
 
It competes for resources.
 
It disrupts the normal operation of healthy cells and organs.
 
And, of course, it can be terribly good at moving to new places in the body – from liver to bone to lungs to brain – and look quite different at each location.

“Much of the new cancer research going on now is to find these genetic mistakes and eliminate them – make the cells go back to behaving like healthy ones,” continued Novak.
 
“That’s what the new generation of drugs is doing, tweaking the problem gene – suppress it somehow – so the original quality control system can get back on track.”

“When you describe it this way,” said Lee.
 
“It’s seems relatively simple.
 
At least from the layman’s perspective.”

“Yes.
 
Well, the devil is in the details as always,” said Novak.
 
“Many companies, thousands of careers and billions of dollars have been devoted to finding these genetic defects and figuring out how to fix them.
 
There has been a lot of success.”

“But…,” prompted Lee.

“Yes…but one huge frustration is that the process often seems like a series of rifle shots,” said Novak.
 
“A drug only works for, say, breast cancer.
 
But not all breast cancers.
 
Only the 20 percent that have a certain gene mutation.
 
Another one just works for lung cancer.
 
But, only for the 15 percent with another certain mutation.
 
A broad-spectrum genetic-based drug – something like antibiotics for cancer – has eluded us.

“Do you ever watch Cold War movies about nuclear war?” continued Novak. “The ones where a rogue submarine or a crazy general is about to launch a nuclear missile?”

“Um…sure,” said Lee.
 
“Changing the subject a bit, huh?”

“Not really.
 
You know how they always have the scene where you need two people to turn their keys at the same time on opposite sides of the room to fire the missile?”

“You mean a fail-safe system?” said Lee.
 
“So no one can launch on their own and start World War III.”

“Exactly,” said Novak.
 
“Nothing happens unless both switches are turned on simultaneously.
 
Well, when you look at the current cancer research you see that the problem genes – the rogue ones that disrupt the quality control system – often are present in healthy people.
 
In fact, most people with the problem gene will never have cancer.

“So I went hunting,” continued the scientist.
 
“I started looking for a first switch, the one that must be turned on before the second one can have any effect.
 
I looked for something general, that spanned many types of cancer.
 
I had in mind an enabling mutation.
 
Something that had to be there for all the other ones to do their damage.”

“Like the first switch in the fail-safe scenario,” said Lee.
 
“A master switch.”

“Exactly,” said Novak.
 
“A great analogy.
 
And it’s exactly what we found.”

Chapter 35

“WE NEEDED A short hand for what we found, this ‘master mutation,’” said Novak.
 
“We just started calling it the ‘C Factor’ and the name stuck.

“We found it first in liver cancer cells.
 
But once we knew exactly where to look, we also isolated it in most varieties of leukemia, melanoma, breast cancer, prostrate…and the list goes on and gets longer and longer.

“From there we had to understand the mechanism,” Novak continued. “Exactly how the C Factor worked – at a cellular and molecular level – and devise a way to stop it.”

Novak paused for a moment, deep in thought as he gazed the ceiling.

“Do you know when you travel internationally, how you take converters to match the local electrical outlets?” he asked. “So you can use your electric razor or charge your cell phone?”

“Tell me about it,” said Lee.
 
“I’ve got a drawer full of them.
 
Every time I leave the country, I panic and buy another bag of them.”

“Okay,” said Novak. “Imagine the most elaborate of those converters.”

“You mean the one with five prongs and they’re all slanted every which way and it weighs two pounds?”

“Exactly,” said Novak.
 
“Now multiply that by a thousand and you begin to get a feeling for how the C Factor, or any other similar gene works.
 
A train of complex connections.
 
Molecular and chemical binding.”

“All right,” said Lee.
 
“I think I get it.
 
And how does Roxaten fit in to this?”

“Well, imagine your converter again,” said Novak.
 
“Suppose you change the shape of those prongs.
 
Say, you slip a covering over some so they’re twice as thick...or change the angle of their slant.”

“They wouldn’t work,” said Lee.

“Yes.
 
And that’s one of the things Roxaten does,” said Novak.
 
“It blocks some of those points of connection.
 
It also…well…to be honest, we’re not sure of everything it does.
 
We think perhaps it makes the C Factor more visible to the immune system.
 
There is something in the C Factor that somehow convinces the immune system to stay away…not react.
 
We think Roxaten suppresses this...this camouflage somehow.
 
So, it almost acts like a flag, signaling the white blood cells to do what they do to foreign cells.”

“Seek and destroy?” said Lee.

“Precisely,” said Novak.
 
“And the nature of these kinds of drugs is you don’t understand everything.
 
But you can measure the effects – good and bad. That’s what the testing and trials are about.
 
How effective.
 
How safe.

“And, of course, the game changer is the number of cancers in which the C Factor is involved,” he continued.
 
“As I said, it becomes less a war of rifle shots and something much more broad in scope.
 
And that changes the whole landscape in terms of prevention and, specifically, vaccination.”

“How’s that?” asked Lee.

“Well, if you can inoculate people to help them ward off cancer, it may not be very helpful if only five percent of the people carry the gene putting them at risk and only a fraction of them eventually get sick,” said Novak.
 
“It’s just not practical to test millions of people to find and help those few.

“But suppose the C Factor is present in half of all cancers and a vaccination program stops it from becoming a problem in, say, 65 percent of those cases.
 
Would you get in line for a shot that would reduce your cancer risk by a third?”

Lee thought for a moment.
 
His mind flashed to his grandmother lying in her bed at the Chinese Hospital.

“Of course,” he said.
 

Novak nodded.

“It changes the whole discussion,” said the scientist.
 
“And I’m confident that we have something close to that – a vaccine that primes the immune system so it will recognize the C Factor mutation when it turns dangerous.
 
In our tests, it’s been very powerful and effective.
 
I’m convinced that in a few years you will, in fact, be standing in line for it. We all will.”

Lee’s head was swimming. He knew he would have to recite everything back to Novak the next day to make sure he’d gotten the basics right and understood them as much as he could without the relevant science background.
 

Novak’s excitement about his work was contagious.
 
Lee could almost see the lines of people getting their C Factor vaccinations.
 
Who
wouldn’t
opt for a shot that could reduce your cancer risk by a third?

But before it got much later and the fog of information and fatigue grew any more opaque inside his head, the reporter knew he had to get a better understanding of Megan’s role in all this.
 
Why were she and Novak hiding here?
 
Was someone really after them?
 
Why?

“Okay,” said Lee.
 
“I think I’ve got what you’re saying from a high level – the scientific implications – at least all that I’m going to understand tonight.
 
Why don’t you tell me how Megan fits into all this?”

Novak paused.
 
He stared at his hands clasped together in front of him on the table.
 
Then he looked up at Lee.
 
He had almost a defiant expression on his face.

“She is the only one to be treated with Roxaten,” he said.
 
“Actually, that’s not entirely true.
 
There was one other.
 
Megan’s marrow donor.
 
Megan’s ability to produce her own blood cells had been compromised by earlier treatments.

“Her donor was a retired school teacher in Michigan.
 
She agreed to take the vaccine.
 
Megan’s resistance was so low.
 
She needed the procedure anyway and I thought we could increase her chances by boosting her immunity at the same time.
 
It was to help eliminate any residual pockets of the cancer.

“In both cases it was done without authorization,” continued Novak.
 
“There was no approved trial.
 
There was no time.
 
We still were testing Roxaten on animals.”

“Okay,” said Lee.
 
“And what are the implications of that?”

“For me?”

“Yes.”

“Professional disgrace,” said Novak matter of factly.
 
“Blacklisting by the pharmaceutical industry.
 
Never working in drug research again.
 
Never publishing a scientific article again.
 
Maybe even worse.”

“I get the idea,” said Lee.

“And you’re aware of my background…the other problems I’ve had?”

“Roxanne told me you were…at a psychiatric facility?” said Lee.

“Yes,” said Novak.
 
“I guess you’d call it a breakdown…whatever that’s supposed to mean.
 
It wasn’t the first time but I had been well for a number of years.
 
But, bottom line is ‘crazy.’
 
Now add to that, ‘dangerous’… ‘out of control.’
 
You’re a journalist, you can fill in the story.

“When I came back to Merrick from my…ah…hospitalization,” Novak continued.
 
“It was clear that something was wrong.
 
They had stopped the trials.
 
They were telling me about things that didn’t make sense.
 
Heart damage.
 
I mean there’s just no way it could happen.
 
Not with Roxaten.

 
“That’s when I found someone to look into the network…the computer network at Merrick.
 
Someone who could see who had accessed the information about the trials.
 
Anything unusual.”

“Okay,” said Lee.
 
“And who was that?”

“I found him from a website,” said Novak.
 
“It was a site used by hackers and virus writers actually.
 
I don’t even know his real name.
 
His screen name was ‘Paul Revere.’
 
He said he was a ‘cyber sentinel’… warning the people when he found something evil or dangerous.”

Lee looked dubious.

“I know,” continued Novak.
 
“I had no choice.
 
I was desperate to find out what was going on.
 
I brought him into the office with me a couple of nights.
 
I gave him my passwords, let him use my computer.
 
Here’s what he found.”

Novak opened the laptop sitting on the table between them.
 
He hit a couple of buttons that brought the screen to life. Then he moved it so both he and Lee could see the screen.

“It’s all in computer speak,” he said.
 
“But to an expert, it shows someone accessed the patient database for the Roxaten trial.
 
And they went deep.
 
They found the details of specific patients, the most seriously ill – who they were and where they were located.
 

“They copied names of hospitals,” Novak added.
 
“The floors.
 
Exact room numbers.
 
And these patients were the ones who had the health problems that stopped the trial.
 
Within ten days after taking this data, every one of them had some problem.
 
I’m convinced it wasn’t a coincidence.”

“And who was this?” asked Lee.
 
“Who looked up this information?”

Novak shook his head slowly.

“They hid their identity,” he said.
 
“It was quite clever really.
 
They ran it through
my
computer and used
my
access codes.
 
It looks as if I did it but I was in a hospital at the time in Arizona…perhaps the only place on earth with no computers.
 
And I believe that they
poisoned
those people.
 
It had to be that.
 
Roxaten couldn’t have caused the damage.
 
One of them died.

“And while we were doing this we caught them in the act,” continued Novak.
 
“They went after the files about Megan and her marrow donor.
 
And that took some effort.
 
They were breaking the passwords…encryption…everything.
 
They took all the data.
 
My private notes.
 
Then they came back.
 
A new session that seemed to have only one purpose – finding their home addresses.
 
That’s when I began to worry about their safety.