The Viral Epiphany (5 page)

           
Dan Quinn was having his usual afternoon cup of Barry’s Tea in the Café Glucksman, on the lower level of the Glucksman Art Museum on the University College Cork campus.
 
He liked the way the large plate glass windows of the café overlooked the deep green grass lawn and beyond that: the ash, willow, and oak-lined banks of the
River Lee
.
 
It was late spring and it was warm, shirtsleeve weather. The sun was shining in a clear blue sky; a light breeze from the west rustled the leaves.
 
He watched for a minute as two young men sat on the opposite river bank and casually cast their fishing lines into the water.
 
He took another sip of the warm tea and his mind began to drift; memories of Aisling once again swept through his consciousness.
 
He was back in Boston.

           
He smiled slightly as he recalled her face.
 
It was her gloriously blue eyes that he would never forget, made all the more memorable by her milky white skin and her long, straight, raven-black hair.
 
Aisling had been a student a Harvard Medical school while he was working on his PhD in biophysics at MIT, and when they met at a joint MIT/Harvard conference on medicine for the 21
^st
Century there had been an instant attraction.
 
For Dan it had seemed more like recognizing a long lost friend.

           
They had fallen deeply in love and tried to see each other at every opportunity, of which, given their very busy schedules, there were never enough.
 
Aisling, had grown up in the Irish-speaking part of the Dingle peninsula in County Kerry, and she always seemed to possess a presence, a groundedness, that he couldn’t quite explain.
 
She was the most caring person he had ever met and she approached the world with a sense of love and abandon, embracing everything that came to her. Her acceptance, indeed delight, in the chaos and uncertainty of the world, the happiness and grief, the magic and science had convinced him that she was the embodiment of a true Celtic heart in the streets of Boston.

           
Dan momentarily left his reverie and looked over toward the
River Lee
as it swirled and splashed past half-buried tree branches.
 
He could almost hear the gurgles and murmurs and the muted lapping of the small waves as they swept up on the riverbanks.
Aisling…Aisling…

           
It had been less than six months after they met; they were returning from a late evening meal at a well-known area restaurant and he had decided to take a short cut through Dorchester.
 
As he drove through the darkened and quiet streets, he heard a sound, not loud, more like a soft
pop,
and a stray bullet from a gang members gun, that had been intended for a furtive figure in the dark, streaked through Aisling’s open window. In the chaos and the charm, the light and the dark, the love and the hate of Boston’s streets, Aisling, who had been the love of his life, was simply gone, gone in a heartbeat…

“Mind if I join you?” a voice said behind him.
 
He turned, his memories of Aisling fading as he turned, like faint stars in the morning sky, and saw Dr. Sheila O’Neill standing there with a cup of tea and a cherry scone.

           
“Oh, no, of course not.
 
Please sit down,” he said.
 
He looked at her and smiled.
 
They were good friends.
 
She was also, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman he had ever met.
 
She was tall, with long, bright red hair that seemed to stream in rebellious curls down to her shoulders in a way that spoke eloquently of a certain untamable wildness.
 
Her hair was not her most notable feature, however. That had to be her penetrating, brightly luminous green eyes that conveyed not only a sense of high intelligence but also communicated the presence of her deep insight along with a mischievous sense of humor.
 
It was a stunning combination that was very rare, even in Ireland.

However, it was Aisling who still dwelled in Dan’s heart, and despite Sheila’s physical beauty, it was only Sheila’s intellect that had attracted him.
 
She had an amazing memory that allowed her to recall the most minute details about anything she had read, but she also had the ability to dissect and absorb information and then, somehow, leap to conclusions that were invariably correct.
 
She had earned her PhD in molecular biology three years ago and had just turned twenty-eight years old.
 
She had been on the staff at UCC for barely a year.

           
“How have you been?” he asked.
 
“I haven’t seen you for a while.”

           
“Oh, I was on a trip to New York for a conference on avian flu.
 
Not much new to report really.”

           
“No announcements about an impending pandemic like last year?”

 
         
She laughed for a moment, then said, “No, not exactly.
 
One of the presentations showed evidence that the 1918 flu pandemic was also an avian flu, so a lot of people seem to be even more concerned, but I don’t see the logic.
 
All new strains of influenza start in the migratory bird population, but I don’t think that really tells us anything very useful about the probability of a new avian flu pandemic in humans.”

           
Dan nodded and took a sip of his tea.
 
“Sounds like the same old thing. Publish or perish, and it doesn’t matter a whole lot what you publish! You look glad to be back.”

           
She smiled. “I am.
 
I’m looking forward to getting back in the lab and in the classroom.
 
This is where I belong, not with a bunch of researchers trying to hype their latest discoveries to some pharmaceutical company rep or trying to make a name for themselves so they can move up the next rung of the ladder.”
 
Her eyes flashed just slightly as she finished.

           
Now it was Dan who smiled.
 
“I thought as much. Well, it’s good to see you again.”

           
“Thanks.
 
You too,” she said pursing her lips slightly.
 
“What are you up to?”

           
“Remember the mammoth tissue I told you about?”

           
“Of course.
 
It’s fascinating…unbelievable, really, that the tissue could still hold intact DNA.
 
I’m surprised you didn’t launch a major investigation into it months ago. What are you waiting for?”
 
She said before taking a bite of her scone.
 
“Mmm, delicious,” she said, “Want to try some?”

           
Dan smiled. “No thanks, Sheila.” Then his face became serious.

           
“I do have my own plans for the material, sort of a mathematical analysis of the DNA. I want to try to understand, from a mathematical modeling view, how the DNA instruction set is interpreted and used by the cells. ” he said.
 
“However, there’s only a small amount of material and I am waiting for one of my grad students to come up with a really worthwhile project, something inspired. It’s very important to me that our students become involved in this work too.”

           
“Yes, of course.
 
So, tell me, have you found a grad student yet with an interesting proposal?” she asked.

“I think I might have.”

           
“Great,” Sheila said, “I can’t wait.
 
Tell me! What is your student’s concept?”

           
Dan smiled at her.
 
“He has an idea that the mammoth DNA might harbor a clue that could explain why they became extinct – perhaps there is some sort of mutation in the DNA, or maybe they had some genetic inability to respond to something in the environment.
 
           
He’s one of my best students… really very creative and…well, actually I’m supposed to meet him in the lab in about fifteen minutes.
 
Want to come along?”

           
“Sure,” she said happily.
 
“I was hoping you’d invite me to see the mammoth sample sometime anyway!”

           
They left the café and walked across the campus toward the biosciences building.
 
The lab was on the fourth floor and as they left the elevator they saw Brendan waiting outside the door of Dan’s lab.

           
“Hello, Doctor Quinn,” he said, “Hi, Dr. O’Neill.”

           
“Hi, Brendan,” Dan replied, “Let’s go in.”
 
He opened the door and they followed him in, past the laboratory benches covered with ongoing experiments, and into a room far in the back where Dan donned a pair of heavily insulated gloves before opening the cover of the frozen specimens storage unit.
 
The mammoth sample had been cooled to minus eighty degrees Fahrenheit in an attempt to keep it even colder than Arctic conditions to ensure that it would not deteriorate.
 
He showed them the sealed container with the small sample inside.
           
“That’s it?” asked Brendan. “It looks like it’s only a few cubic centimeters.”

           
“That’s all there is,” Dan said nodding his head, then he asked. “Do you have any doubts that it will be enough?”

           
“Oh no.
 
None.” Brendan said, “We should be able to get plenty of DNA from this.
 
It’ll be enough.”

           
Dan turned towards Sheila.
 
“What do you think?”
 

           
“Hmm? Oh, it looks amazing.
 
Amazing.
 
I was just thinking.
 
Maybe I could use some of this material too.
 
I mean I could use the same material that Brendan is using because once it is analyzed in the computers I only need access to the genetic codes, the same as you, not the actual material itself.”

           
“Oh?” Dan said with a smile at her enthusiasm, “What did you have in mind?”

           
“It’s just sort of an idea I have about evolution and DNA.
 
I don’t think Darwin and his followers have quite got it right about the mutations in DNA being random.
 
I have always thought there must be an interaction between the environment and nuclear DNA that promotes the morphing of the genetic code.”

           
“What?”

           
“Really.
 
I know it sounds a little far out.
 
But so is the idea of random mutations when you think about it. I think I would like to do some comparisons with this tissue’ DNA and the DNA of modern elephants, for example the gene responsible for hair. I think we might be able to show that the loss of hair might be an adaptive response at the DNA level rather than a simple Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ process following random mutations of the gene.”

           
“That’s really interesting!” Dan said.
 
“It’s OK with me if it’s OK with Brendan. What do you say, Brendan?”

           
Brendan smiled broadly, “Sure thing, Dr. Quinn. I would be happy to work with Doctor O’Neill too.”
 
Sheila smiled at him but said nothing.

           
“Brilliant,” Dan said, “We now have three very interesting projects shaping up. Brendan’s search for the cause of the mammoth extinction, Sheila’s search for evidence of environmental triggers of evolution, and my search for a set of mathematical equations that expresses the DNA instruction set. That should make good use of the DNA!”

           
Dan spent the next several minutes discussing the procedure for examining the material, and then his mobile phone beeped.
 
It was the reminder feature notifying him of an appointment he had to meet with a pharmaceutical company representative to discuss a possible major donation to the department.

           
“I’m sorry,” Dan said, “I have to go.
 
Brendan, I think you can carry on here for a while. OK?”

           
“Sure, Dr. Quinn.”

           
“OK,” then, turning to Sheila he said, “ you might want to come along to this meeting.
 
It looks like we might be able to set up a partnership with one of the pharmaceutical giants!”

           
“OK,” she said, “I’m intrigued, let’s go.”

           
They hurried down to his office and as Dan unlocked the door he couldn’t help but notice a large manila envelope that had been slipped under the door.
 
It was blank except for his name that had been printed in black ink.
 
He felt slightly uneasy as he picked it up.
 
It had been several months since he had received the other messages from his now dead godfather, Tim, and this mysterious envelope had the look of the others.