World without Cats (3 page)

In the morning Rebecca called, “Bib! Bib! Where are you you little rascal?” She went outside to discover Bib lying on the porch, licking his wounds.

“Oh my lands! What have you been up to?” She scooped up the injured cat, placed it in a carrier, and drove into town to the vet’s clinic; it wouldn’t open for twenty minutes. Rebecca sat outside with Bib in her lap.

When Dr. Healy arrived, he examined the wounds. “Looks like he was in a fight with some animal. See these scratches?” Rebecca nodded. “Could be from a squirrel, another cat … possum … I don’t know.”

“He’s gonna be okay, right?”

“I think so. I don’t see any serious wounds. I’ll have his blood checked for rabies virus and write a prescription for amoxicillin. I think he’ll be fine.”

Rebecca started to sob.

“Hey, Rebecca, I think he’s going to be okay.”

“I know. I know. I just thought he might …”

Neither Rebecca nor Dr. Healy would ever suspect that the squirrel had, in fact, carried rabies, but the virus had not been transferred to Bib.

3
 

One warm morning, shortly after fall classes had begun, Noah headed for the institute on his bike.
It’s going to be a hot one,
he thought. He noticed a television news van headed along the campus road toward the institute.
What’s that about?
he wondered. As he followed it, he heard an amplified female voice. Noah strained his ears and could make out the phrases “animal rights” and “defenseless cats.”
Uh oh, this can’t be good.

Arriving at his building, he encountered a crowd of people carrying signs with the CLAWS logo. One read “NO PETS FOR RESEARCH!” Another read, “CLAW AWAY VIVISECTION.”

Noah spotted the speaker, a young woman with glasses and dark hair collected in a ponytail, perched on a makeshift podium and addressing the throng with a wireless mike.

“… they keep the cats in small cages where the animals have limited room to move around. This sort of thing should not be allowed at CSUCI.”

Noah felt a gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach. He made his way to a rear entrance, where Gary was waiting in the lab.

“What’s going on out there?” asked Noah.

“Anneke Weiss,” Gary replied. “That’s Jane’s friend. You know, the woman I told you about, the one who believes we shouldn’t be experimenting with cats.”

“Oh brother, what next? How did she get so many people out there?”

“She’s been posting fliers all over campus announcing a rally against animal research.”

“I saw a TV news van. How did they know about it?”

“I guess she notified them,” Gary said. “I bet there are newspaper reporters too. I’m sorry, Doc. This is kinda my fault. I guess I should have avoided arguing with her.”

“It’s not your fault at all. There’s no way you could have anticipated what she’d do.”

Noah’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Dr. Stanaland, head of the institute.

“Noah,” said Stanaland, “can you come up here right away? We have to talk.”

Noah closed the phone. “I’ve got to run. Dr. Stanaland, wants to see me. He’s not a guy you keep waiting.”

“Oh crap!” Gary said. “You know it’s about the crowd, right?”

Noah shrugged. “Gary, trust me. Dr. Stanaland is a fair man. He won’t blame you … us.”

When Noah entered Lowell E. Stanaland’s outer office, Mrs. Gonzalez motioned him to go right in. He stepped into an impeccably neat room whose darkly stained oak cabinets and rich, beige cowhide chairs and sofa conveyed the ambience of a four-hundred-dollar-an-hour attorney’s office rather than that of a scientist. Noah always felt awestruck in Stanaland’s presence. Here was a man who had worked with Nobel-Prize-winning molecular biologist, Francis Crick—first at Cambridge and later at the Salk Institute. He was amused that the institute’s head wore a custom-tailored suit and tie, an anomaly in an environment where most of the scientists dressed informally. Of course, Noah was aware that this was not an affectation; it was a reflection of Stanaland’s formal British upbringing. His father had been a high-level diplomat in the British foreign service.

Noah walked a few paces across the deep-piled maroon carpet. Stanaland rose and stepped to the large window, where he could observe the goings-on below.

“I take it you wanted to see me about what’s going on outside,” said Noah. He held Stanaland in high esteem both for his impressive scientific accomplishments and as a leader. He also looked up to the man literally, as Stanaland stood six foot three. Even his deep, modulated voice commanded respect.

“Noah, I’m quite familiar with your research, and I support it totally. So I think we should arrange an open meeting with students and faculty to address the issue of animal experimentation. I want you to explain to everyone why your work is important and why you need to use cats. Those students have the right to protest your research, but you have an equal right to defend it.”

Noah stood there a moment, saying nothing. He resented that he’d have to defend himself to a bunch of students who were ignorant of the value of scientific investigation.

Stanaland had arranged a meeting with the protesters for a Friday afternoon. Noah entered the lecture hall fifteen minutes early and was surprised to see that the room was already half full. A few days earlier, Anneke Weiss had written an inflammatory article in the campus newspaper attacking not only the use of cats for research but gene-cloning as well. She had suggested a multitude of horrors that might result from the kind of work that Noah and Gary were engaged in. The next day, the article had been reprinted verbatim in the local newspaper.
That accounts for the crowd,
Noah thought.
My God, this room holds two hundred people. It’s going to fill up.

A large table had been placed at the front of the room. Noah nodded to Dr. Stanaland, who was already seated. At the same table, Noah identified Anneke Weiss, along with Andrea Vernon, the university’s biological safety officer, and Sanjay Krishnamurti, the campus veterinarian. Noah sat down at the table and looked around the hall. He spied Gary in the third row, holding one of their research cats, an orange male named George.

After Stanaland introduced him, Noah made his way to the microphone. There was scattered booing and a few shouts of, “No animal research!”

Noah slowly examined his audience. “Thank you, Dr. Stanaland. I am grateful for this opportunity to explain my work to the students and faculty of CSUCI and to citizens of Camarillo.

“First, let me assure you that recombinant DNA research has been carried out for over a quarter of a century without any problems.” Noah glanced at an outline he had prepared.

“Get to the point!” shouted a voice from the audience.

Momentarily stunned by the outcry, Noah reddened.

Stanaland stood. He looked right at the offender and announced, “I must ask that you respect Dr. Chamberlin’s right to speak. If there are further disruptions, in the interest of civility, I will have those responsible removed from the room.” Aside from some isolated booing, the hall was quiet.

Noah regained his composure. “Do you realize that everybody here has recombinant DNA in his chromosomes at this very moment?” As Noah had expected, there were exclamations of disbelief. “Evolution of life on earth depends on it. That’s right,” he continued, “genetic recombination is a normal process occurring in all sexual species. It’s simply the exchange of genes between the chromosomes of a pair; in animals this takes place when sperm and eggs are formed.”

When Noah mentioned “sperm and eggs,” he noticed a little blond girl in a light-blue pinafore being hustled out of the hall by a stern-faced woman. A low current of laughter followed. Noah stared, open-mouthed.
Unbelievable!

“Uh, where—oh yes. Although DNA recombination is a natural process,” Noah went on pedantically, “we can also do it in the laboratory.” At this, the hall was again filled with laughter, but it took Noah a moment to get the joke. Disgusted, he shook his head.
Damn!
This is turning into a circus.
“What I mean,” he explained after the last titter had faded, “is that chemically we can fuse different kinds of DNA. We can even take a piece of DNA from one species and attach it to a chromosome from another species.” The hall became suddenly quiet, but for the muted hiss of the air-conditioning.

Noah motioned to Gary, who came forward and handed over his furry charge. This brought forth a murmur from the audience.

“This is George,” said Noah, cradling the scrawny feline in his arms. “George has a disease called macroerythrocytic feline anemia, MEFA for short.” Gently stroking the gaunt animal, Noah explained the analogy between sickle cell anemia in humans and MEFA. He described how the red blood cells of cats afflicted with this disease would swell up like little balloons because their hemoglobin was defective. “Cats with MEFA are lethargic,” he pointed out. “They lie around all day, panting pathetically, and they rarely live to maturity.” He explained that the disease was the result of a naturally occurring mutation in the gene for one of the hemoglobin proteins called alpha-globin.

“What we hope to do is to isolate and clone the gene for normal alpha-globin from a healthy cat and then to attach this gene to a viral chromosome. The virus we use is called feline sarcoma virus and sometimes causes tumors in cats.”

“Why don’t you just say cancer?” yelled an angry male voice from the middle of the auditorium.

“All right, cancer,” Noah acknowledged. He had to remind himself not to raise his voice. “However, the strain we use has been genetically altered so that it can no longer cause cancer. It is what we call a defective virus.” Noah wiped his brow. “Anyway, after we attach the globin gene to this virus chromosome, we will allow the virus to infect certain immature blood cells from cats with MEFA. We hope that, as these cells mature, they will form normal alpha-globin in these sick animals.”

Noah paused to let his words sink in and looked over the audience. They were quiet now, obviously interested in his proposed research. He noticed quite a few puzzled faces. “Before I go on, I would be happy to answer any questions.”

Noah nodded toward a thirtyish, bearded man wearing blue jeans and a loose-fitting white shirt embroidered with birds and flowers.

“Dr. Chamberlin, my name is Norman Orgell. I teach biology at Camarillo High. I have several questions. First, what kind of bacteria do you use for cloning the alpha-globin gene?”

“We use a type of
Escherichia coli,
the common intestinal bacterium.”

“Isn’t that dangerous? Isn’t there a chance that someone in the lab could ingest the bacteria, which could then multiply in the gut? Couldn’t such a person carry the bacteria, with their recombinant DNA, everywhere he or she went?”

Noah was prepared for this one. “There are two reasons why there is no danger. First, we use a mutant of
E. coli
incapable of surviving in the gut of any animal, including humans. Our strain of
E. coli
has many, many mutations that prevent it from competing with normal bacteria in the intestine. It can only survive in the highly complex artificial media that we prepare for it.

“Secondly, the recombinant DNA itself is not dangerous. There is no way the gene for alpha-globin could be dangerous to anyone, even if, by some remote chance, it did manage to escape from the lab.”

“Thank you. I think I understand,” said Norman Orgell.

Noah spotted a blond woman with her hand raised.
She looks familiar,
Noah thought.
Quite a looker. She’s been taking notes.

“Dr. Chamberlin, my name is Vera Barnett. I’m a veterinarian. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve never heard of MEFA. Is it very widespread?”

“No, not at all,” Noah replied. “As I mentioned, cats inheriting the disease rarely live to sexual maturity, so there is a strong natural selection against MEFA. The disease is what you might call a laboratory curiosity.”

“Then where do you get cats with MEFA?” asked the veterinarian.

“The disease was discovered about ten years ago in the laboratory of Thomas Stambaugh at Harvard. Two kittens from a litter of five were scrawnier than the others and, when he examined the blood of these kittens, he noticed the abnormal red blood cells. He reasoned that by analogy with sickle cell anemia in humans, MEFA might be almost asymptomatic in the heterozygous state. Sure enough, in the next litter from the same parents, one kitten of the four had the disease. So, to answer your question, the disease has been perpetuated in the laboratory by breeding cats heterozygous for the MEFA gene.”

Noah sensed that the listeners had become restive. “Look, I know this is kind of heavy stuff, but what I want to emphasize is that there really is little or no risk for people associated with this research.

“Many years ago, after several years of analyzing possible dangers involved in gene-cloning experiments, the National Institutes of Health established safety guidelines for the design of laboratories where recombinant DNA experiments were to be carried out. These guidelines specify four levels of possible risk. The lowest, or safest level, is the so-called Biosafety Level-1 lab. The next level is BSL-2 and so on up to BSL-4 for the really dangerous stuff like Ebola. Our research falls in the BSL-2 category and we follow the guidelines strictly.”

“Why should we trust you?” yelled a voice from the rear. Several similar shouts followed. Stanaland stood. Immediately the hall was silent.

“Here’s why,” Noah responded. “The NIH requires all institutions where gene-cloning experiments are carried out to have a special committee called the Institutional Biosafety Committee, or IBC, that makes sure that the guidelines are followed. Dr. Vernon here is the biological safety officer for CSUCI. In addition, two members of the IBC are appointed from the community. One of them is the Ventura County health officer, Dr. Jerome Robinson.