Chapter 3
My third year as an undergraduate. 1973.
After a long struggle with Professor Berg, we completed a paper that would change the world.
The paper was titled [Enzymatic Synthesis of Functional Plasmids and DNA in a Test Tube].
This was the very paper that, in the original timeline, would earn Professor Berg the Nobel Prize.
Although it did cost the professor some of his hair.
Wasn't that a small price to pay for standing on the shoulders of giants and serving humanity with truth as our weapon?
I'll prescribe hair-loss medication as soon as I get my license, Professor. Though I might have to invent the medication and a treatment plan first.
Come to think of it, wasn't that something they still hadn't figured out even in the modern era? This was sixty years ahead of its time.
If I could invent a hair-loss drug that worked for sure, I could win a Nobel Prize for that alone.
Since I can't do that, I'm researching things like bacterial plasmids.
Anyway.
I also sent letters to major journals containing the key ideas behind research into genetic recombination and DNA sequencing. As if I were writing a book of prophecy.
The title of my letter to Nature was this.
[A Reductionist Approach: Why Bacterial Enzymes Make Genome Editing Research Possible].
Explaining it would be complicated. But research aimed at a Nobel Prize couldn't exactly be simple, could it?
This was a proposal for a research direction from the future. Studying the simplest organisms, the ones most like machines, was how we could make biochemistry something we could handle mechanically.
Professor Berg glanced at the journal.
“Looks like the shark has a worthy successor. How on earth did you manage to get published in Nature?”
“Would you like to read it?”
“Let me see.”
I showed Professor Berg the paper that had been published in Nature. He furrowed his brow as he flipped through the pages.
Maybe now I could win the Nobel Prize?
The award itself would take time, though.
Even after the research is completed, it usually takes several years for follow-up studies to confirm the original line of research and for the Nobel Prize to be awarded.
***
Thanksgiving that year.
When I came home for the first time in a while, my parents showed me a local newspaper.
-Genius Orphan Boy Enters Stanford to Research a Cancer Cure. Shows Early Signs of Progress.
There wasn't a single accurate thing in the article.
I wasn't an orphan, it wasn't a cancer cure, and did they even read the paper's title before writing the article? But my parents didn't know any of that.
“I'm proud of you. It was amazing enough that you got into Stanford, but I knew you'd do well there, too.”
I nodded.
My parents were the quintessential Americans you pictured when you heard the word ‘American.’ Church on Sundays, a lawn out front, a plumber dad and a homemaker mom.
All the relatives had gathered for Thanksgiving, sitting around a single turkey.
The turkey was bigger than I'd expected.
Did they deep-fry an ostrich?
My family had submerged the enormous turkey in butter and roasted it in the oven. It was a fascinating sight, but the turkey didn't taste as good as I'd expected.
At least compared to chicken...
Ah, I want fried chicken.
Anyway, the turkey wasn't important. The center of attention wasn't the turkey, but me.
Adopted child, Stanford, black hair.
They'd raised a foreign adoptee well enough to turn them into a doctor. For Protestant Americans who believed in the American Dream, I was a kind of ideological embodiment.
That's why California liked me.
I was living proof of their worldview. When I sat down in front of the turkey, all my relatives' eyes turned to me.
“I heard you became a dentist this year.”
“I heard you got into the Academy at the top of your class? Congratulations.”
“Congratulations on your literary debut. I heard you published an essay somewhere. Are the royalties good?”
I scratched my head.
Where had the dentist thing come from? The essay was probably referring to my letter.
My relatives didn't really know.
Things like Stanford, papers, and journals were far removed from their lives.
A golden retriever walked toward the table, and a cousin with hair the same color as the dog's tossed it a piece of turkey.
Woof.
The dog wagged its tail and ate the piece of meat. After a moment, it left the meat and went back to its kibble.
Was dog food tastier than turkey? If so, shouldn't we put dog food on the table?
I looked back at my relatives.
“Uh... Quite a lot.”
I pressed my temples.
It was easier to just call it an essay than explain what papers and journals were.
For the record, I had to pay to get my paper published.
The author paid the journal, and readers paid the journal too. Damn them.
“You're doing well.”
It was a happy American family.
***
My fourth year as an undergraduate. 1974.
I'd already been credited on a paper worthy of the Nobel Prize, but there was still one more piece of research at Stanford I wanted to take part in.
I'd looked hard for it.
Major histocompatibility complex (MHC)!
It was research that would also win the Nobel Prize around this time. To put it simply...
It was a protein that presented antigens to immune cells, allowing the immune system to distinguish substances originating outside the body from those produced by the body itself.
Not so simple, was it?
It was the subject of the first chapter in an immunology textbook, something every modern doctor knew.
This research would win the Nobel Prize in a few years, too. I planned to use the same method again.
I wrote a letter predicting the existence of the major histocompatibility complex, then went to see the professor conducting research related to it.
Professor Hugh McDevitt.
Fortunately, he was working at Stanford.
He was a scholar who had researched the major histocompatibility complex around the same time, but hadn't won the Nobel Prize.
For the record, he had won the Lasker Award, too. It was a similar award, though less well known to the general public.
Stanford was an interesting place. You only had to look around to see Nobel-caliber scientists walking about.
It was an era when glory and romance hadn't yet ended.
I knocked, then opened the door to Professor McDevitt's office. He seemed to recognize me just from my hair color.
“Professor. If you work with me on a paper this time, you could win the Nobel Prize.”
I only state facts.
Professor McDevitt gave me a cursory look.
He was looking at me like I was crazy again, but there was still an expression of interest on his face.
I faltered at his unexpected reaction.
“I've heard a lot about you. You entered Stanford at the top of your class, and you're working with Professor Berg. I hear your abilities are far beyond those of an undergraduate.”
I broke the magic-measuring crystal ball when I enrolled.
That's me. And I wasn't just top of the class when I got in; I've stayed at the top ever since.
“Oh, yes.”
“Do you want to become a researcher?”
“Well, I think the purpose of research is what matters. Ultimately, isn't all research conducted so it can be applied in clinical practice?”
Professor McDevitt furrowed his brow.
“So, ultimately, it's clinical.”
I nodded.
Patients were what mattered, after all.
What did it matter which protein presented which antigen to the immune system?
The reason MHC was important was that it played a crucial role in allergies, blood transfusions, and most importantly, adaptive immunity.
Professor McDevitt was leafing through the letter I'd published in Nature. It was a short proposal, only three pages long.
But...
It was a letter that would be hard to avoid citing in any future paper that used the concept.
It contained the most essential concept.
“You wrote this paper last year?”
The contents of the letter hadn't yet been proven experimentally, but they laid out a very elegant physiological concept.
I nodded.
“That's right.”
“Hard to believe... There's something my research team is struggling with right now. Would you like to hear about it?”
“Yes.”
The professor began.
“There's this H-2 (histocompatibility, or tissue compatibility) protein that triggers an immune response in transplanted organs, you see? It's the protein I'm researching now. What do you think it is?”
Since MHC hadn't been identified yet in this era, Professor McDevitt was asking out of genuine curiosity. Let's build the logic.
This was a brainstorming session.
“Are you asking what the protein does?”
“Let's say I am.”
H-2 couldn't be a gene that existed just to ruin organ transplants, so let's think about what MHC's original function might be.
Professor McDevitt looked at me.
As if he wanted to hear what the student in the rumors, the black-haired genius, would say.
Though he probably wasn't expecting much.
Of course, I knew the answer.
Professor McDevitt didn't yet realize how remarkable the thing he was researching was.
The protein Professor McDevitt called H-2 was none other than MHC. It was the protein that enabled adaptive immunity by presenting antigens to lymphocytes.
How should I explain it?
I had an idea. I looked at the professor.
“Occam's razor. Wouldn't the simplest explanation be the most likely?”
Occam's razor.
A scientific principle that the simplest solution is most likely to be the right one.
“Anyone can say that. Can you see what to cut from the argument?”
There was a perfect, elegant explanation.
To use a restaurant as an analogy...