Chapter 4
The future Lasker Award winner. Professor McDevitt waited for my explanation, looking puzzled.
“The other professors told me there was an undergraduate who had an answer to every question. Professor Berg praised you to high heaven.”
“Yes.”
Let me explain this for a moment for those who aren't future Nobel Prize winners or modern doctors.
MHC is a protein that presents antigens to lymphocytes. That’s future knowledge, but how could I prove it logically?
To use a restaurant as an analogy, it goes like this.
The police (lymphocytes) are watching the people (cells). There’s a zombie hiding among them.
The police have to decide whether to kill or spare anyone who might be a zombie. The people take their ID cards (the antigens they present) out of their wallets (MHC proteins) and show them to the police.
If the ID says someone is a zombie (a foreign antigen), the police kill that person.
I don’t know why there are zombies in a restaurant, or why the ID says someone is one.
That’s the end of the restaurant analogy.
To get to the point, there’s a substance that allows cells to present antigens to lymphocytes.
It was a concept that would change the history of modern medicine.
“Go on. It sounds like you’ve thought of something.”
I looked at Professor McDevitt.
“According to previous research, the H-2 protein predicts whether an immune response will occur against a transplanted organ.”
“And?”
“It’s the lymphocytes that determine whether there’s an immune response to cells or a transplanted organ, right?”
“That’s right.”
Step one.
The exact function of the H-2 protein was still unknown in this era, but the professor knew it was deeply involved in immune responses.
“Then how could the H-2 protein convey information to lymphocytes?”
It was a simple question. Professor McDevitt answered with an interested expression.
Step two.
“There’s only one way for cells to exchange complex information: they have to make direct contact.”
Cells don’t have Wi-Fi. Anyway, for one cell to pass information to another, it has to hand over some kind of substance directly.
Then what kind of substance would that be?
“That’s the simplest explanation. The only way for cells to exchange information is through contact, and lymphocytes make the immune judgment.”
“So you think the H-2 protein directly connects with lymphocytes at the cell surface?”
“That’s the simplest way to look at it, isn’t it? And we should apply Occam’s razor to the question of what information is exchanged between cells, too.”
The moment of realization.
Professor McDevitt’s face went pale.
He understood what I was getting at.
“Ah… You mean the H-2 protein directly takes up substances that originate outside the cell?”
“Yes.”
“That’s unbelievable.”
“Following the logical conclusion, the H-2 protein should have a structure that allows it to present antigens to lymphocytes. That’s something we can verify experimentally.”
It was complicated.
But Professor McDevitt understood the gist of what I was saying. His research wasn’t just about organ transplants; it was revealing the principles of the adaptive immune system.
The cornerstone of modern—or rather, future—immunology.
To put it simply, it was this.
Research that could uncover the very principles of adaptive immunity, which were still unknown in this era.
“If you’re right, then I might even win a Nobel Prize for my research on the H-2 protein.”
“You definitely will.”
“I can’t believe I found a genius.”
I watched Professor McDevitt, who seemed to have realized something extraordinary and was writing away furiously.
***
After hearing what I had to say, Professor McDevitt adjusted his research direction toward antigen presentation.
Even in an age of geniuses, the fact that an undergraduate had published a paper in Nature was enough to attract the attention of the Stanford community.
It wasn’t something you saw every day, after all.
My undergraduate years, which had already stretched on for several years, were starting to bore me. I wanted to get back to the hospital and see patients soon, too.
Time passed relatively quickly.
Studying, undergraduate life, and research. I got along reasonably well with my Stanford classmates, too.
“Congratulations on being top of the class. What’s your secret?”
“Going to the library again today? Let’s go out for drinks this weekend. I know a good place.”
“Oh, do you want to come to our family’s vacation home with my classmates? This time, we’re taking the yacht to Hawaii to look for whale sharks.”
Ellis was definitely a worshipper of Dagon. I couldn’t understand why Ellis was so obsessed with the ocean.
Most of them weren’t much help, though.
And so my undergraduate years went by.
One day.
Professor Rich, the dean of Stanford, came to one of our undergraduate classes for the first time in a while and set down his chalk.
There was a diagram of the heart on the blackboard.
“That’s enough for today’s lesson… I heard you published a paper in Nature.”
The dean turned his gaze toward me, and hundreds of students in the lecture hall looked my way.
That startled me.
“I did.”
Professor Rich frowned.
“What was the topic, exactly?”
“It was about using components of bacteria in medical research. They’re simple, so you can work with them inside a test tube.”
The entire class was looking at me.
“Give me an example.”
“In Professor Berg’s latest research, we successfully used bacterial restriction enzymes to edit genes. Restriction enzymes, which cut DNA, are proteins that humans don’t have.”
To put it simply,
the internal environment of bacteria is relatively simple, which makes it much easier to recreate in a test tube than the human internal environment.
The dean sighed.
“I suppose being top of the class really does mean something. What on earth do they teach at those Oriental schools?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been.”
I looked at the dean.
“Class is over. You’re all dismissed.”
As the undergraduates gathered their things and left the lecture hall, they looked at me again, as if I were something strange.
***
That year’s Fourth of July.
Once again, my whole family was watching the night sky with popcorn in hand. Except for the golden retriever.
There was no way a dog would like fireworks. The pup had simply hidden in the basement.
I sat quietly eating popcorn while my family chatted about trivial things: how a family of raccoons had moved in behind the trash can, or who the girl next door had married this time.
The night sky was dark. Soon, the Fourth of July fireworks would fill it.
My father looked up at the sky.
“How are your studies going?”
“They’re going well.”
“We may not have studied as much as you, but today is a day to celebrate the birth of the American Dream. I’m sure you understand that.”
I nodded.
Even though it was a small town, the smoke from countless fireworks was thick enough to hide the stars even out in the suburbs.
The culture of this other world was strange.
Who knows? Maybe it meant that imperialists, fascists, and communists—the enemies of the American Dream—would be blown to pieces like that.
I should get back to the hospital soon.
“My professor gave me a new white coat last week. I’ll be starting clinical rotations soon.”
“You’ll be working at a hospital?”
“That’s right.”
Now I’d be able to see patients. It was time to put the words of my oath into practice in earnest.
***
My fifth year as an undergraduate. 1975.
Fifth grade. The age when you learn division.
Wait, there isn’t a fifth year of college, is there?
Unfortunately, medical school was a six-year program, and many people went on to graduate school, too. Life was an endless succession of studying and suffering. What could I do?
In those few months,
Professor McDevitt completed his paper.
After a long struggle, I was able to get my name on Professor McDevitt’s paper, too. Working in a molecular biology lab was always hard.
The paper was accepted by The Lancet. It was a prestigious journal, but publishing there wasn’t the kind of achievement that would make the professor celebrate.
It was titled [Immune Response Genes].
The title reflected the professor’s personality.
I mean, how could a paper be titled ‘Immune Response Genes’? It was short and arrogant…
It might have worked as the title of a book.
Usually, paper titles tell you specifically what the research is about.
But Professor McDevitt’s paper seemed to plant a flag of authority over the entire field, daring the scholars of the future who would read it.
As if he’d written it with the certainty that it would become the foundation of immunology in the years to come.
And it probably would, right?
Professor McDevitt’s confidence wasn’t entirely unfounded. This concept of antigen presentation was ten years ahead of the original timeline.
A Nobel Prize seemed entirely possible.
I didn’t know whether we could change the original timeline in which Professor McDevitt didn’t win a Nobel Prize, but I thought it was certainly possible.
“You’ve worked hard.”
“It’s all thanks to you, Professor.”
The professor held out his hand to me.
“Why don’t you stay in my lab? Your way of helping humanity isn’t seeing patients—it’s changing the field itself in the laboratory.”
I nodded.
“I’ll be doing research for a long time… I’ll see you in Stockholm someday, Professor.”
“Stockholm…? Ah.”
That was where the Nobel Prize ceremony was held.
Anyway.
And so I left Professor McDevitt’s lab. My hospital rotations would begin next year.
At last, I’d be able to see real patients in a clinical setting and face real illnesses. It was time to put the skills I’d spent years honing in my previous life to the test.