Eric Prescott brushed a speck of dust from the lapel of his midnight blue dinner jacket and stepped back to survey the crowd. It was tough to keep a smug smile off his face. There had to be at least three hundred people milling around the grand ballroom of New York’s Pierre hotel, sipping champagne and munching hors d’oeuvres from trays circulated by tuxedo-clad waiters. All in his honor. The Lasker Award for “seminal research in elucidating the basis of Alzheimer’s disease” was his latest triumph. A fitting tribute to his accomplishments. And an important step toward his ultimate goal.

He excused himself from a small crowd of admirers and went to the bar for another glass of champagne. Then he spotted Donald Moore across the room and gave him a subtle nod. Moore returned the signal and headed toward him, bringing along a thin balding man with a neatly trimmed gray beard. Alfred Bergner, who Moore and Prescott had made sure was invited to the award ceremony, was a kingmaker. One of five Karolinska Institute professors on the Nobel Committee, he had a key voice in conferring the world’s highest honor in science and medicine.

Bergner shook his hand. “Congratulations, Eric. A well-deserved award. It’s a pleasure to see your work recognized in this way.”

Prescott inclined his head. “Thank you, I’m delighted you could be here.”

“I am too,” Bergner said. “A very pleasant way to conclude my trip to the States.”

“A wonderful evening, indeed,” Moore said. “But not as outstanding as the banquet we enjoyed in Stockholm thirteen years ago. Do you remember, Alfred?”

“Indeed I do,” Bergner said. “The night you received the prize was quite the occasion.” He laughed softly. “But now that you’ve become an administrator, do you still have time to do any research yourself? Or are you too busy managing your institute?”

Moore smiled. “Yes, I’m afraid that being director of an enterprise as large as the Institute for Advanced Neuroscience has taken its toll on my research. Especially in Cambridge, with Harvard and MIT for neighbors. But it brings other rewards, such as facilitating the work of colleagues like Eric and sharing in their success. In fact, I’m hoping to enjoy a repeat of that Nobel banquet, though not in my honor this time.”

Bergner inclined his head toward Prescott and winked. “You mean in recognition of our friend here?”

Prescott gave a self-deprecating shrug. “Oh, come now gentlemen, I’d never be so presumptuous.”

Bergner snagged a bacon-wrapped scallop from a passing waiter. “No need to be overly modest, Eric. You know you’re a strong candidate. And there’s absolutely no question that your work has illuminated the fundamental basis of Alzheimer’s disease. But before making an award in this area, I think some of my colleagues on the Committee are waiting for the next step. A treatment.”

“Which we’re working hard to find,” Prescott said.

“And even if he doesn’t find the drug himself, I assume the Committee realizes that any successful treatment would be based on Eric’s genetic engineering of mice that develop Alzheimer’s,” Moore added.

Bergner nodded. “I think you can feel confident that Eric would share in any award based on the discovery of a drug using his mice. But we can’t discount the possibility that a treatment might emerge from some other line of investigation.”

Prescott blinked. This isn’t where the conversation’s supposed to go.

Moore leaned forward and responded before Prescott had a chance to say anything. “I don’t see how that would be possible. Everything important in the field is based on Eric’s contributions.”

“Maybe, but anything can happen,” Bergner said. “I had lunch with Karl Meyers last week at the meeting in San Francisco and he introduced me to an interesting young woman.”

“Yes, I was there too,” Prescott interrupted. “But just to deliver my Kirkland Award Lecture, I had to take off again right after.” No reason to miss a chance at self-promotion.

“I heard your talk,” Bergner said. “Nice, as always. But anyway, this woman had been a postdoctoral research fellow in Karl’s lab. Now she’s a faculty member with a lab of her own. What’s interesting is that she’s worked out a new approach to look for a drug using the cell culture system she and Karl developed in Michigan. Quite independent of your mouse work and very impressive. I believe her name’s Pamela Weller, just across town from you, at Harvard’s Langmere Institute. Do either of you know her?”

“I know the work she did with Karl, but I’ve only met her casually at conferences,” Prescott said. “The work seems interesting, although I’ve heard there are a lot of problems reproducing her results.”

Moore snorted and waved a hand dismissively. “She’s not even tenured, just starting up her own lab. Not someone to take seriously.”

Bergner shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not so sure. I have a nose for young scientists. The good ones have a spark, hard to define but I can always tell when it’s there. And Pam Weller has it. Eric, maybe you should get to know her.”

Prescott was steaming. Did Bergner seriously think this woman was some kind of competition? Ridiculous.

“I’ll have to do that,” he said.

And keep a close eye on her.