Toronto, Canada
Day 149
Oh my God. George Kitchen and that mousy American girl from the CDC and some random geneticist have identified the male vulnerability to the virus. This coming weeks after Amanda Maclean, Sadie Saunders and Kenneth McCafferty discovered the origins of the virus. I’m feeling both left behind and grateful they’ve publicized their work. I hate feeling grateful. I want to have something other people can feel grateful to me for. I call the best geneticist I work with and one of the only people I would call a work friend. She pisses me off very rarely and doesn’t take any shit. I like her immensely.
“Nell, it’s Lisa.”
“Lisa, I’ve told you before. I can see who it is on my phone, we’ve had caller ID since the nineties.”
“What do you want me to say? Hello, and then just launch in to it? Have you seen the news?”
“I’ve been in the lab all day. I just stepped out to get lunch.”
“George Kitchen, Elizabeth Cooper and some geneticist called Amaya Sharvani have done it. They’ve identified the gene sequence responsible for female immunity.”
“Of course Amaya Sharvani would have something to do with this.”
I’ve never heard of her. “Is she good?”
“Only thirty-six, she’s phenomenal. She had four papers out last year, does amazing work at Great Ormond Street. Yeah, she’s good. Never mind that, how did she figure it out?”
“Twins, one fraternal with an immune father and only one twin immune. One set of identicals both immune with a dad who wasn’t. Partly luck she had those sets of patients. Then they homed in on the genes, did the sequencing, and here we are. The entire world is floored by their genius.”
“Now now, Leese. I can hear a familiar green tinge to your voice.” I can tell Nell is smiling. She loves making fun of me. It’s really annoying.
“I’m not jealous.”
“And yet, you’re the one to bring up that word.”
“I’m thrilled they’ve made this discovery.”
“But you wish it had been you.”
I laugh. “And don’t you?”
Nell sighs. “Of course. The difference is that I can accept there might be people in the world who are more intelligent than I am, Lisa. A concept you seem to struggle with.”
I’d like to think I’m handling this conversation with the dignity and grace befitting a professor of an esteemed institution but instinctively I let out a kind of growl that makes me think of my dad when my mom would turn the TV off.
“We need to meet,” Nell says briskly. “Read the materials, talk them through, figure out where we go next.”
“Already on my way over to you.”
For the first time in a few days, I feel excited. I would never let my staff know, but this work is a grind with no letup and, despite popular belief, I’m only human. I get tired and overwhelmed and just want it all to be over. I don’t show it. Leaders need to be strong, and no one can accuse me of being weak. But I needed this today. We needed this boost, badly. This will speed up our research tenfold.
Thank you, George and Elizabeth and Amaya. If I was in their position I probably wouldn’t have released this information. But they’re not me and I can benefit from it, and that means we’ll have a vaccine quicker and men can stop dying. We’re reaching a critical point in population loss the world over. We’re past a point of return but we’re not yet past the point of return. There are still enough young women of child-bearing age to have a hope in hell of population recovery. I sigh, and text my assistant to get me another Red Bull. The work is only just beginning.