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Chapter 28: A Supernova In the Scientific Community (2)

“I created optic nerve cells with induced pluripotent stem cells and used them to treat retinal degenerative mice,” Young-Joon said to Ji Kwang-Man.

“There hasn’t been anything uploaded as a performance report,” Ji Kwang-Man said as he looked through Young-Joon’s data.

“Because I haven’t uploaded the draft yet.”

“Then why don’t you do that? Why did you come to me first and tell me this?”

“There is something I want to tell you in advance, Division Manager.”

Ji Kwang-Man rested his fat body on the back of the chair. He stared at Young-Joon with suspicion.

“What is it?”

“The fact that I have ninety percent of the royalties of iPSCs means that I have the key to all studies following it and whatever profits come from it.”

“So?”

“My studies are set to be published in Science. Not only the iPSCs, but the optic nerve cell treatment as well. People who don’t really know biology won’t really know what stem cells are, but they will be surprised if they hear that I will be able to open a blind man’s eyes.”

“...”

“The situation has changed now. When the paper is published, it will not only be the scientific and medical community that will focus on me. Investors will be interested, and so will the shareholders of our company. They were usually more focused on profits and their portion than what kind of drugs were developed, but it will be different this time.”

“Hm.”

“And they will be displeased when they find out that just some lowly scientist has most of the royalties of iPSCs. They will also be shocked when they realize that they will not be given a single penny even after publishing a patent as big as this.”

Young-Joon added, “Since you are going to be the one approving my patent application request, you will also be held responsible.”

“So?”

“Why don’t you cooperate with me?”

Ji Kwang-Man silently glared at Young-Joon.

“I will sell a portion of the eighty percent of royalties dedicated to the Life Creation Department to the company. Then, you will be the best manager who got great results from encouraging a talented scientist while maximizing the shareholders’ profit.”

“How much do you want?”

“I don’t want money. I want shares of A-Gen.”

Ji Kwang-Man’s eyes shook. He took a few sips of his hot tea and said, “How much?”

“You must give me one percent of the shares per five percent of the royalties of the original iPSC technology. How much will you buy?”

“You’re crazy. You think I will make a deal like that?”

“Why can’t you?”

“That eighty percent is part of the company fund. It is not your own money. The shareholders will be displeased, but it’s essentially money that will be invested back into the company. All we have to do is give that profit to the shareholders.”

“That is under the assumption that I will produce results with the eighty percent of royalties given to the department.”

Ji Kwang-Man’s eyes widened.

“... What are you talking about... You are A-Gen’s employee! Are you saying that you will purposely slack off with your own mouth?”

“Who will be the one to decide whether I am slacking off or whether I’m not getting results even though I’m working hard?”

“What?”

“Is there anyone in the world who knows more about induced pluripotent stem cells, nerve differentiation, and nerve transplants than me?”

“...”

“And if I become one of the shareholders, will they really dislike that? My name value will be different once the special on my paper is released in Science. Giving me shares of A-Gen and inviting me to the executive’s table will not be a harmful decision to you, Division Manager. It will help the development of the company, and the shareholders will like it. And if I give you some royalties, it’s a win-win situation for both of us.”

Ji Kwang-Man bit his lip.

Young-Joon added, “I will be generous. If you give me four percent of the company shares, I will give you thirty percent of the royalties. You can share that with the shareholders or do whatever you want with it.”

“Four percent is almost as much as we give to lab directors. And four percent of shares in cash is trillions of won!”

“Considering the value of the patent, I am selling it to you at a very cheap price. I don’t know if you will get a lot of money from this itself since it is a base technology, but the stem cell therapy market that will start from this will be worth trillions of won.”

“No matter how expensive or cheap it is, do you think that I can just give you a share that big myself?”

“You have to come up with the how, Division Manager. Personally, I think it is a realistic amount.”

“Can I assume that you are acting this way because you want to participate in the management of A-Gen?”

“Yes,” Young-Joon answered firmly.

“I mistook you. I thought you had no interest in company politics and management. I thought all you wanted to do was study stem cells?”

“Research was everything to me. But the company used scientists’ results on something different when I took no interest. I am not going to be used like that anymore.”

“Stop.”

Ji Kwang-Man waved his hand.

“Doctor Ryu. The contract you gave me. That’s nothing but a piece of paper. I haven’t signed that yet, and we could discuss this again and do it according to the law. Do you really want to do it that way?”

“That’s unexpected. I trusted your word and completed differentiating stem cells into optic nerves and finished treating retinal degeneration in animal models, but you’re not going to keep your promise?”

“I think I told you before, but I am a businessman. I only act based on gains and losses. In this case, I think it’s more beneficial for me to break my promise, have people say some things about me and be resented by you. I have no intentions of being swindled by you anymore. Go to Pfizer or don’t go. Do whatever you want.”

“Hm, I wonder. It won’t be easy for you to do that. I already said I was getting eighty percent.”

“To who?”

Knock knock knock.

“Division Manager, it’s Secretary Joo.”

Ji Kwang-Man’s secretary came inside.

“What is it? We’re in a meeting right now.”

“Um... Some reporter wants to do an interview.”

“A reporter?”

“A reporter from CNN.”

“CNN?”

Ji Kwang-Man tilted his head in confusion.

“Not SBS or KBS, but CNN? CNN from the US? All of a sudden? Who are they interviewing?”[1]

“You and Doctor Ryu Young-Joon.”

‘No.’

Ji Kwang-Man felt his heart drop and his breath stop. Something was wrong.

Young-Joon was clearing his throat right next to him.

“I didn’t know they would be here already. News travels really fast. The special from Science didn’t even go out yet...”

“What did you do?”

“I did an interview with the Science journal.”

“...What?”

“I only told the truth. And I only said things that were good for the company. I didn’t say any bad things like how A-Gen stole a small company’s liver cancer treatment and destroyed it, or made a principal scientist harvest spinach to get him to quit. Don’t worry too much. All I did was talk about the promise you made me in a more humanistic way.”

Young-Joon smiled, which sent chills through Ji Kwang-Man’s spine. He understood the situation right away.

Being in this business for over thirty years, Ji Kwang-Man had been through hell and fought all kinds of psychopaths and lunatics to get to where he was. But he had never felt this kind of fear from someone, not once. Young-Joon’s smile looked like the devil’s.

“The deal I offered you. Don’t forget it. Four percent.”

* * *

Research papers that were published in Science had to be under four thousand five hundred characters, but the papers Young-Joon published were over ten thousand characters combined. Samuel, the editor-in-chief of Science, ignored all the rules and published all of it. This paper was unique and the only one on its subject in the entire history of the Science journal. The number of characters wasn\'t a big deal.

Chuckling, Samuel read the abstract of the paper again.

[Although stem cells have a great potential to recover damaged nerves and organs, they are limited in that they require embryos. In this paper, we dedifferentiated regular somatic cells and transformed them into stem cells. Furthermore, we succeeded in differentiating those stem cells into cardiac muscle and optic nerve cells. With those optic nerve cells, we were able to inject them into the retinal area in mice with end-stage retinal degeneration and recover their vision.]

It was a very short and straightforward abstract that was only filled with explanations about the data. Each sentence was like an ax to the scientific community.

“You didn’t see this coming, did you, you Nature assholes? The top biology journal is Science from today onward.”

Samuel smiled in satisfaction as he uploaded the manuscript. He thought that there was no paper to match up to this one in all of Science

And there was something more important than this groundbreaking paper: the discovery of Doctor Ryu Young-Joon, a biologist. They said that he was a young man, only twenty-eight years old. He said that he was thirty in his country because Korea had this weird system where everyone became a year older when the year changed, but he was twenty-eight in America. Jamie Anderson, the person who discovered the structure of DNA, was an elite who graduated university at the age of sixteen and finished his doctorate at twenty-four, but Young-Joon was more than that.

‘What kind of things will this genius discover and create in the decades of research years he has left?’

Young-Joon said many things that would grab the attention of scientists and people in the medical and pharmaceutical industry around the world.

The best part about the interview was the last part of Jessie’s interview.

—Doctor Ryu, do you have plans for the optic nerve cells created from iPSCs to be used in clinical trials to treat actual patients?

Jessie asked.

“Of course. A-Gen will support our clinical trial. And we won’t stop there.”

—Then?

“Induced pluripotent stem cells have the potential to differentiate into any tissue or nerve. And we have the ability to make that possibility into reality.”

Young-Joon added, “In a few years, we will put an end to all neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s, spinal cord damages, strokes, epilepsy, dementia, multiple sclerosis, Lou Gherig’s disease, Refsum’s disease, and more.”

It wasn’t put on the interview manuscript, but Jessie almost screamed when she heard him.

—Is... Is that possible?

“It will not take long. I will promise you right here. I am planning a major pharmaceutical project that will erase all kinds of neurological diseases. Like how no one suffers from smallpox in the twenty-first century, no neurological disorders will make anyone suffer in the future. Human medicine has already advanced to the next stage, and all humans have the right to not be in pain. They have the right to keep their bodies safe and be happy.”

Young-Joon added, “What we are declaring war on are neurological disorders itself, and the first target among them are eye diseases. I promise you that in six months, we will perfect a technology that will be able to cure all patients who have optic nerve damage.”

Jessie felt like she was suffocating; an emotion that she could not figure out filled her heart. She was someone who had finished her doctorate at MIT and had been a scientist. Research took years, and it was difficult, hard, and boring.

And one day, she gave up on research. Instead, she found interest in introducing things other scientists discovered. After she became an editor at Science, she did not once miss the life of a frontline scientist.

She was happy reading the newly published papers. Her intellectual thirst was quenched, and she took delight in watching knowledge that wasn’t known to humanity before be discovered. That was the science Jessie was doing. As an editor, the science that she knew was the subject of admiration and entertainment. But today, she realized that science could be touching.

The future that Young-Joon was building was not a fascinating and fun future; he was not a scientist who found intellectual enhancement and entertainment in discovering beautiful and exhilarating truths and disseminating them to editors and the public. Young-Joon, a frontline scientist, was like a warrior in battle. The battlefield he was in was not about the discovery of new cutting-edge technology or new scientific knowledge but about destroying diseases.

Young-Joon was a soldier of science who was fighting on the frontlines of the oldest battle in humanity: the battle between humanity and disease. He knew that was his role, and he held to his values.

—Um... Is A-Gen funding the research?

Jessie asked.

“Of course. A-Gen is the best pharmaceutical company in the world. They give plenty of support to scientists as well. The shareholders didn’t even take the shares of the iPSC. It was solely to reinvest into research.”

—Really?

“Yes. If I succeed in this research, A-Gen has decided to give me ten percent of the royalties of the iPSCs, and they have agreed to leave eighty percent of the royalties for my department’s budget and give me final approval of the allocation. They were being considerate and letting me do all the research that I wanted to do.”

—Wow!

“They even left the remaining ten percent of royalties for the frontline scientists. The shareholders did not take even a little bit of the royalties.”

—Wow... Amazing. Do they have that much faith in you, Doctor Ryu?

“Not only that, they have high expectations for this research. That’s the kind of place A-Gen is. Instead of milking the results of research, they highly praise the frontline researchers and support them to encourage them to complete their follow-up research.”

—Incredible. Your competitor companies like Pfizer and Conson & Colson must be both worried and nervous.

“They do not have to be.”

—Why is that?

“They could have people close to them who are suffering from severe neurological disorders, or have family members suffer because of it. Patients are not separate people from us; everyone can be in an accident and become paralyzed from the waist down. It doesn’t matter whether I develop it, or Pfizer or Roche. All we have to be able to do is give hope to these patients. Scientists should not chase after money or prestige, but pursue the convenience and welfare of humanity.”

—I see. Does the management of A-Gen think so as well?

“They will, since they gave up all the shares that would normally go to the shareholders and fully supported me and other fellow scientists.”

1. SBS and KBS are national broadcasting networks in Korea. ?