BXBX NOVEL Chapter 205: Laboratory Seven (3)
Chapter 205: Laboratory Seven (3)
“If we asked the Minister of Health directly, he'd probably say no, right?” Young-Joon asked.
“Of course. We’ve already checked this with the Chinese health authorities, and they dismissed it as a rumor.”
“Of course they did.”
“They said they could make up for those numbers even if only a tiny fraction of the critically ill people who die in China donate their organs.”
“Alright. I’ll look into this on my own at A-GenBio, but could you let me know if you have any more information?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
* * *Young-Joon had originally booked a return flight at Beijing, but he had canceled it as he was in Guangzhou when he was finished with his work. He didn’t blame anyone because it was his fault for roaming around.
Anyway, his secretary’s office had canceled the flight from Beijing and rebooked a flight directly from Guangzhou to Incheon. Young-Joon, who arrived at Guangzhou Baiyun Airport, met Yoo Song Mi.
“Hello,” greeted Yoo Song-Mi.
“You didn’t have to come meet me here. I know you’re busy with the merger,” Young-Joon said, still happy to see her.
“It’s almost over, and I came to stop any more schedule changes. If I’m not with you, you might cancel your returning flight and go to Tibet or Nepal or something.”
“Haha, I’m sorry.”
Yoo Song-Mi smiled as Young-Joon apologized.
“It was probably because it was that important. I know how busy you were from seeing your schedule in Korea,” Yoo Song-Mi said as she escorted Young-Joon to his first-class seat. “But next time you’re away for such a long period of time, I think it would be a good idea for you to bring an entourage from the office.”
“But I’m comfortable traveling alone with just my bodyguards,” Young-Joon said.
“That was fine when you were just running A-Bio, but not anymore. You’re now the owner of one of the largest companies in the world.”
“Alright.”
“There are only a few companies as big as A-GenBio, and most of their CEOs have a whole army of assistants.”
“I’m going to hire a CEO soon. I’m going to leave most of the management stuff to them and just focus on research,” Young-Joon said.
“I know you said you’ll only focus on research, but you’re going to fight if someone like He Jiankui shows up again, right?”
“Uh… Of course. There’s nothing I can do about that, right?”
Yoo Song-Mi grinned.
“You are a scientist, inside and out. Honestly, the secretarial staff like me follow you because we like that side of you as much as your ingenuity.”
Yoo Song-Mi nodded as if she had an idea of what Young-Joon would be like from now on.
“Even if you hire a professional CEO, it won’t change your position as the board of directors will still revolve around you, the largest shareholder. Even if you hire someone, you’ll just have one more employee to oversee the business side of things.”
“True.”
“You’ll be just as busy, so I would like you to have assistants with you when you go somewhere from now on. It’ll make your life a lot easier if we move with you and take care of things for you.”
“Alright. The office must have had a lot of trouble chasing me around. I’ll be careful next time.”
Young-Joon went to the reserved seat with Kim Chul-Kwon and the security team.
“I’m sorry it’s not a great seat. This was the best one available on the flight from Guangzhou,” Yoo Song-Mi said.
“No, it’s fine, thank you.”
A little while after they took their seats, the plane began to move.
“It’ll take about three hours, so it’ll be around one o’clock when we arrive at Incheon. There will probably be a bunch of reporters at the airport,” Yoo Song-Mi said.
“Really?”
“Of course, sir. There’s been a lot of buzz about what you’ve done in China.”
“Speaking of which, let’s check in on what’s going on right now. How is it all going?”
“First of all, we completed the consolidation of our management headquarters while you were away. Most of the people from A-Gen’s management came on board with their titles intact. We’ve got a new secretarial staff as well, which is a relief for me since I have seven people to do the work I used to do alone.”
“Good. What about the labs?”
“Most of A-Bio’s scientists have been reassigned to six of the labs according to their suitable positions. And the people who will be part of Lab Seven are still waiting at A-Bio headquarters. We’re in the process of setting up desks and creating departments.”
“What happened to the lawsuit with Atmox?”
“We won the trial in South Korea. The finalized damages were a little more than ten billion dollars, but Atmox has appealed. Our legal team will be holding a trial in Beijing soon,” Young-Joon nodded.
“And after you declared the moratorium, we’ve seen follow-up declarations from around the world. A total of seven hundred seventy two scientists have declared the moratorium in eleven countries, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Austria, Japan, Germany, and Switzerland.”
“I’m glad.”
“And the micro-dust in Korea has remained at good levels every day even though it’s springtime, when micro-dust usually increases.”
“Cellijenner will love that.”
“There’s a frenzy in the stock market right now about Cellijenner being the next big thing. Their stocks have been up four days in a row, and it fell just a little on the fifth day,” Young-Joon said.
“Honestly, it’s not that big of a deal,” Kim Chul-Kwon said.
“Alright, thank you for letting me know, Secretary Yoo,” Young-Joon said.
“Is there anything you would like me to go into detail about?”
“I’ll see the rest for myself.”
“Could I also ask you something?” Yoo Song-Mi said.
“Sure.”
“What happened to the Asian tiger mosquito eradication project? The latest news we have is that you told us you were having a meeting with the governor of Guangdong in Guangzhou.”
“Um… It didn’t go well,” Young-Joon said. “We might end up doing it somewhere other than Guangdong.”
“Why?”
“He said he can’t allow something that causes such a big change in the ecosystem because they don’t know how it will end up.”
“Oh…”
“I have a way, so don’t worry about that. But when I get back, could you and the office look into something else?”
“What is it?”
“I have information that organs from executed prisoners of conscience in China have been harvested without authorization and transplanted into patients. I’d like to know more about that.”
“... Alright.”
Yoo Song-Mi was a little surprised at the unexpected news, but she soon nodded.
“Hello.”
A flight attendant walked up to them and greeted them.
“Excuse me, are you Mr. Ryu Young-Joon, the CEO of A-Bio?”
“Yes, well, the CEO of A-GenBio now.”
“Wow.”
The flight attendant covered her mouth and smiled brightly.
“Sorry… It’s just that my nephew has something called homocystinosis or something.”
“Homocystinuria?” Young-Joon asked.
“Yes! That’s right.”
The flight attendant laughed awkwardly.
“My sister and brother-in-law had a lot of trouble because of that.”
“It is a treatable disease though. Is he okay now?”
“Yeah. They’ve been taking care of him since he was born, so he’s still okay for now.”
“If he’s still young, they’ll have to keep taking care of it well.”
“Yes. But my sister and brother-in-law were very impressed by what you did in China this time, treating a genetically modified baby.”
“...”
“It’s at least a relief that it’s a manageable disease, but they said it’s sad that they have to give a little kid a bunch of pills every day and not be able to even give him a spoonful of stew without worrying. But they were excited that maybe this genetic disease could be cured in the future.”
“I see.”
“Yes. We’re always rooting for you,” she said with a smile.
* * *
As soon as Young-Joon landed in Korea, he quickly caught up on a few things, then went to A-Bio’s old headquarters before holding his first board meeting. There were about seven team leader-level scientists in the conference room. Young-Joon greeted them and took a seat.
“What about Doctor Cheon Ji-Myung?” Young-Joon asked.
“He left for the United States a few days ago on your instructions, so I came in his place.”
“Oh, I remember now.”
Cheon Ji-Myung said she would travel to the United States to contact Elsie himself.
“Let’s start the meeting, then. You all know what the Seventh Laboratory that we’re going to set up here is going to do,” Young-Joon said. “Up until now, A-GenBio has been focusing on producing new drugs, but I think it’s time for a company as capable as us to try and do more than that. Let’s do things for public health, like create devices to reduce fine dust, not just develop drugs to treat specific diseases.”
Young-Joon stood up and went to the next slide.
“There are nine hundred twenty-seven diseases on this page. You’re probably not familiar with most of them because this is a list of rare diseases created by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. These diseases affect less than twenty thousand people, or so little that we can’t even figure out the prevalence,” Young-Joon said. “Most of them are immune system abnormalities or genetic diseases. A small prevalence means that even if we develop a drug, it’s not marketable, so no pharmaceutical company wants to develop a cure.”
Young-Joon looked straight at the scientists, slightly raising his voice.
“But not us,” he said. “Lab Seven’s goal will be to conquer all these genetic diseases in the next ten years.”
“Ten years…”
The scientists were taken aback.
“It won’t be difficult if we use Cas9, stem cells, and GWAS with one hundred million people’s genomic data,” Young-Joon said. “And there is one more responsibility of Lab seven.”
Young-Joon went to the next slide. On it was a Gantt chart and a strategy mockup of the mosquito extinction project.
“We’re going to be dealing with environmental issues, and micro-dust is just the beginning. There are much bigger issues that threaten humanity, such as climate change and other things; this caused an unprecedented heat wave in Delhi, with the temperature hitting forty-eight degrees Celsius and killing people. Or the threat of radiation from a nuclear explosion.”
“W—Wait. Can we do something like radiation?”
“Of course,” Young-Joon said confidently.
“...”
“We’re going to study and take measures against these environmental problems as well, and our first project will be the extinction of mosquitoes,” Young-Joon said. “And we’re going to come up with a new system for that. It will be used along with large-scale GWAS that we built based on decoding the genes of one hundred million people. We’ll create artificial intelligence that predicts changes in the ecosystem.”
“...”
“When we treated Mimi this time, the reason we were able to succeed in predicting the conditions for the clinical trial without much preclinical data was because of in silico experiments.”
In silico experiments were virtual experiments using computers and biological information.
“We’re thinking of inviting an in silico expert to join Lab Seven.”