The Laptev Virus

“Yes, Miquela,” said Sarah, as if Shane hadn’t spoken. She was determined not to allow him to belittle a fellow female scientist, and anxious that Miquela not feel like she’d done something wrong by knowing more than Shane did. “Poor Ms. Lacks, may she rest in peace, might not have been too happy to know that her cells live on in perpetuity after her cancer took her so suddenly, but her cells have been extremely helpful for scientists around the world as they grow prodigiously quickly. They have been used for all kinds of research which requires human cells. I believe we used some once in our AIDS research as well?”

Tally nodded. “I’ve got some vials in cold storage. I’ll retrieve them and begin cultivating them.”

“Excellent,” said Sarah. “I’d also like us to take a look at some mouse models.”

“Do you think the virus will propagate in mice cells?” asked Miquela. Sarah was pleased that she seemed unscathed by Shane’s earlier slight.

“Well, I’m not really sure, but I have a hunch that with so many genes, the Laptev virus might have several different hosts in nature. We don’t know what the world looked like when it was frozen in the ice 30,000 years ago, but we do know that there were mammals around, including rodents. What I’m hoping is that passing it through various generations in mice might attenuate the virus enough to be able to handle it better in the lab. We don’t want it to change completely, but if it were to become a bit tamer, I don’t think that would be a bad thing.”

“Yeah, flu viruses are attenuated when we grow them in chicken eggs, so maybe this virus will get weaker in mice. It’s a good idea. Certainly worth a try,” said Drew.

“It could get worse, though. You never know. Passing it through mice could make it mutate and become 100% fatal,” said Shane.

Everyone was silent as they pondered the implications of Shane’s words. The truth was that no one knew much at all about the Laptev Hemorrhagic Fever Virus. Soon her lab would be one of a handful of groups who would know more about the virus than anyone else in the world. It was a grim thought.

After the meeting, Sarah shuffled down the hall to the room where the student technicians sat around studying and socializing. Some were undergrads, but several, including Kevin, who looked after the mice that they used for experiments, were graduate students.

“Kevin,” she said, addressing the technician who sat at a table in the corner, his books spread out in front of him. There was another young woman sitting at the table with him. Sarah had seen her before—what was her name? Tammy something, she recalled. The girl wore entirely too much makeup, Sarah noted idly, even as she addressed Kevin. “How are our mice doing? How many do we have?”

Kevin looked up from his cell phone, which he had been poking vigorously. He was one of those people who hardly spoke at all, it seemed to her, preferring instead to live his life online, immersed in whatever social media was most prevalent at the moment. He seldom joined in any meetings, and even when he did, he was never really fully present as the lure of his phone was so strong. In any case, he rarely ever spoke although Sarah strongly suspected that he did nothing in his life without commenting on it electronically.

She had heard Shane telling stories about Kevin’s adventures with his smart phone. Apparently it had fallen into the toilet a few months ago. Before that, he had placed it on the hood of his car as he was doing something, then driven off and lost it. Another time he had been texting and walking and he had tripped on the sidewalk. The phone had flown out of his hand and fallen through the grates into the sewer. Sarah figured that he must spend every cent he earned on either buying phones or buying insurance for his phones.

Kevin looked up at her, but did not answer for several seconds. Sarah thought that she would need to repeat her question, but then he said, “Um, I’ll speak with the other vivarium techs, but last check, we had quite a few mice to work with.”

“Quite a few?” repeated Sarah. She was annoyed with Kevin for not seeming to take her request seriously. The line of investigation did not matter much to him. His job, to provide mice for the experiments, was the same no matter what the research topic.

Kevin stared at her blankly for a moment, and then began to scroll through his phone again. She was just about to say something else to him when suddenly he said, “I dunno, but it looks like we have about 200 or thereabouts.”

Sarah nodded. “You’ve got an app for that?”

Kevin looked up at her and grinned his affirmation and suddenly she felt a little fonder of him.

“Good,” she said. “I think that’s plenty to get the investigations going.”

CHAPTER 6

“You look beat, honey,” said John. “You coming to bed?”