The Laptev Virus

“No, they gave us only animals that they had labeled as ‘Wildtype’, which is what we wanted. But the results make no sense.”

“When did you realize this?” asked Sarah.

Emile looked down at his immaculately kept notebook and flipped the pages. “I began suspecting that something might be going wrong a couple of days ago, but it wasn’t until last night, when I got all of the data plotted, that I could really see that something was amiss.”

Working late on Sunday night, thought Sarah briefly. It didn’t surprise her. If it were not for her injured ankle she would probably also have been putting in some weekend appearances.

“And then, of course, when I got in this morning we found a lot of dead ones, especially from the lowest dosage group, which is what you are seeing here. I showed the information to Drew and Shane, and we began running some quick biochemical tests on the tissue samples from both sets of mice. And we’ve extracted some DNA.”

“You were trying to see if there is a genetic difference between them that would explain their reactions,” said Sarah, thinking aloud. She was annoyed that Emile had not come to her immediately, but she now saw that he and the others had taken the same steps that she would have recommended.

“Yes, but we can’t find a difference. The mice are all clearly from the same gene pool.”

“Call the labs that supply the mice. See if they can verify the lineage.”

Emile nodded. Sarah began clicking through more screens, looking at the various graphs and comparing the results from the different groups of mice. It was obvious that Emile was right—these mice should have had predictable reactions to the viral infection, but that was clearly not the case. In some cases the high dosage of virus killed the mice, and in some it did not. In some groups the low dosage killed the mice, and in others, it did not. The results made no sense.

“And did you put some tissue samples under the microscope to see if the virus was present in the mice that are still alive?” asked Sarah.

“No,” said Emile, “but I’ll get right on it.”

“Okay, let’s see what the mouse supplier says and what the tissue samples show us. I’m going to go speak with Kevin and see if he might remember anything from when he got us the mice.”

When Sarah left her office she headed down the hall to where the techs generally worked. It was a smaller room, and since many of the techs were undergraduate students, they often brought their class work and sat at tables when there was not too much going on in the main lab. She was glad that it was not a distant walk. Her leg was beginning to ache again. As she entered the room, Sarah scanned the tables and quickly found Kevin sitting close to a window, poking away at his phone.

“Kevin,” she said, once she had wrested his attention from the monopolizing device. “We seem to have a problem with mice we’re using for these new experiments.”

Kevin looked at her blankly.

“The mice,” she repeated. “The mice you got us for the experiments for the Laptev virus. Something is wrong with them.”

Kevin raised an eyebrow as his expression changed to a slightly different kind of confused.

Sarah closed her eyes, realizing this was a task that she should have delegated. She had far too many problems to be speaking with this young man who seemed to have no life outside of his phone. She tried once more, this time conveying her ideas in staccato thoughts that he might be able to grasp before his mind wandered.

“The mice are reacting discordantly to the same stimulus. They should all have the same reaction. It doesn’t make sense. I’d like you to check with the people who work in the vivarium, and see if you can find anything that might give us a clue as to why the mice are acting differently. Anything at all. Do you think you could have an answer for me by tomorrow?”

Kevin nodded and Sarah decided that that was good enough.

CHAPTER 14

The next morning Sarah met with her group of researchers again. “As you all know by now,” she said, “we seem to have a problem with our mice here, and it could be egregious. Emile, Drew and Shane have run several tests using the mice as hosts for the Laptev virus, and there seems to be a discrepancy in the control group. Some of them contract the viral infection and die, while others contract it and live perfectly well. And the dosage we gave them, which should affect the rate of infection and illness, seems to not have the expected result.”

She paused and a furrow creased her brow. “So far we cannot find a pattern, and it certainly makes no sense that if the mice were all identical to begin with, there would be such differing reactions to the virus. I’ve asked several of you to follow up with some further investigations, and I’d like for all of us to pay close attention to see if between us we can crack this nut. Emile, will you please begin”