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I knock on the door. A voice summons me in.
I’m expecting smiles and jubilation. I’m expecting a panel of excited directors, another round of funding, and a hefty promotion. Instead there’s one guy in the room. He shakes my hand and then his head.
“I’ll cut to the chase, Doctor,” he says, easing himself down into a chair, which creaks under his weight. “We’re not going to bring Regenermax to human trials.”
I swallow my anger and my confusion as this fucking pencil pusher steps on my dream. “May I ask why?”
“Your preliminary data on nerve regeneration is promising,” he says. “But the side effects are too many and too intense, and the LD50 is too low for human trials.”
LD50 is the dose where half the rats given the drug die. It’s determined in mgs per kg. Acetaminophen has an LD50 of 2402 mg per kg. That’s considered safe. But rats can survive a lot more of it than humans, so it’s not actually a great measuring tool, even though they insist on using it regardless. Caffeine is much more dangerous in rats. They can only tolerate 92 mg per kg before half of them die. The point is, LD50 is almost meaningless if you don’t take species into account.
“Rats are sensitive to Regenermax in a variety of ways,” I try to explain. “Humans have more complex pathways. We can start with very low doses to determine toxicity, but I am certain the LD50 will improve in humans.”
“It’s not just the lethality of the drug. It’s the other effects. The psychosocial effects. The report indicates seriously increased aggression and hyper-sexuality. These are not effects we can impose on human subjects.”
“So you’d rather have a guy never walk again than be horny?”
I’m losing my professional cool, but that’s because this shitty little paper shuffler who never knew a day’s hardship in his life is destroying the chance thousands upon thousands of people have to get their lives back.
He senses my agitation and pulls back into officious speech. “We’re not positioned to accept Regenermax for human trials at this time. It’s considered too unstable and too likely to cause problems.”
“Rats are only human allegories to a certain extent,” I explain, even though we both already understand what I’m saying. “Without a human trial, we’ll never be able to fine tune the drug. This could make a difference to so many people. Serious, long-term injuries. Potential paralysis cures.”
“You have a great deal invested in this, and we understand why…” He gives me one of those pitying looks I am so sick of receiving. “But this drug has not met the standards to be put forward for human trials. Another round of animal testing and perhaps we will consider it.”
Another round. That’s years of work. I don’t have funding for years, and I’m not guaranteed to get it either. This company, Edison Enterprises, has taken me on, but my work is a long way down their list of priorities. They have four different products available for getting an erection past eighty, but this potentially life-changing treatment is barely of interest to them.
This news is crushing. Anger rises in me, but I push it back down. Can’t be the cripple who cries in business meetings. That would be another level of pathetic.
I thank him for his time and I leave the office. My hope, my dignity are both utterly shredded. Bad news travels fast. By the time I get to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee, which technically has a more dangerous LD50 than the drug I’m trying to get onto the market, people are already expressing their sympathy with back slaps and those muted half-smiles I have come to hate so much.
By the time I get back to my lab, the death has spread. The research techs who have been on this project can smell failure, so the laboratory is empty apart from me. They’re off polishing their resumes. Soon I’ll be getting requests for referrals. I’m betting there’s already at least one of those emails waiting for me. I’m the only one who really cares about this treatment. Regenermax doesn’t mean anything to these people. It means everything to me.
Alone in my lab, I pull the samples we had already started to synthesize for a small-scale human trial. According to the paperwork I received upstairs, they’re to be destroyed. I have several dozen doses of what could be—should be—life-changing, lifesaving treatment. And I can’t give them to anyone who needs them because bureaucrats worry more about grumpy rats than they do about saving human lives.
I pick up a vial. Hold it up to the light. It has a silver iridescence to it. It’s beautiful. It represents a leap forward in medicine that the board can’t understand. Everything is called revolutionary now. When I can’t sleep at night because of my leg, I watch infomercials where orange peelers are described as revolutionary. The word has lost its meaning in the wider world. But this actually is a revolution. This is the real thing. The future. And there’s no way I’m destroying it because a man who doesn’t know a carbon bond from a couch tells me it’s too risky.
