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[impartofthesolution]

Too Much Progress Proves Dangerous

           Mounds of data and a few late nights were in the future of Julia’s team.  All of it was promising.  Their research had been paying off, and the results were coming in almost faster than her lab techs could record them.  Gone were the days when she turned a blind eye to the techs goofing off in their bullpen because there wasn’t enough work to do.  In her mind, they should have picked up a few grad classes and made something of their lives, but that was their business, not hers.            Her business was about to take off.  Sure, her funders would be over the moon with her latest results, but this was finally something she could take and market to the world.  She could improve the world and the lives of everyone in it.            “Dr. Dargento?  I’m sorry to interrupt, but I thought you’d like to have the latest report,” a young post doc with her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail entered Julia’s office.            “I was just about to take a walk through the lab myself. Why don’t you tell me about it on our way,” Julia replied.  Years ago, she had been a bright-eyed and bushytailed post doc like Annie.  This was her first role as principal investigator, and it had almost gone in the toilet.  She kept everyone’s hopes up the research would bear fruit, but that’s because she hadn’t revealed the darkening financial landscape that came with disappointed funders.  Strange how that stress was so quickly swapped for the stress of handling a project almost too big for her.  Almost.            “What’s this report about?” Julia asked as she put on her white lab coast and grabbed her safety glasses and some gloves.            “We were doing some analysis of the replicating capabilities of the verdant strain and, well, your earlier hypotheses were correct.”            “So you were able to identify a comprehensive integrated backbone?”            “Well, yes,” they entered the airlock into the lab. “You won’t believe it until you see it under the microscope.  But we were able to pinpoint a distinct concentric double helical superstructure that imparts a rigidity we weren’t expecting.  It seems this strength enables the strain to grow eight times faster than any other backbone.”            “How is this possible?” Julia reached her hand out for the report.  “I don’t remember designing any helix plasmids.”  She paged through the notes, revealing the detailed instructions of how the samples were prepared.  “You used the cross-linked plasmid?”            “Yes, Dr. Dargento.  Turns out the recombination ends up polarizing the cross-links, and they form a sort of matrix.”  She paused, talking a breath before telling her boss they’re pursuing a path not part of the approved testing procedures.  “It seems the backbones isn’t magnetized, but it’s attuned to living matter as if there were a magnetic attraction.  We’ve set up an experiment in pod 5.  It is our goal to see if we can direct the path of rapid growth towards a set location.  We put some bacteria in an agar plate six inches from a sample of the verdant strain in pod 5a and two feet from the sample in pod 5b.            “Hmmm,” Julia hummed, thoughtfully.  It showed good initiative, and it was a logical experiment.  She herself had surmised a positive feedback loop would be necessary to achieve meaningful results.  “Have Lance add a few more petri dishes of bacteria to pod 5a, at six inch intervals, the last one at two feet from the sample.  Have him record them both.  I’ll want to see it.”  She didn’t give back Annie’s report.  Annie acknowledged the instructions and turned away, calling one of the techs over.            Julia turned to find some techs waiting for her by the microscopes.  This was going to be good; she had some excited hope growing in her heart. Whether the techs wished to torment her or were just daft, she wasn’t sure.  The microscopes were loaded with slides of the crimson strain on which they had also been experimenting.  The slides told the story of complete catastrophic decay.  The first few slides were of a growing cell structure, but after growing to be about 1000 cells long, it crumbled everywhere at once.  It seemed all the cells experienced simultaneous apoptosis.  She sighed; this wasn’t nothing new.            “Mike, where are the verdant slides?  Those are the ones I want to see.”            “Here they are, Dr. Dargento,” a tech handed Julia a tray of slides.  Julia started focusing the microscope when she heard a loud crash and an alarm go off. She stood up and walked towards the commotion with an intense expression on her face.  Gone was her optimism; now, her leadership was needed.            “Someone tell me what the heck just happened,” she demanded at the backs of a semi-circle of people facing the testing pods. Everyone turned to face her, with expressions ranging from startled to abashed.            “There was a containment breach in pod 5a, so I flipped the killswitch,” the tech named Lance spoke up.            “What’s all the commotion?” Annie said, walking around a corner.  She took in the broken glass and Lance standing in front of it with a scowl.  “I checked on something for 2 minutes, and what did you do?” her grew pink from the embarrassment of having this happen in front of her boss.  Julia turned to face her.            “Dr. Zheng, did Lance follow the preparatory protocol I instructed?” Julia ignored Lance’s frantic arm movements.  Annie tuned him out, too.  This was her responsibility, and his mistake would be hers.            “He did, Dr. Dargento.  Everything was as you instructed.”            Julia walked over to the broken pod 5a and considered the remains.  Even though Lance stood next to her, she turned back to Annie, “And how far from the glass did he place the final petri dish?”            Annie thought about it for a few seconds, and her face darkened.  “Pod 5a is smaller than 5b.  We put the sample in the middle, which, after two feet, only left us with an inch or two from the glass.”            “How far was Lance standing from the glass, Dr. Zheng?” Julia continued to ask Annie. Whether it was disdain for lab techs or disapproval for Annie’s behavior, no one could tell.  It was likely both.  Annie broke eye contact with Julia to stare at her booties, unable to answer the question because she didn’t know.  “Was it at least recorded?”            Lance, hoping to redeem himself spoke up.  “Yes, Dr. Dargento.  He turned to pick up a tablet on a tray near pod 5b and held it out for Julia to see.            “What’s the sound?” Julia asked.  Sure enough, there was a rapid tapping sound seemingly coming from Lance.  Everyone looked around.  It wasn’t until they heard the sound of glass starting to crack that Julia spoke up again. “Lance, step away from the pod.” He obeyed her immediately, turning to look at what was behind him.            As he moved away, Julia watched a green vine that was pushed against the crack in the glass fall to the bottom of the pod and stay there, motionless.  The glass was an inch thick; bamboo would have had a hard time breaking through over days.  This vine took seconds.  Troubled, Julia spoke, “Analyze the data we have.  All experimentation will stop until I find a way to remedy the unbound proliferation gene.”  It would not be safe until then. 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