Lightpaths by Howard V. Hendrix Page A

you.” She switched on the large scale display and the two of them moved within it, interacting with the submicroscopic world.
    “Let’s move down into The Notch,” she said, causing an area of chromosomal surface to grow into canyon around them. Via feedback, they “felt” their way among the forces acting on the molecular landscape through which they moved.
    “There it is,” she continued, “the part of Chromosome One where aging and death are. This is the genescape my viral vector will have to target and modify.”
    “What exactly are you trying to do?” Roger asked, sounding genuinely curious.
    “Well,” Marissa began, taking a deep breath, wanting to impress Roger and hoping he wouldn’t shoot her idea down from the start, “my research with your mole-rats indicates it should be possible to design viral vectors to speed up the evolutionary pace of the immune system, supercharge its rate of reactivity. At the same time, it should also be possible to use reverse transcriptase’s ability to translate viral RNA into host-cell DNA—as a means by which to vector into the genome the immortalizing capability from teratoma tumors. A non-carcinogenic telomere alteration. These immortalizing vectors can then be targeted at, among other places, Human Chromosome One—particularly at the gene series on that chromosome which programs senescence and allows death to occur.”
    Roger was silent a moment. Marissa hoped that merely meant he was thinking carefully about what she’d said.
    “You want to take traits from the so-called ‘immortalized cancer cells’ of teratocarcinomas and use them against aging?” he asked.
    Marissa nodded mutely. Perhaps he felt her nod, but at any rate he went on.
    “Well, I don’t think you can overcome aging and death quite that easily,” he said, “but it would be a step in that direction, certainly. Using engineered viral vectors to transfer the immortalizing trait from teratoma sources into the human genome—that’s quite a novel approach. Potentially dangerous too, though, even if you do beat the cancer factor. If human longevity were to be greatly increased, but without any corresponding decrease in birth rate or the rate of survival to sexual maturity—just think how that would ratchet up the population problem! That’s a consequence you might want to consider carefully.”
    Marissa smiled, for in Roger’s voice she could hear that he was indeed impressed—almost despite himself—and was taking her work quite seriously.
    “I’m nowhere close to developing the vector yet,” Marissa said. “Don’t worry. I have no intention of unleashing an Immortality Plague upon humanity.”
    “I didn’t think so,” Roger said with a laugh. “My own work may be a little closer to fruition, though.”
    “Show me,” Marissa said eagerly.
    Without further delay Roger quickly logged them out of Marissa’s Cybergene graphics sequence and into his own. They moved along another chromosome, watched and felt it grow into canyonland around them, then stopped along a particular length of it. Roger quickly overlay the site with all pertinent chemical information concerning it.
    “What’s here?” Marissa asked.
    “A gene that gives rise to important receptor molecules in the vomeronasal nerve,” Roger said proudly, “maybe even in the brain itself, of the naked mole-rat. I’ve always believed that behavioral and physical controls are inadequate to account for the level of reproductive suppression in the mole-rat. There must be a chemical component, a pheromone. The receptor molecules this gene leads to are exactly what the mole-rat pheromones would have to bind to. Using gene machines like this one, I’m generating thousands of hypotheticals, ‘scenario-compounds,’ and testing them. Speeded-up mutation, as it were. With the receptor cloned or even just simulated, we can test those compounds quickly to select the appropriate active ones. Mutation and selection: all we