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By Dirk Wyle, Rainbow Books, 2000 UK £10.67/US$14.95 Pbk. (272 pages) ISBN 1568250452Ben Candidi is back. You may have met him in Dirk Wyle's first novel ‘Pharmacology Is Murder’, in which Candidi was a graduate student working undercover to solve an almost perfect murder, get his Ph.D. in pharmacology, fall in love, and survive, all at the same time. In Wyle's second novel, ‘Biotechnology Is Murder’, Candidi is slated to defend his Ph.D. dissertation by week's end. If he lives that long.Venture capitalists want to invest $20 million in Biotech, a nascent biotechnology company in Miami. But first they want to know whether Biotech is scientifically solid. Candidi is offered a position as a science consultant. The job will take only a week, but since Candidi is only one week away from defending his Ph.D. dissertation, the timing is bad. On the other hand, $24 000 for a week's work is a fortune by a poor graduate student's standards. It is enough money to make Ben buy an expensive suit and cut off his ponytail to pass muster for Dr. Brian Broadmoore, head of the venture capital group. On the surface, Ben's job seems straightforward. He must tell the venture capitalists either to invest their $20 million in Biotech or to back out of the deal.Biotech is a start-up company owned by C.C. King, a rough Miami construction mogul with a taste for fast living and big yachts. King's company claims to have developed three anticancer drugs. These new agents are derived from sponges and work by inhibiting protein kinase C. Protein kinases are enzymes that stick phosphates onto proteins in a process called ‘phosphorylation’.Phosphates are electrically charged, and the effect of sticking one on a protein is similar to that of sticking a magnet onto a string of iron beads: the string folds. As a result of this change in shape, the protein now behaves differently. For example, a given protein may do nothing when it is not phosphorylated, but it may signal the cell to reproduce – possibly uncontrollably as in cancer – when it is phosphorylated. Candidi verifies that the patents for the protein kinase C inhibitors are valid and that the drugs are indeed novel. Next, he has to assess the data showing that the drugs shrink tumors in mice. The data are solid.But all is not well at Biotech. Ben learns that he is a replacement for a previous consultant who suddenly disappeared while investigating Biotech. Ben is also disconcerted by King, who does not seem to be a typical president of a biotechnology company. Further, it is clear that King cannot control Biotech's chief scientist, the secretive, cantankerous, and eccentric Dr. Moon. It is Dr. Moon who discovered the anti-cancer drugs and, although Moon's science is impeccable, Ben feels Moon is hiding something.Ben enlists the help of Biotech's scientific liaison, Dr. Cheryl North, to bring Moon out in the open. North is a beautiful, seductive, and ambitious woman who used a bed more than a desk to earn her Ph.D. Where Dr. Moon is concerned, she is more interested in obfuscation than clarification. She and Ben play head games, and neither wins. In frustration, Ben tries to get answers from King, who responds to Ben's aggressive questioning with open hostility. But Dr. North responds to Ben by turning up the charm and becoming increasingly seductive. Ben soon finds himself involved with kinky sex, blackmail, and murder. His $24 000 salary seems unimportant as he faces death on Biscayne Bay.Ben has at his disposal a complete set of human resources, most of who were introduced in Wyle's first novel. For example, there is the terribly British Dr. Westley, director of the medical examiner's office, who can test for toxins when the bodies start to fall. There is Zeekie, an electronics wizard Candidi knows from Mensa meetings, who can detect bugs and hide them as well. And there is Jim, another Mensa colleague, who sets Ben straight on patent law. Ben's main resource is his own high IQ, which he puts to use to solve the murders, discover Dr. Moon's secrets, and even discover the new Biscayne Bay address of Dr. Yang, his predecessor.Against the backdrop of this intriguing mystery, the author takes us on a tour through the Byzantine world of high finance and biotechnology. Venture capitalists buy ideas and products at various stages of development. They take risks – the bigger the risk, the bigger the profit if the drug is successful – and the risks are many. Anticancer drugs that work miracles in mice may be useless in humans. Others may shrink human tumors in vitro but prove to be unacceptably toxic in vivo. Patents may be mistakenly given to drugs that are not in fact novel, opening the door for future claims against a company by those with the first patent.Further, Wyle introduces us to the science behind drug discovery. Although the anti-protein kinase C drugs described in the novel are fictional, anticancer drugs that work on protein kinase C are, in fact, being developed. Genes (called oncogenes) that promote cancer have been discovered. The code for kinases that place phosphates on substrate proteins is the first step of a biochemical cascade that will make a cell reproduce uncontrollably. Wyle's descriptions of Dr. Moon's scientific technique are also accurate. Details such as keeping detailed notebooks, analyzing results without knowing which mice were treated and which were controls, and testing drugs that are slight modifications of the parent drug accurately reflect standard operating procedures in the biomedical laboratory.Although ‘Biotechnology Is Murder’ is fiction, you won't feel the same about investing in biotechnology companies after you read it.Thank you to HMS Beagle for allowing us to publish this book review. This article was first posted on HMS Beagle on November 10, 2000 (Issue 90). |
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