biotechnology

Pharmacist

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As its end slipped clear of the ribosome, the protein folded once more, pivoting around now free-to-move bonds… snapping back against the already closely-folded main body.

Brelyn Calaris muttered an imprecation upon the heads of all uncooperative fabzymes, paused the simulation, and grabbed the protein with both hands, peering muttering into the region of the faulty fold.  “Where are you, you little ictoch?”  Her fingers slipped along the stem of the protein, feeling the orbitals.  “Too far, too far… could rotate freely, that’s just a hydrogen bond… Hm.  What is that doing there?”

The object of her ire was an innocuous-looking sulfur-sulfur connection.  “Too close, those cysteines.  Can’t be having that.”  A flick of her wrist spun the simulation back in time, and she took hold of the end of the protein chain and snapped the peptide bond before the outermost offending cysteine.  “Let’s give it a chaperone.”  Tap, tap.  “Something polar-friendly, for preference.”  She pulled an arginine molecule out of the palette and twisted it into place on the chain’s new end, then reattached the cysteine after it.  (In the secondary transcription display, a new codon quietly inserted itself in the matching place.)  “And rerun.”

Once more, the protein slipped out of the ribosome and folded itself, its terminal end this time remaining in position protruding from the main body.  “Fab test.”  She watched the playback as other foreground molecules were introduced into the simulation; some slipping neatly into the new protein’s active site, meeting their counterparts, and being transformed, while a counter raced upwards with each successfully simulated catalyzation the parallel-processors executed.

When the counter reached one million, Brelyn dismissed the protein-simulator display with a clap, leaving behind just the transcription display, then reached into her working area to pluck out the main model for her project, a simulation of the ECH-20 commercial fabrication bacterium.  Opening it up, she spun the main customization plasmid around until the remaining space was visible – this was the twelfth fabzyme gene her production process required – plucked the new gene out of the transcription display, and slipped it into place.

“Right, System.  Bactry simulation, ten hours and 10,000 runs each, all the usual variations – what’ll that take, wall-clock time?”

“Six hours, Brelyn.”

“Good.  If it passes, no anomalies, send it straight for sequence printing and fab, and get cultures under way.  If not, page me.  Oh, and if all goes well tell Chelan that, he can have his drug sample for vivo testing by tomorrow afternoon.  Explicit.”

She blinked opened eyes against the room’s half-light, flicked damp red hair back over her virtuality laser-port, and stretched.  But right now, time for a late dinner.

Trope-a-Day: Organic Technology

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Organic Technology: It does exist in the universe (see, for example, the Gardeners of Rechesh we mentioned back in Flesh Versus Steel and the qucequql, who went an organic-technology route due to their underwater origin, or for Imperial examples, the bioengineering esseli, and the colonists of the planet Kythera (Imperial Core)).

However, while there exist organic fundamentalists (the aforementioned Gardeners of Rechesh), they are crippled by the disadvantages of their technology.  Organic structures just plain aren’t that good at a great many tasks, including handling high energies, radiation, etc., etc., and very often, the things that they are good at are different from their inorganic equivalents.  A cortexture is a perfectly good organic neural-net computer built out of actual neurons, but it would be wasted performing the same tasks as a regular inorganic processor, or quantum processor less efficiently when it can do the jobs suited for neural-net processing more efficiently.  The right tool for the right job, say sensible users…

…such as the esseli and the Kytherans – and the qucequql – who are a more logical lot, and are more than happy to use organic technology where it makes sense, and wrap it up in a nice neosteel hull with a perfectly inorganic fusion reactor the rest of the time.  Or engage in bionanotech games with materials and devices that couldn’t strictly be said to be one thing or t’other.

Trope-a-Day: Inhumanly Beautiful Race

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Inhumanly Beautiful Race: Quite possibly, since the eldrae started out a very pretty people and have been engineering further in this direction for a long damn time; of course, it’s not like they aren’t happy to sell this technology on the open market in the interests of a more beautiful universe.  (And, of course, assuming they don’t fall directly into your Uncanny Valley; the trouble with being a product of postsophont genetic engineering is that you look like a product of postsophont genetic engineering.  This troubles the eldrae not at all, but your awe/unease/horror/fear may vary.)

(We Can Rebuild Him) Swifter, Higher, Stronger

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“So.  What did the tests show?  Metabolics.”

“His vitality monitors are showing some lactic acidosis.  Oxygen saturation’s in spec, but it’s still not enough for that latest round of muscle ops at full capacity.  I say we push another unit of breather hemocules.”

“We’re already close to topped out on blood viscosity – by the book.”

“Cardiac parameters and tissue perfusion are both clean and low.  We can afford this.”

“Right.  Do it. Ergonomics?”

“Stride length’s off, and that’s taking us out of the sweet spot for pace shape.  Probably costing us at least a sixtieth per; again, it’s the new muscle grafts that’re doing it.  We ought to strip and replate the tendons to match, but there’s no time for that, or for retraining.  I can hack around that with some nerve-impulse shaping, but it’s not going to be comfortable…?”

“Do that, too, and have the nanocytes damp the algetic response, too.  We’ll be going after those tendons later, so we can clean up any trouble then.  Okay.  Good.  Anything else?”

“One more thing.  Adrenal response was a little fuzzy going into the final lap; we never got all the way to sprint-optimal.”

“Ideas?”

“I could set up a timed artificial stimulus, but there’s no guarantee it’d trigger when we needed it.   I’d say it’s up to you, an old-fashioned pep talk, and the right pair of shoes, boss.”

“Okay.  Great work, people.  Let’s go win a race!”

– overheard at the 89th Cluster Games