There are always consequences.
Chapter 1
Scrunched up legs of a well worn pair of jeans, a lab coat and a short boyish haircut of chestnut brown curls was all that one saw of Lisa from the back and there was not much more from the front except a round slightly freckled face with red cheeks and a perennial smile. Scruffy Converse and a long unkempt fringe completed her ensemble.
Lisa spent most of her waking hours at the lab. Her thoughts were exclusively on her research and when she did speak to others, the conversation was almost always about research topics.
She had become fascinated by the very complex reproduction of barnacles when she was still at school. How does an animal that is stuck firmly onto a rock reproduce? The story was stranger than fiction. No one could dream up such a scenario. Some barnacle species were hermaphrodite, some started male and ended up female and others were the other way round. Some barnacles had a penis that was up to eight times longer their body length! It was all very confusing and fascinating to a small group of biologists who studied them.
Lisa had just finished her doctorate on the reproduction of one species of barnacle, and now she had the title of Doctor of Philosophy. She was looking for more funding to continue her research. Post-doctoral studentships were hard to get and depended upon a professor having the funding to employ a number of researchers to help in their own specialism.
After many enquiries and applications there were obviously going to be no obvious avenues to more money and Lisa could see that she might have to look for work elsewhere. Eventually she saw a small advert in a scientific journal where a commercial company was funding research into the biochemistry of the glue that barnacles secreted to stick themselves to rocks. This glue was immensely strong and set quickly under sea water. It was hypothesised that it might be able to help wounds heal postoperatively and also to be a superior glue that might even replace Superglue or other Cyanoacrylates.
It wasn’t Lisa’s first choice, but at least it was working with barnacles, and could lead to some new research opportunities.
Previous applications meant that Lisa’s CV was already up to date, so she only had to write a letter of application and send them both off in the post.
After two weeks of anxious waiting watching her cash diminishing week by week, she received a reply. The Professor of biochemistry at a small University College in rural Wales wanted to meet her!
Three days later Lisa was on the train to the College and a brisk walk through damp streets in steady drizzle brought her to its gates. A porter rang through to the Professor and she was given directions to the Biochemistry Department and the professor’s office.
Small colleges in rural Wales didn’t warrant receptionists. When she rang the faculty doorbell it was the Professor who came to the door and let her in.
He introduced himself as Brian Drage, and he made her a cup of tea before she had a guided tour round the department and its tank room and various laboratories. It didn’t take long. There was a pair of teaching laboratories that were reasonably well stocked with familiar equipment, then there was a preparation room supervised by a technician. Finally there were a pair of smaller research laboratories with the tank room that held the stock of barnacles and their larvae. One bench that was about three metres long would be hers.
The department consisted of the Professor and two post-graduate students who were part way through their PhD studies. Jeff and William were enthusiastic to see Lisa, and posed as many questions as their boss over a lunch of sandwiches and cakes bought from a local supermarket. There was more tea of course.
Lisa had a chance to evaluate the three men. Brian was clearly the wrong side of fifty. His sandy coloured hair was thinning and he had a slight stoop from many hours in front of microscopes or other equipment. His clothes were nondescript and the lab coat had a few stains on it, but his eyes were full of vigour and his speech animated when he was discussing his research.
Jeff and William looked like rugby players. Stocky with muscled torsos, and wore the usual student uniform of jeans and a hoody. Both had been undergraduates at the College and had been completed Master’s degrees before starting their research. They were a bit over the top with their enthusiasm, but Lisa thought that they had been primed be on their best behaviour and only said good things about the College.
When the undergraduate students were on holiday, the team was only these three plus Wendy, the technician, who kept them all in order, and Sam a secretary, who worked mostly for the Welsh language faculty, but did a bit of typing for the biochemists when she couldn’t avoid it.
An hour later Lisa and Brian settled down in his office in two easy chairs to discuss her application. Lisa had worn her one and only skirt for the interview and she folded it carefully under her as she sat in the chair on the opposite side of a coffee table from Brian.
Brian, had obviously read an online copy of her thesis, and had already asked for a reference from her PhD supervisor in London. He went through her thesis with the thoroughness that was expected during her final viva voce for the doctorate, but after nearly an hour he went on to the work the team were doing and how he thought Lisa could fit in.
She was content to hear that they were working on the ‘glue’ of a common species of barnacle that was easily available from the Irish Sea. She had already decided that she would accept the offer of a Post-doctoral studentship if it were offered. It was the best, and only, offer she had had, after all.
The final question was about the Welsh language. The College taught all its science subjects in English, but encouraged all the students to speak Welsh. It was the standard language at social events in the college. Lisa would have the opportunity to learn Welsh with many of the Undergraduates and with a bit of uncertainty she said that she would give it a go.
It was a bit of a shock when Brian ended his questions with …
“… and when can you move here?”
“I need to give a month’s notice for my accommodation in London, but would be able to move here any time after that. My tenure at the University is almost over and most of my teaching commitments will be completed by the end of the spring term.”
“Then I should like to offer you the position.”
Chapter 2
Lisa, almost did a double take and wondered if she had misheard.
“Yes, I would be delighted to accept the post.” she managed to say, whilst her heart was all a-flutter.”
“Then I will expect to see you in post at the start of the summer term. The College will provide you with accommodation in a block of post-graduate apartments. The flats are not brilliant, but will do until you decide if you want to have your own place.”
It might be supposed that making an appointment with such pragmatism would be unusual, but even more to her surprise, Brian opened a drawer on his side of the desk and drew out a large manilla envelope.
“This is a contract for your appointment giving all the details about salary, and suchlike. Please read through the contract now. You may sign one copy of it now, and keep the other, but if you want someone else to check the contract then please return the signed copy by registered mail within 48 hours.”
“Would you like another cup of tea while you do that?”
Lisa read the contract. It was standard fare, and Lisa had no problem with signing it. She returned one copy of the contract to Brian and the rest of the envelope was folded in half and put carefully into her backpack with her overnight things.
“I will see you on 12th April here. The porters will have a badge for you that will allow you to get into this building. You will need either a drivers licence or a passport to prove your identity when you arrive.”
“Inside the envelope is a series to web page references to papers the team here has published. I would like you to have read all those papers before you arrive.”
“I think I have probably read them whist preparing for this interview, but I shall refresh my memory before I take up the post.”
“Have you a way to get back to your hotel?”
“Yes, it is only a few hundred yards away. I shall be back to London on the train early tomorrow morning.”
“I will take you to see Wendy on the way out. She provides all the staff with lab coats and deals with the laundering of them. She will need your sizes. Then I shall escort you to the door before wishing you a safe journey home.”
Chapter 3
Lisa was overjoyed to have been successful. There was no one to share her excitement. Even here parents would say something like “That is nice, dear.” without really having any idea what Lisa did or where she was going to be working. “
The rain had stopped as she walked back to the hotel, so before dark she had a walk round the town. There were all the usual supermarkets, and a fair few pubs and bars to cater for the undergraduates whilst they were in residence, but she thought that the residents had seen that the weather was on the cold side and there was more rain threatened so she assumed that they were sitting in front of the TV.
The hotel only provided Bed and Breakfast, so she was looking for somewhere to get an evening meal. A friendly cafe took her fancy, but she noted that it closed at 6pm. She didn’t need to eat after the biscuits that came with the cups of tea, but the cafe was the best bet for a meal, so she steeled herself for an early meal.
She was greeted by a “Hello, dear.” The woman was comfortably shaped with short blond hair and a spreading stomach and a capacious bosom. The woman clearly expected her to speak English. Perhaps there was something undefinable that the locals would see in a Welsh speaker.
“What can I get you?
Lisa looked down the short list of largely fried food and chose something she could tolerate. The woman brought the plate over after her husband had cooked it on a griddle.
As the woman plonked the food down with yet another cup of tea she asked, “What brings you here well before the tourist season?”
“I came for an interview at the College. Now I will be moving here in the next few weeks.”
“Good for you. I hope we will see more of you once you are in here full time. I am Carys, by the way, and my husband is Bryn. It is quiet during the College holidays but during term time we are rushed off our feet.”
“What do tourists come here for?”
“Mostly for the walking. There are a number of disused railway lines that are easy to walk along the old cinder track bed, then there is some boulder climbing and a few derelict castles to explore. We also get lovelorn boyfriends or girlfriends of students who stay for a few days then go home.
“Good to meet you.” Lisa replied as she swallowed a mouthful of eggs and bacon a bit more quickly than she would normally have done.
The tea was hot and strong. It helped to wash down the eggs and bacon, but it was much stronger than she was used to. What my Mum used to call Builder’s Tea.
“This tea will take a bit of getting used to”, she thought to herself.
Set up for the evening, Lisa returned to the Bed and Breakfast and logged onto the Internet and read several of the published Papers Brian had insisted she read. She had read them before but she was now rather better motivated as she had a purpose. Later she gave the necessary month’s notice to her landlord, and informed her University of her new post. Finally she researched a self storage place in the town and booked a small unit for a month’s time. Finally she booked a ‘Man with a Van’ service to carry both her and her belongings to Wales.
“That is as much as I can do tonight” she said aloud to no one in particular.
The TV was boring as usual. The B&B didn’t subscribe to a streaming service so she got ready for bed, and the bandwidth was only enough for emails and downloading an occasional pdf.
Sleep was some time in coming, but eventually she drifted off until the smell of cooking breakfasts roused her at 8am.
Chapter 4
A quick shower and a change of clothes into her normal jeans and sweatshirt took 20 minutes, then it was down to make the best of the breakfast. With luck, the hearty fry-up would keep her fed until she got home after nearly five hours on the train.
She drifted down to the station for a 10:15 departure. The train seemed to stop at each minute halt on its way to Birmingham, but Lisa had much to think about. The research on the adhesives secreted by barnacles was beginning to appeal to her. The biochemistry of the ‘glue’ had been researched but was eclipsed by the work done on the attachment of byssus threads made by Molluscs, like Mussels.
She felt that the chemicals that secreted by some species of barnacles to modify the gender of neighbouring barnacles may have something to do with the glue. After all if a large female barnacle could prevent surrounding barnacles from changing to female, then there had to be a chemical communication between them. What the large female barnacle died or finished making eggs, then the chemical, whatever it was, lessened and one or more of the larger males became females and the circle started again, but many barnacle species were both sexes at the same time, or males were only found as pygmies that lived close to a female. It was all very complex and interesting.
She was also interested in the fact that the larvae were released into the sea and by chance found a place to attach. Most of them attached near other barnacles, so how did they sense that their journey through the seas was over and they could mature there. Lisa knew that barnacles and their larvae have a variety of sense organs including a sensitivity to light and touch, but there needed to be the ability to react to complex chemicals in the seawater.
So involved was she with her thoughts that the train had been stationary in Birmingham station for several minutes before she realised that she had reached the halfway point in her journey. With only twelve minutes before the London train left, she was hard pressed to cross from one platform to the other and had to jog whilst dodging other passengers who all seemed to be towing suitcases and carting small children.
The Internet access on the Intercity train was much better than on the rural service, and Lisa could actively research whether anything had been published on the stimuli that caused the barnacle’s cyprid larvae to settle and to change into the adult form. Whilst the research was ongoing, it was clear that there was room for further studies into what it was that made those barnacles that had separate genders, adopt one gender or the other or when to change from one gender to the other.
At the end of the journey Lisa strode through the terminus and boarded a Central Line tube with her head spinning with ideas. She had to force her brain into neutral once she remembered that she had no food at home and the fridge was empty.
She made a quick trip round the mini market making purchases that needed little thought and even less, cooking, and she was on her way again.
Within a hour she was in her bed sitting room surrounded by books and articles. A TV microwaved dinner sat beside her, half eaten. She cursed when the phone rang. It was only her PhD supervisor ringing to congratulate her on her appointment.
Lisa tried not to be abrupt, but was irritated when the professor asked her so many questions about the new college and what she would be doing there.
As soon as she rang off she found she had confirmation from the letting agent and the ‘Man-with-a-Van’. She had had confirmation from the Storage Company online, when she had sent a deposit.
Finally she read through the pack she had been given. She had to confirm that she would like a room in the post-graduate flats. As soon as she had logged into the college site and had put in the password that was included in the pack, she was taken to the accommodation pages. When she had acknowledged that she would like accommodation the system allocated her a room on the second floor of an accommodation block. She could see a plan of the accommodation with the ensuite shower room. It was small, but adequate for her needs for the time being.
Chapter 5
Content that she had done everything that she could for that day, she showered and slipped into a comfortable t-shirt and a pair of knickers, lay down under her duvet and went to sleep.
Lisa’s night was troubled by plans and other thoughts and by 6am she was up, dressed and ready to go. Unfortunately the department at the University did not open until 8am so she killed time by reading or re-reading more of the documents that had been highlighted.
It was clear that there was very active research into the very powerful glue the barnacles used to attach themselves to rocks or other surfaces. Synthetic versions of the glue were being trialed with high expectations of commercial success. The glue was largely protein and it was suspended in oily material that kept water out whilst it set.
The oil was only a small part of the glue and it disappeared after the glue had set. Lisa’s interest was peaked by this. Any hormone that affected gender would be more likely to dissolve in the oil layer and it seemed that little research had been carried out on the oil component of the glue.
Lisa had to serve the two weeks notice she had to give to the University, but she spent most of the time preparing for her new job. Extracting oils from tissues were very different from extracting proteins and she could only expect minute amounts could be collected. If they contained hormones, then the amounts would be tiny indeed, but methods did exist and she could practice on the stock of barnacles in the University. The most obvious method was to use bioassay. Take a mixture and treat some barnacles with it and see what happened, then take a part of that mixture and see if the reaction was stronger with one fraction rather than another. Continue until only one part or fraction remained, then analyse just this refined part.
In fact it only seemed a short time before her collection of belongings were packed in stout cardboard boxes, and both she and they were being driven down the motorways to her new College in Wales. After a short break to unload most of her belongings in the Self Store, she was deposited in the College accommodation and left to sort herself out.
Chapter 6
The rest of the day was spent unpacking and making a visit to a local supermarket for the basics, then she had dinner at the cafe she had visited when she came for interview. Carys remembered her from before and when the cafe was quiet came and chatted for a few minutes.
“I hope you enjoy your stay here. There is lots to do. We have a good pub culture and the cinema, then there are a variety of social events and live music.”
“I am not really into the social life of a place. Most social events have me yawning with boredom. My life is devoted to my studies and that is really all that motivates me.”
“No boyfriends?”
“None that have stood the test of time.”
Carys smiled. “I don’t reckon it is good to study all the time. I like to have a good natter to customers and then like to sit in front of the telly of an evening.”
“I am happy to chat, but when I have got stuck in to my work here, I expect that meals will be grabbed when I can.”
“We shall be happy to see you when your work allows, of course, but what makes a young woman become so interested in barnacles?”
“They have such a large impact on shipping, and their uses in surgery and healing wounds is very important and of course, their lives are so bizarre as to be utterly fascinating. I am sure that I would bore you silly, if I go into the details, but the more one studies the group the more extraordinary they become. To me at least.”
Carys drifted off as customers arrived.
Lisa ate up, and paid as she left the cafe.
The following morning she arrived at the porter’s lodge as instructed and presented her passport. She was photographed and in a matter of minutes a new plastic ID card dropped into a slot at the side of the machine. A lanyard in the College colours was added and she was on her way with a map of the College campus.
The door to the biochemistry department opened without any problem and she was able to greet Wendy in her domain, the Preparation Room. A plastic pack of laboratory coats and safety goggles were waiting and Lisa only had to rip open the bag, put on a lab coat with the College crest on it, put the folded goggles into her top pocket and she was ready to announce that she was ready.
Not so fast, was Wendy’s comment.
“Your locker is number 28, down the corridor. This is the key. Don’t lose it. It will be a £10 fine if it has to be replaced!”
“Next, please note that I am the only one allowed in here. Today I will fulfil any equipment or chemical requisition dockets you submit, but normally they have to be submitted by 4pm on the day before you need something. You will also need to become familiar with the booking system for large bits of equipment such as the Ultra-centrifuges or electron microscopes and, of course you need to book time on the College mainframe computer. All this is explained in the folder I have for you here. It also contains all the Health and Safety protocols for this department and the College. You will need to sign that you have both received them and have read them by the end of this week.”
“Finally, there is a Faculty meeting at 9:30 with Brian and the Postgrads to decide who is doing what for the next few weeks. That will be in his office.”
Lisa drifted off to the laboratory that would be where she would work for the next several years. Jeff was already there making readings from a gas chromatograph as it separated volatile chemicals.
Seeing Jeff there, Lisa asked about the focus of his research.
“I am learning how to simulate the glues used by barnacles.”
“Isn’t that a rather crowded field? There seem to be lots of teams trying to do that.”
“Yes, it is crowded, but each species of barnacle has a unique formula for its glue. I am looking at the glue used by Goose-neck barnacles. No one else is doing that as far as I know. Most research is devoted to the Acorn barnacle because of its ubiquitous distribution and ease of harvesting from beaches almost anywhere.”
“Aren’t goose-neck barnacles rather difficult to get hold of?”
“We have a population of them in our tanks. Yes they are difficult to get from the wild, and expensive, but I only use a small number in my research so the tanks supply my needs.”
“How do you collect the glue?”
“When the larvae are ready to mature the glue is secreted. At that point it can be dissolved off using a solvent and the gas chromatograph can separate the various components. It is old school technology, but the glue doesn’t set until exposed to sea water and to do that the protective oil has to disperse.”
“I am hoping to analyse the oil as my first research topic. I am hoping it will contain a variety of hormones that allow the barnacle larvae to find the right place to stick to.”
“Good luck with that. The quantities are minute.”
“I think I have identified a solvent that will not dissolve the glue, but will dissolve the oil that normally covers it. I will be dealing with micrograms of material, and if there are any hormones dissolved in the oil, those will only be obtainable in nanogram quantities. This research would not have been possible when I did my first degree, but so much work has been done using techniques developed to track down criminals from tiny samples of hair, skin or various body fluids that my intended research is now viable.”
“How do you get on with the undergraduates?”
“Fine, as a PhD student I can only be a demonstrator in the labs, but I understand that you will be doing a bit of lecturing, to reduce the load on Brian.”
“Yes, that is the bit I find most daunting.”
“They are a good group for the most part. I think they know you are new to the job, and will not give you too much stick as long as they think they are getting value for money.”
“How many are there in the group?”
“Usually about sixteen. The main teaching lab only has space for that number. The biochemistry and microbiology courses do not start until their second year. Are you involved in teaching the core first year courses?”
“Not that I know of. Maybe in a future year?”
“I know Brian has had an application for a research studentship from a girl who is completing a masters degree in Marine biology. She has submitted a proposal to study the Giant Acorn Barnacle, Balanus nubilus. If she can be funded, and we can maintain a colony of those Pacific monsters, you may have your first student to supervise.”
“That is an interesting thought, but rather than a post-doctoral studentship, I think I would need a lectureship to supervise PhD students.”
“I think your post-doc is only like a probationary period. There is a vacancy for a full lectureship in the faculty. If everything works out I have little doubt that it will be offered to you.”
“That would be a nice thought, but nothing has been mentioned so far.”
“I must stop chatting as I have to take a set of readings before the meeting.”
“Of course, I will see you at there.”
Chapter 7
Lisa wandered off to her locker and put on her starched lab coat.
“Start as you mean to go on.” she said to herself, and popped her protective goggles into the breast pocket.
“Good morning everyone, the main purpose of the meeting is to go through all the things you hope to do this term. William and Jeff will know that this means that all your needs have to be costed to see if we can afford for you to do the research. Lisa, you are expected to carry out original research and to publish perhaps two articles a year in a learned journal. We will talk about your academic referees later.”
Lisa had thought out the first stage in her research.
“I don’t want to alter the lipids in the barnacles so some of the standard extraction methods are not useable. I thought that she would use the tried and tested method of two direction thin layer chromatography of samples of liquidised barnacle tissue to see which part of the liquid retained its water repelling function, and then to see if this lipid extract could have an effect on gender differentiation in other barnacles.”
“That sound positive. I am sure we can supply the TLC equipment and materials, and you can either use the stock barnacles, or collect your own from the beach.”
Lisa listened attentively to Jeff’s enthusiastic outline for his ongoing research. He was interested in the stimuli that attracted the barnacles to fertilise the eggs hidden away inside the larger female individuals. These were in the female part of their lifecycle. His enthusiasm was infectious and the group saw several videos Jeff had taken where groups of barnacles could be seen to extend their very long penises and thrash about in search of individuals carrying eggs. It was already known that the penises could be up to ten times as long as the barnacle’s body and the end of the penis was covered in hairs that could ‘smell’ the barnacles in their female phase. The penises steered unerringly towards their goal even when the stimulus was an artificial one. Some chemicals were found to be super attractors! Brian was fulsome in his praise for the results Jeff was getting. Soon Jeff would be at the stage to begin the challenging task of writing up his thesis.
William was quiet during the meeting. He was a front row rugby forward and his bulky form meant that he seemed to perch rather uncomfortably on the upright chair in Brian’s office. He answered Brian’s questions but without much enthusiasm. Apparently his research into the very common group of parasitic barnacles involved Sacculina, a barnacle that infects shore crabs and grows almost fungus-like throughout the body of the crab. The parasite sterilises both host genders, and male crabs become feminised. Both genders nurture the eggs and larvae of the parasite rather than any eggs of their own. He was struggling to find a novel approach in a very well researched field.
“You know that Sacculina can infect up to 25% of all swimming crabs, and an infected crab was no use to the crab meat industry, so controlling the numbers of infections so I thought that it would be a good topic, but there is no commercial interest in controlling Sacculina. Both host and parasite are closely related so any drug that kills Sacculina would likely also kill the host crab.”
It was a difficult area to study and William was finding the topic heavy going. In well fed crabs, the parasite would release batches of eggs at about ten day intervals. William had hoped that one of the larval forms would be unable to find the host crab if it could follow a trail of some chemical or other, but he hadn’t found any chemical yet.
Brian continued to talk to William after the faculty meeting had wound up. Lisa could see that neither were happy with the outcome but she made a Bee-line to the coffee machine.
As nothing from Lisa’s requisition would be available until the following day, she spent the rest of the day online, building up a picture of research that had been published to date, and there was a lot of it to get through. The potential for industrial glues that set under water was huge, and large organisations were throwing money at the task. What wasn’t being done was anything to do with the oil being a carrier for hormones that influenced or controlled gender differences in the animals. There seemed to be very little of commercial value in such knowledge.
Later Lisa went to look at the tanks. Whilst most barnacles are sequentially hermaphrodite. That is they are male then female, or vice versa ,but there are some species where the males are much smaller than the females and are called dwarf males. Any normal sized barnacles will be female in these species.
Chapter 8
The following day Lisa prepared a crude sample of female barnacle tissue and after some basic separation using a centrifuge and filters, she infused the liquid into the shell of a small number of other barnacles.
Lisa, Jeff and William had seemed to be on good terms at the beginning, but during the Faculty meeting, Lisa had noticed that whilst Jeff remained interested and animated towards her, William was quiet and seemed morose. She couldn’t think why.
“Why is William so reserved?” she asked Jeff when William was out of the laboratory.
“His doctorate is not going well. He has already had half of the three years he has been funded and has very little to show for it. I think he was hoping to get the lectureship I assume is earmarked for you, but without a PhD he is not eligible.”
Lisa thought about the situation and didn’t come up with any way she could help William without it seeming patronising. By this time she was getting some positive results from the oil extractions and decided to change to column chromatography to collect more oil based chemicals.
When the separated fractions were put into the cavity of male barnacles, the result was variable but one particular fraction seemed to give excellent results where all the barnacles went from their male phase to female.
Unfortunately, things started to go wrong. The column chromatography needed to be left for 24 hours to work. One time the electric motor of the fraction collector stopped working and all the mixture flooded just one tube and didn’t separate as it should have done, then the mixture of ground up barnacles became contaminated. Finally a flask of extract appeared to have been left out of the refrigerator over the weekend and had rotted.
“Jeff, I don’t understand it. I might have one bit of bad luck, but to lose nearly three weeks work over errors that I am sure I did not make is galling.”
“I know you are very thorough, and I agree that it would be most unlike you to make any of those mistakes, let alone all three.”
Lisa hatched a plan. She bought a tiny camera that she could hide amongst the variety of reagent bottles in her space. The camera was linked to the College network where she could record whatever was happening in the lab overnight.
Lisa went through the same procedures to repeat the experiments that had failed, and left the chromatogram running overnight. In the morning it was clear that the mixture had been turned into a gel using something like perchloric acid. The experiment was ruined.
When the lab was quiet, she removed the camera. The recording showed that William had come into the lab late in the evening. He had clearly been drinking and had added the perchloric acid he used in his experiments to Lisa’s flask. There was no sound on the recording but it didn’t take a lip reader to see that he mouthed ‘Fuck you bitch’ when adding the acid that would clot the mixture. But that was not all. As he wandered unsteadily round the lab he spilled some of Lisa’s extract on his hands and instead of washing them immediately he wiped them on his trousers and it soaked his front.
Lisa was shocked. Why was William doing this to her. Why was he so bitter?
She forwarded the relevant part of the video to Brian and went in to work as usual, until Brian called her in to his office.
“This is a most serious matter. I have never before had a situation where a student has deliberately damaged the work of another member of the College. Have there been any difficulties between you and William that I should know about?”
“None whatsoever. As you may have noticed, he has always been aloof and Jeff has said that he is less chatty with him since my arrival.”
“I have noticed that the eczema and acne that plague him have been worse lately. That can be a sign of stress. Can you think that there is anything that is making him stressed?”
“I have no idea, but the state of his research would certainly be stressful. As I understand it, he could lose his funding and not get his doctorate.”
“That is true. It is no secret that things are not going well.”
“I will call on you if needed, but please continue as normal with your research. I must go and confer with the Dean of our faculty to decide how to proceed. If William appears before I am back please ignore him and please do not chat with Jeff about this.”
William appeared about 11am with obvious signs of a hangover.
He sat on a lab stool doing very little except taking a surreptitious glance over at Lisa from time to time.
Apart from nodding to him when he arrived, she ignored him, but it was clear that William was fascinated, even besotted with his hands!
About 1pm, Brian came into the lab and asked William to come with him for a chat in his office. William did not know that the Dean, and two other members of the disciplinary committee were already sitting in the office.
The meeting was short. The recording was played and rather to everyone’s surprise William admitted the offences. He seemed euphoric. The committee wondered if her was mentally unwell, but he insisted that they looked at his hands.
I have no eczema on my hands after last night. It is a miracle. I have had severe eczema since I was a child, now, overnight, it has been cured. That extract I spilled has cured me. I even rubbed it onto my cheek. My acne is much better there. I soaked my front with the mixture as well.
The Committee looked at each other.
“Please take a seat outside and we will discuss this further and call you in when we are ready.”
The committee saw that Lisa’s mixture seemed to have the potential for a huge medical gain. The kudos of the department and the College would be incalculable, and would also make Lisa’s name in medical sciences World. If William’s revelation was reproducible. It could solve one of humanity’s tribulations.
“We cannot expel him from the University until the results have been verified, also we cannot expel him until it is clear that there has been no failure in our duty of care.”
In fact William had not bothered to wait for the Committee to expel him. As his head cleared he knew exactly how Lisa had prepared her samples and how to purify them. The process could be replicated on a kitchen table and then he could claim a miracle cure for Acne and Eczema, or sell the process to one of the major drug houses for millions.
Within minutes of leaving the office, William had cleared his space in the lab and his locker and was driving out of the little town that housed the College. For the first time in his recent memory his hands didn’t itch. He was overjoyed.
Two hours later and he reached the large house of his elderly mother. He had a small apartment in what used to be the attic. He used the apartment very little, and the stairs were too difficult for his mother to climb easily so he would be on his own there.
Two hours after his arrival he had sent an order for everything he needed to process the barnacles and repeat Lisa’s experiments. He was promised delivery within 48 hours.
At the same time, Lisa had been called into the office. Once it was realised that William had left of his own accord, the rest of the disciplinary committee left. The Dean was on the phone to the College lawyers to see if the College had any liability for William’s skin changes.
Chapter 9
Brian, Lisa and Jeff met to discuss the situation.
“Willam has left of his own accord. He knows exactly how the preparation he spilled was made, and it seems that it has cured his chronic acne and eczema overnight. This is one of those serendipitous moments in science which can provide a means to alleviate a huge amount of human suffering. It is on a par with Alexander Fleming’s chance discovery of Penicillin in my opinion.”
“I think it is likely that William will repeat your experiments, Lisa and claim the discovery for himself. or get some basic results then make the extract and sell it through online sales. It would take years for a large drug house to manufacture and then evaluate the extract to comply with safety procedures, but given a big enough payout he might also sell the process to a large pharmaceutical company.”
“Our options are to step up production of the fraction by getting a technician to help you, Lisa, and then rush out a preliminary paper to the scientific press and even to the general press. Reporters will soon pick up the story from the scientific press anyway.”
“Alternatively, we can release the story that a research student has been expelled for stealing the research of another researcher. That might stop a large pharmaceutical company, but if it proves to be a medical success it will only stop them for a while. Money and truth only go hand-in-hand for as long as it is financially desirable.”
“In the meantime I suggest that we put an advert in the local papers asking for volunteers to have a small square of affected skin treated with the extract, and then evaluate the results. We have a small budget for expenses for trials volunteers. The trial would have to be passed by the ethics committee initially, and the blind trial supervised by someone from outside this faculty.”
Lisa replied “I think that is the best way forward. I don’t think I am going to earn millions from this discovery, but I would obviously like my discovery to be credited to me and this department rather than be stolen by William.”
“The advantage we have is that no reputable scientific journal would publish a revelation like this without peer referencing, and the article would normally be published under my name as primary author.”
“So … Cathy, a senior technician in the chemistry department will be here in a few minutes. She has signed a confidentiality clause that has been added to her contract. Your equipment will be doubled by this afternoon.”
“Lisa, I expect you to brief Cathy in everything you need her to do during so you are up and running tomorrow morning. The ethics committee has been asked to meet at 2pm and I will go to that meeting and explain the situation and ask for a limited blind trial of up to fifty adult volunteers who will have a 5cm square of skin treated.”
“Jeff. Your PhD is the most important thing for you and you are so close that you need to concentrate on writing up your thesis. There is a small office in the Physics department that is not used at present. I have arranged that you may use it to write up your thesis there as this lab is likely to be getting quite busy for the time being. Your bench here will be yours for as long as you need it of course.”
Chapter 10
William was planning. He also knew that time as of the essence. He had found a scraper in the garage left over after his late father’s efforts with DIY, and went out and bought two large buckets to collect the barnacles. Luckily for him, he only had to drive a couple of miles to get to a suitable rocky shore that had huge numbers of the animals plastered over the rocks.
He got in food enough for a couple of weeks at a local supermarket and went home to see his mother who had wondered why he was home in the middle of a term. She knew little of the academic life, and was happy to see him whilst he ‘did some writing of his thesis’.
He had to endure watching a soap opera on tv with his mother before he could escape upstairs, but until the equipment arrived there was little he could do.
The equipment and chemicals arrived the following morning as promised and William set up the blender and separation vessels in a few minutes. The next stage was the preparation of the chromatography column. This would take time to do properly and he made sure that he did not cut corners.
When all was ready there was still daylight enough to collect the two buckets of the correct species of barnacles, and these were processed in the blender, and then filtered to get rid of the bits that were not of interest.
A separating funnel was used to extract the small amount of oil from the barnacle remains and this was fed into the chromatography column.
When a fraction collector was put underneath to collect the samples as they were washed out of the column he had to leave everything to work overnight.
In the morning the fraction collector had done its work. There were rings of tubes in the collector. Each tube had collected the drops of liquid that emerged from the column every fifteen minutes. William knew that the important fraction would take about seven hours to emerge and he was pleased to see that this fraction was cloudy, as it should be.
In his moment of ecstasy he took this small vial and rubbed the oily liquid into the area of pustules and abraded dry skin on his hairy chest between his nipples. Within minutes he could feel that the soreness was dissipating, and on looking in the mirror he could see that the area was less inflamed than usual.
Emboldened, he took what remained of the sample and the samples either side of it, then labelled them and put them in the fridge he normally kept his beer in!
The separation column had to be cleaned and the fraction collector also. This took the best part of an hour, but there was plenty of time to collect some more barnacles from the rocks before nightfall.
Sleep did not seem to be a priority to William, he was in a euphoric state. All his sense of failure had evaporated. He would show the College staff and Brian how good he could be when he earned his first million selling the Acne and Eczema cure, but how to get an unproven product onto the market?
The Internet came to his aide. He would sell the extract suspended in a base cream as a simple skin product which may help skin conditions but guaranteed nothing. He knew that sufferers of severe acne or eczema would clutch at straws for a cure. Sample wipes infused with the extract would be sent out for the cost of the postage and could be used to treat a small test area for safety, and the cost would be recouped when buyers came back for larger jars of the mixture.
The following day, William had designed a simple card folder for his product. He made no claims. It just said
‘Skin Cream’.
Apply to a small area of affected skin about 5cm square to test for safety.
Results should be apparent within 48 hours.’
He also bought 100 small, but strong zip lock polythene bags that were guaranteed to hold liquids, and 100, 3”x4” card backed envelopes that would go through the post easily.
In the first 24 hours after he advertised the product on eBay, he had 53 requests for samples. It had taken just three weeks after leaving the College to get them sent out. The polythene bags contained about a teaspoon of ointment with a small amount of extract dissolved in it. The envelopes did not look or feel squishy and the local post office accepted them all without question.
That afternoon William needed to process some more barnacles, and prepare for more requests. He had to drive to a nearby town for more card envelopes, but as expected there were many more requests for samples.
He stayed up late into the night to get them all prepared and labelled.
The local post office were delighted to see him again. They had been under threat of closure because of lack of business and 100 extra packages all helped to support their demand to stay open.
In the euphoria of the success of his venture, William had not been looking after himself. He ate too much processed food and slept too little. If the truth be known, he was getting rather smelly. He did not notice that the small bunch of hair on his chest had fallen out since he applied the cream there. He also found that his nipples itched a bit, but he was used to bits of his body itching. He had, after all, had eczema for many years where everything itched what ever he did.
Chapter 11
Lisa and Cathy had replicated all the experiments compromised by William. They had a small store of extract held in small vials and stored in liquid nitrogen.
The ethics committee had authorised a limited trial of up to 50 adult volunteers, and adverts were placed in local newspapers offering a small fee for any adults with eczema or acne to allow the team to apply the solution to an area no more than 5cm in a square.
There was no shortage of applicants and 25 were chosen at random to have the treatment, and another 25 had a similar liquid applied that had no extract of the barnacles added.
Every day for a fortnight, the applicants were expected to photograph the area of skin and send the images to the team at the college.
All the images were collated by members of the College who administered the blind trial, so Lisa had no idea how the trial was proceeding.
A week after the trial had ended the trial results were released to a small group of researchers from Lisa and Brian’s department and also the ethics team. An invited team of clinicians from the local teaching hospital had also been asked to attend.
All the volunteers who had received the extract showed an improvement in the condition of their skin, but the improvement in some was seen as miraculous. They were all men and they had a square patch of healthy skin on their forearms surrounded by eczematous skin. In these men the body hair had fallen out but the team were ecstatic with the results even though the hair loss was noted. There was no improvement in the volunteers who had received the placebo, and the results with women were certainly less spectacular.
The clinicians agreed to carry out a follow up study of the 25 treated volunteers, and had the resources to carry out a much bigger trial using their skin clinic patients who agreed. They were also able to apply the extract to the faces and other parts of the volunteers that required them to undress.
Brian and Lisa had already prepared a preliminary report to be submitted for publication, and the two of them spent most of the evening completing the report with the new results. The journal that was going to print the astounding report and get the scoop as a result, was holding up publication until the report was ready. Brian sent the report off by email just before midnight. The referees had been forewarned that a major story was going to break and had read and accepted the report for peer review by 10am the next day, and then the presses rolled.
Unusually, the owner of the publication released an abstract of the article immediately onto their website. Within a day, the Press had gathered at the College asking for interviews with anyone who would talk to them.
Brian and Lisa were interviewed with a College representative present. They was very careful to say that the results were preliminary and safety trials and efficacy trials were only just beginning, but that the results were very encouraging. It would, in any event take several years before a commercial product would be able to be produced with all the safety protocols in place and manufacture in industrial quantities would take time.
Chapter 12
William could not be unaware that the News story was breaking, but knew that bureaucracy moves slowly and he probably had a couple of years to reap a profit from his theft before it became worthless.
He found that he could process four buckets of barnacles a day. The blender took an hour, then filtering through glass wool took little time. The crude extract was added to a large separating funnel with a solvent for oils, and with care he could get 200ml of oily extract from 50 litres of loose barnacles.
The separation column gave just 20ml of active liquid and he only added 1% of the active liquid to the cream base before sending out the samples.
1% seemed to be sufficient strength as his face was clearing up. Even the scars left from years of acne seemed to be improving and he was pleasantly surprised that he seemed to need to shave less often. Shaving with advanced acne had always been a painful experience and he had had a beard for some years until the cream he had been prescribed clogged the beard hair up.
After three weeks, requests for larger quantities of 1% cream started to come in. He charged £30 for a small screw top jar that contained 10ml of the cream.
Within a month William had three separation columns working every night. A £30 jar of cream was netting him £24 in profit, and he was making a very healthy income. All the comments from customers were full of praise, but he still made no overt claims about the product.
After six weeks he left eBay behind as his contact details were becoming known on the web, but he was working nearly 20 hours a day. He did notice that his skin was clear of redness and scars after about a month, and that the area round his nipples was getting puffy but he was too engrossed in his work to take much heed of it.
A reader might wonder how he could not notice that his penis had shrunk. After all he used it several times a day! … but William was filled with the sense of his own power, even his omnipotence at having put one over on the College. What would have been blindingly obvious to anyone else was ignored by William.
Letters came in after several more weeks questioning the loss of hair and redistribution of body fat in men with acne.
William ignored them and continued to send out his product as fast as he could make it.
It was when he started to get orders from men who wanted to transition to women that he took notice. Looking on the internet for the first time in days he could see that people undergoing transitions were using his cream to enhance their breast development and to aid hair loss.
Even then he did not notice that some of his clients had not signed up for feminisation and had gone to lawyers to claim compensation for their loss of manhood.
It was only when the first of several writs landed on his mother's doormat that he took notice, and it was only a few days later that the first reporter knocked on his mother's front door. Her mobility was poor and she struggled to get to the door and was bemused by the three reporters standing there with their tablets at the ready to record interviews.
As his mother was too elderly to get up the stairs, she made the reporters a cup of tea, and told them about William’s childhood and how he was writing up his PhD thesis upstairs. They were then invited to go upstairs and ask him their questions.
By the time the reporters got up the first flight of stairs the smell of solvents was unmistakable. By the time they got up the second fight of stairs the area smelled like a laboratory, with an unmistakable smell of the sea as an extra.
William opened the door to them and they saw the lab built into the roof space with all the chemicals bubbling away. They saw a young woman with drab greasy hair but a perfect skin. She was dressed in very oversize men’s clothes tied up with string, and wore a lab coat that desperately needed a wash.
The three reporters tried to ask questions, but William descended into floods of tears and was quite unable to answer any questions for several minutes. When he/she had eventually wiped her tears away on the filthy lab coat, she began.
“There is nothing left of the old William except memories. I used to be 90Kg of muscle, able to bench press 100Kg. Now I weigh about 40Kg, and I doubt that I could lift the bar without any weights on it. My clothes hang off me like sacks and I have no idea what to order for new clothes or even how to put a bra on! At school I was always the macho one who made it a point of honour to ignore the teaching we had about periods and babies. Now I have had my first period and I hadn’t a clue how to manage it. The cramps were bad enough, then the mess it made.”
… at this point William started to cry again.
“I cannot go out looking like this. I need your help. I know you are here to write a story for your papers and probably to make me out to be some sort of evil magician, but two of you are women. Can you bring find it in your hearts to help me function as the woman I have clearly become.
Ray looked across at the two women reporters, Sophie and Indira. They nodded to him and he discretely left the laboratory.
“I think I have seen enough here. I don’t think my readers want the full story of a story that has gone so terribly wrong. I know that the two of you are women first, and reporters second.”
“Thank you Ray” Sophie said, and Indira nodded her thanks also. When he had left to talk to the gathered reporters at the front door, Sophie and Indira went across to William and removed the questionable lab coat before giving the waif a strong hug.
“Yes we will help you.”
And so they did, and both shared articles in their papers about how the scruffy, ignorant child-like woman had to change all her documentation and how they had to shower her to scrub off all the skin she had shed.
They enjoyed shopping together for clothes that emphasised her pretty hair and pert features once a basic wardrobe had been delivered from an online retailer.
William's mother never really understood, but it didn’t really matter. She still called her William even when she was dressed in a skirt and halter neck top.
The Government inspectors came in and removed all the equipment in the laboratory, but the cat was out of the bag. The process of extracting the gender affirming chemicals from barnacles was so straightforward that almost anyone could do it.
Postscript
Five years later the new skin cream that pretty much made eczema a thing of the past came onto the market. It had taken all that time to get approval from the various medical safety committees of different countries and millions of pounds of development cost.
The active ingredients had been refined and it no longer transgendered men.
Lisa had kept abreast of the stories that appeared from time to time in the Press about Tina, as William chose to be called. The last had shown a picture of her as a self assured young woman.
Lisa saw a woman pushing a buggy down a High Street near Lisa’s new home in Oxford. She called out “William”.
Old habits die hard, and Tina turned round.
When she realised what had happened, Tina thought to escape, but the buggy that contained her two year old daughter made running too hard. She gave up and turned round.
“I thought it was you from the photos in the Papers.”
“Come and have a coffee with me and we can catch up.”
They sat outside a coffee shop in the sunlight of a beautiful spring day.
“After you left the College, everything went into hyperdrive. The ethics committee went into overtime, then the blind trial in co-operation with the local hospital went through in record time.”
“Our report in the journal was published and the department’s standing in academia increased immeasurably.”
I got the lectureship within months, and now I am one of the youngest holders of the chair of molecular biology at this University that has ever been appointed.
“The World followed the saga with you and your transgendering, and the publicity helped raise our team’s profile even more. I think the World fell in love with your sad state when you were found by the reporters. Being a woman can be hard at times as you know all too well, but I am delighted to meet you and your daughter, Beth.”
“Does she look like Jeff?”
“Like Jeff? … You have kept that quiet. I had no idea that you had seen him since the debacle.”
“Yes, we met a year after I left the College. We had showered together in the communal showers at the Rugby club, and let us say … he had attributes that I couldn’t miss. We have been together since then.”
“I can see that Beth is getting fidgety so I will not delay you any more, but we must meet again.”
“Give me a hug, and we will exchange phone numbers. I would like to meet Jeff again. He left after getting his PhD and I understand that he had a job with the large pharmaceutical company that took over the development of the anti-eczema cream.”
“Yes he did, and still does.”
“Your actions cannot be condoned, but all the events that now seem so long ago, proved to be serendipitous.”
“In the last article Sophie and Indira wrote about you, You were reported as having said. “I rather like the new me. Don’t you? I know that I have made an awful lot of people very happy, and a few people angry, but I will be able to write a book about my story one day. Maybe it will be a bestseller? What do you think?”