“I’m listening,” said Erin.
“My idea is to treat the condition as a disease,” he said calmly. “And cure it.”
Erin shook her head in disbelief. “Cure it?” she repeated. “Cure psychopathy? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Not at all,” said Raborn. “Why not? I’ve read every last paper on the differences in the brain structure of psychopaths and normals, including the one written by your advisor, Dr. Apgar. And if I do say so myself, I’m as good as it gets at molecular biology and pharmacology.”
“Impossible,” said Erin. “Who knows how many genes contribute to a psychopath’s aberrant brain structure? We’re finding more differences every year. You’d have to find all the genes, and then modulate them in just the right way to remodel the brain.”
“Very good,” said Raborn approvingly. “You’re up on your molecular pharmacology. Turns out I have found them all. All eight.”
“I find that very hard to believe. Genes that contribute to this type of brain physiology don’t just advertise themselves. Even finding a single one is a needle-in-a-haystack exercise. I don’t care how good you are.”
“This is true. But along with my considerable expertise, I spent a lot of my personal fortune to attack the problem. I obtained DNA samples from psychopaths and normals and had the entire genomes sequenced.”
Erin considered. When the genome was first sequenced, it was an accomplishment akin to sending a man to the moon, a worldwide effort to decipher the more than three billion base pairs in the human genome, which would fill thousands of volumes the size of encyclopedias if actually printed out. The effort had cost billions of dollars and had taken a decade. And this was just to get to a rough draft, which had been accomplished at the turn of the millennia. Only twelve years later, the entire sequence of a human genome, taken from a psychopath or a saint, could be deciphered for under ten thousand dollars in a matter of weeks. And presently, after additional years of further progress, it was far faster and less expensive even than this. This increase in speed and reduction in cost was even more profound than that seen in the computer industry, and was nothing short of miraculous.
“The goal, of course, was to compare them,” continued Raborn. “Find all key differences between the genome of a normal and the genome of a psychopath. I paid a team of mathematicians a small fortune to devise algorithms I could use to sort through the billions of bytes of data and possible permutations. The program eventually identified eight genes that differed, each contributing to the condition.”
“If that’s true,” said Erin, making sure her emphasis on the word, if, was unmistakable, “you’ve done an amazing piece of science. It’s a great first step. But it’s still a first step—up Mount Everest.”
“Allow me to continue,” said Raborn. “I was able to devise a gene-therapy cocktail that makes use of genetic engineering techniques to replace the abnormal sections of these genes.”
“All eight of them?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re suggesting you’ve succeeded? That you’ve found a cure for psychopathy?”
“That’s what I’m saying. It took dedication, a new approach, and a stroke of genius. And I won’t lie to you—a tremendous amount of luck. But I think I’ve done it.”
Erin considered hanging up, but decided he would just call back. She needed the conversation to reach its logical conclusion. “If true, this would be breakthrough work. So why hasn’t this been published in a peer-reviewed journal?” she asked, knowing the answer already. Because the snake oil Raborn was selling would never make it past the level of scrutiny required to make it into a prestigious journal.
“I’m keeping this my own little secret for now. I’ve been working on this—in secret—every spare second I could get for the past few years, and hiring others to help with certain pieces of the puzzle. Without telling them the true nature of the project. Not yet.”
“Look, no one would be more excited than me if you could truly find a way to reverse this condition. But for the sake of argument, even if you could replace these eight genes with normal versions, that doesn’t mean you’ll have a cure. Who knows what will happen? And you can’t even test it in animals, because there aren’t any animal models of psychopathy.”
“Well, there is one. Nothing that approximates the full syndrome. But I’m sure you know that rodents with septo-hippocampal lesions share some psychopathic behaviors. I used this model in the early going. But I also sequenced the mouse genome, and found mouse analogs for all eight genes. Sure enough, if you knock these genes out, mice show the same aberrant behaviors as those with septo-hippocampal lesions. And more.”
“So you created psychopathic mice?”
“Right. The same abnormal genes and the same behaviors, at least as far as can be identified in an animal of this limited intelligence. Then I corrected these genes. When I did, I corrected the condition as well. The mouse brains were restored to normality. It took hundreds of experiments, but I was able to reverse their psychopathy.”
There was a very long silence. “I don’t want to seem rude,” said Erin, “but I should probably come right to the point. I don’t believe you.”
Raborn laughed. “I don’t blame you. Shows you’re sane. It wasn’t easy, even after I corrected the genes. What I found is that the normal versions of these genes all work in concert to create the normal condition. And there is a delicate interplay between all of their gene products. So it’s a two-step process. Just replacing the genes isn’t enough. Because even if you have normal genes, if you don’t make sure they are activated in just the right way, that they are all being expressed—dosed, if you will—at the precisely correct levels, you still get the psychopathic condition. In fact, if normal genes aren’t expressed correctly, you could make the condition worse than if you hadn’t fixed them at all. So the trick is to not only fix the genes, but determine the levels needed, and modulate their expression accordingly.”
Erin shook her head. If she hadn’t believed this was possible before, Raborn certainly hadn’t helped his case by explaining it was even more difficult than she had thought. She wasn’t a molecular biologist, but cells had numerous complex mechanisms for controlling genes. There was a lot going on at the molecular level, and trying to understand such a complex interaction, let alone measure it, had to be fantastically difficult. “And you were able to determine the precise levels needed for all eight genes?” she asked skeptically.
“Unfortunately, no. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but this proved to be an intractable problem. Even with mice. I ended up having to arrive at the answer through trial and error. As far as I can tell, there is no other way. It took many hundreds of attempts to get it right. Much as you might have to try hundreds or even thousands of combinations to stumble on the one that would open a padlock.” He paused. “For the modulation of these genes, theory doesn’t help. It has to be determined empirically.”
There was a long silence on the line.
“I know my call is out of left field, and what I’m telling you sounds utterly fantastic. But I urge you to look up my credentials and read some of my work, which is quite rigorous. And I’d be happy to send you all of the data I’ve generated so far. I think you’ll find it quite eye-opening.”
Erin considered. “Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s imagine that you send me your data and it’s everything you claim it to be. So if it is, why haven’t you initiated clinical trials in man to try to get this cure of yours approved?”
“That’s the rub,” said Raborn, the enthusiasm in his voice giving way to weariness. “This therapy will never be approved. Not using the standard drug-approval pathway. First, the FDA likes to see efficacy in two animal species, if possible, and I only have one. One that hasn’t even been designated as an appropriate model yet. And even if they accept my model, the therapeutic window in mice is too small to ever get past them. The effective dose and the lethal dose are too close for comfort. Even though I have theoretical and experimental reasons for believing the therapeutic window will be larger in man.”