Final Fantasy and the last-ditch effort in the DNA game industry
This is episode 23 of The French Tech Comedy by DNA cowgirl.
For Veritas, the Genome Company
Episode 1: The Science of Sakura
Episode 2: Lost in Telomere Translation
Episode 3: Feel Flee to Donate
Episode 4: Pasteurising Tech With the French Touch
Episode 5: The Newborn Symphony Project
Episode 6: The Unknown 9% of the Human Genome
Episode 7: The Apple Tech Specs Conference
Episode 8: religA.I.on
Episode 9: Hiroshima is Japan’s World Trade Center
Episode 10: Mao’s Robots
Episode 11: Zazen in the Shinkansen
Episode 12: The Last (French) Samurai
Episode 13: To Humanity and Beyond
Episode 14: The Music of Genomic Origami
Episode 15: Direct-to-consumer Ikigami Genetics
Episode 16: Underground Science
Episode 17: Gene Karaoke Groove
Episode 18: The Osaka Forever-Young Army
Episode 19: The Toilet Slippers
Episode 20: Ichi Efu
Episode 21: The Human Sapienome with the French touch
Episode 22: The World of Sin and The World of Shin
“Ask me anything session on Reddit, I will answer personally — Geronimo Faber PhD”
Faber, the younger Gandalf of science, spearheading the global crusade to defeat aging.
Aren’t science and technique at their highest level supposed to be like wizardry? After his stay in Singapore, at Nono’s place, Koba the Japanese manga artist and Yuki the Japanese geisha, who would get married to Nono in a couple of months, had stayed in contact. Nono was doing fine, things seemed to be going well for his new job in Singapore, with Facebook Japan. He was trying to postpone the wedding ceremonies and formalities, as he felt both of them needed some time to settle in Singapore and unwind a little bit, and enjoy each other’s company. But Yuki’s family wanted the wedding to take place as soon as possible. Again, the Geisha was being torn between two worlds. She wanted some time to unwind; her parents wanted her to get married, rush to get kids, a house, etc. She was counting on Taka, her brother, the family’s scientist, to be supportive, and explain to mom and dad that everything was going great, the young couple just needed to make time for themselves. Instead of that, Taka remained a remarkably neutral mediator, not wanting to take sides. Her grandmother was so old already…
“ — Don’t you want her to see your first-born child?”
Of course she loved her grandmother! Everyone around her seemed to create too much pressure. She wanted to have her genome sequenced, having read that book she had found in Fukuoka, at the bookstore next to the K-ballet school where she was teaching dance classes, at Tenjin IMS. She was going to look into that, she was counting on having time for herself, but she ended up flying to Singapore and living with Nono. Everything happened so quickly…
“Faber, the younger Gandalf of science, spearheading the global crusade to defeat aging.” Maybe this was the opportunity to ask Faber for some help? She had so many questions. Nono’s father and his genetic disease, though he was asymptomatic, the risks for Nono, and what if they got kids? Nono’s father had four brothers and a sister. All four brothers had died before the age of 48. The cause: Brugada Syndrome. A genetic disorder of the heart rhythm that can cause ventricular fibrillation and sudden cardiac arrest. She wanted to learn about her DNA and explore what they called preventative medicine. She had even found that interesting repost on social media, via Thomas’ twitter account. Thomas, the French Tech blogger who was in Japan with the French Tech delegation and his wheelchair for a visit, three months ago. She’d asked him if CRISPR, the gene editing tool, could help suppress Huntington’s disease.
“A parent with a defective gene could pass along the defective copy of the gene or the healthy copy. Each child in the family, therefore, has a 50 percent chance of inheriting the gene that causes the genetic disorder.”
Thomas was hoping the defective copy of the gene could be replaced by a normal, functional one. There was a startup working on that. “Arming Bodies with CRISPR to Fight Huntington’s Disease and ALS” (source)
Also, Yuki was thinking of getting her genome sequenced — hoping an accurate medical interpretation with actionable information would follow — before getting married.
“The pressure is enormous and time flies!”, she thought. But there was no way she was going to write that to Faber. She had to ask for some help. Koba. He was the right person.
The manga artist was in the middle of a drawing session at the International Manga Museum in Kyoto, Portrait Corner. During the week-end, he was earning a bit of money drawing visitors manga style.
Also, he was involved in assisting famous manga artists teaching master classes at the museum: the Premium Workshop sessions. His contract with his publishing house was stipulating he could not be paid for this duty, but he enjoyed it so much!
“ — Yuki, I’m sorry I cannot answer your Skype incoming call right now. In the middle of a drawing session. Can you try again this evening please?”
“ — I’m sorry to bother you again, sumimasen. Just a quick question: can you send me the link to the episode about that illegal ageing vat you’ve invented, please?”
“ — Yuki, this should help. There are two sections:
There’s a 50% chance human cloning will happen by 2050, and a 100% chance it will happen by 2080, said Faber. Looking at China and South Korea’s demography, we will definitely need armies of forever-young people. Unless you’d rather see a market of illegal human cloning expand worldwide, with super high-tech ageing vats or tanks based, why not, in North Korea?
Episode: The Osaka Forever Young Army
Most of those bioengineered bodies were made with DNA data that had been hacked on the internet, on open-access databases but not only. Then the hacked DNA data was being re-engineered in the lab, and put into some kind of second-hand (hacked) and illegal high-tech vats or tanks aimed at accelerating the human ageing process. Then… voila, you had a brand new body, that would last for a few months, or years — or decades, if you were lucky. Downloading your consciousness into your own DNA was no big deal, most people were learning about this basic knowledge in middle school, all around the world.
Episode: The World of Sin and The World of Shin.
Have fun,
Koba.”
“ — ありがとうございました.”
(arigatou gozaimashita)
“Illegal high-tech vats or tanks aimed at accelerating the human ageing process.” Exactly the kind of thing she needed if she wanted to write to Faber, for that Ask me anything on Reddit session.
Dear Faber PhD,
My name is Yuki and I am writing from Japan and I am 28 years old. I am sorry to bother you again. I have a question for you.
I think our attitude toward old people is very wrong, generally speaking. And it is backfiring, impacting us, young people. What we tell them is:
“ — You don’t need to work anymore. Enjoy whatever little time is left for you to live, you are so lucky.” It is plain wrong, even if it seems a nice and kind thing to say. It pretty much amounts to giving them the Ikigami. You’ve heard about the famous manga Ikigami, right?
Ikigami — Advance Notice of Death
A national prosperity law has been passed in a dystopian nation resulting in citizens between the ages of 18–24 being randomly selected to die for the good of the nation. These citizens are given 24-hour notification of their impending death. These notifications are known as “ikigami” — the ostensible reason for this system being to help demonstrate the value of life.”
Japan instituted a law for its citizens to re-learn the meaning of life: National Prosperity Law. When they enter primary school, all students are vaccinated, but if many of these vaccines are only placebos, one student in a thousand will receive a fatal injection that will trigger his death between 18 and 24 years. Thus, all children discover the importance of life and must therefore abide by the law. An official comes to bring the unlucky ones, 24 hours before
their death, an Ikigami, a death notice, indicating the exact day and time of their death.
I’m working with a manga artist on a book project: The French Tech Comedy. If you don’t know about Ikigami, please see episode: Direct-to-consumer Ikigami Genetics — episode 15 of The French Tech Comedy.
And in my humble opinion, while we are giving the Ikigami to older people, it backfires on us. Young women are being put under too much pressure to get kids, a great job, the right husband, etc. All of this in no time. Japanese society is sick from too much pressure: there are only a few interesting and stable jobs, many young people have to drift from job to job and they will never get married or have babies, because of society’s sugoi expectations. Only marry somebody rich, great job, kids in private schools, big house, etc. As a result, many young men don’t get married, as society do not provide them with the necessary material means to perform their tasks, according to the sugoi expectations or ambitions.
I am doing my best to write in English, I am sorry as my abilities to write in English are limited. Anti-aging solutions like the ones you are advocating for would allow us to stop the Ikigami madness. Also, I believe, as I’m interested in sustainable development, that we should establish a fix-termed contract for wedding if we are going to live over a hundred years. We cannot expect that a marriage will last “until death do us part.” I am going to get married in a couple of months and I am under pressure. My boyfriend is great, he is a French engineer, but the sugoi expectation madness is not sustainable. I think it sucks. Maybe this is all due to the fact that we do not have a sustainable source of energy. We only know the technique for splitting the atom, instead of fusing it. Nuclear fission gives less energy than nuclear fusion. The first one gives us a low supply of energy, the second one would give us a high supply. The most important fusion process in nature is the one that powers stars, so I wanted to ask you: do you think we can learn anti-ageing therapies from the stars, in addition of learning how to master (maybe, one day?) the process of nuclear fusion? I’ve read an article saying nuclear fusion is the clean power that will take decades to master. Will anti-ageing science also take decades to master? And my last question: are you a fan of French movie maker Luc Besson and what do you think about his last movie, Valerian? I believe you said we don’t need to discover new planets to implement the anti-ageing solutions and we could be living on Earth for a very long time without ever bothering about reaching out to the stars. But how about that heavy pollution in China and India — and even in Kyoto and Tokyo? Will the genome editing tool CRISPR help us engineer resistant-pollution genes and will we be able to give these genes to people?
Thank you for your time and attention, sorry to bother you.
Yuki from Tokyo.
In his small office in California, Geronimo was reading Yuki’s message. Saying he was having fun would be an understatement. “Sorry to bother you again?!” But he had never heard of her. At some point she was even writing: “I’m sorry I had the time and chance to write this letter for your attention.” Faber was lost in translation. Sure thing, the intricacies and subtleties of Japanese politeness were backfiring. He was going to shift to the rest of the messages (way too many of them anyway), when the family name of the girl caught his attention. Didn’t she mention her brother was working in a clinic in Tokyo, as a bioinformatician? After a few clics, Geronimo discovered Yuki’s YouTube channel, A Geisha Lost Between Two Worlds. So, this was Taka’s sister. A geisha. Interestingly, Ba, that Chinese zillionaire from Shanghai he had pitched the other day, TenBa’s founder, had told him about Taka, his doctor. Ba was Taka’s cancer patient, and this was Taka’s sister… After a few more clicks, and a message to Ba’s personal assistant, he got another insider tip: Yuki had donated her healthy T cells to Ba! The icing on the cake. The world is made of strange connections. He was starting to think it would be rude not to answer the strange message. Taka’s sister. What was the name of this one-of-a-kind French engineer again? The one working with Taka. The funny guy. Did a great job for the Telomere grant writing. Ah, yes, Nono.
“ — Dear Yuki, thank you for your message from Japan. This is Faber PhD, answering your question.” He paused for a little while. Answering that one was going to be tricky.
Ba’s P.A. was sending another text to him.
“You are invited to the wedding of Dr. Takafumi Nagato’s sister in Paris in two months. Ba is coming, too. I’m sending you the details by e-mail. please confirm availability ASAP. Upon your confirmation, I’ll make flight and accommodation bookings accordingly. Please note that all expenses shall be paid by TenBa. Also, you have been booked into an upcoming TenBa pitching tutorial, which will take place in just two weeks in Shanghai and L.A. Please confirm your availability by clicking here, please only use the WeChat app.”
Faber sighed. Takafumi Nagato, the oncologist who was leading the lab of Bioinformatics for personalised CAR-T-therapies in a Tokyo clinic. His patient Ba. Another pitch, then a wedding in Paris. Communication meant pitching, pitching meant more money for his labs. This was how Faber saw the Ikigami madness, but there was no way he was going to write this to Yuki. Another session with Ba after the tutorial. He wasn’t ready, for sure, but he needed the money. Wait. Why not use Nono instead? Yes. He would just write a short, polite note to Yuki, then he would write to Taka, as he knew Nono was also involved in some made-in-China biotech projects, working with Ba.
He was done with the polite message for Yuki and was halfway through writing to Taka when he saw an incoming mail, from Ba’s P.A.
“ — Yes, yes, I know. Confirm availability ASAP. Let’s get it over with…”
As soon as he opened the mail, he saw that name again. Yuki. The Geisha Lost Between Two Worlds. She was going to get married with Nono. He read Yuki’s message again.
I am going to get married in a couple of months and I am under pressure. My boyfriend is great, he is a French engineer, but the “sugoi” expectation madness is not sustainable. I think it sucks.
Catherine Coste
MITx 7.00x, 7.QBWx, 7.28x1–2 certified
Member of the Walking Gallery of Health Care, founded by US activist Regina Holliday
