The 11th Commandment(s)
Jesus: Thou shalt not upgrade yourself; thou shalt not download your neighbour.
Buddha: CRISPR one another.
This is episode 12 of The French Tech Comedy Season 2.
Episode 11: The Chinese Student Will See You Now
Previously in The French Tech Comedy: In Season 2 of The French Tech Comedy, we follow characters like Japanese oncologist and bioinformatics engineer Takafumi Nagato, who is leading the lab of Bioinformatics for personalised CAR-T-therapies in a Tokyo clinic, and his patient, Chinese giant TenBa’s founder Ken Ba, a zillionaire from Shanghai. Yuki, Taka’s sister, is a French-speaking geisha, meaning “artist” in Japanese, in touch with the French Tech. She just got married to a French engineer who was working in Taka’s lab, Nono, and has secretly donated her healthy T-cells to Taka’s patient who, after his second cancer relapse, decided to try an innovative treatment called “liquid biopsy”. Indeed, Ba is becoming an expert in genomic precision medicine. In his case it is a matter of life or death. Among Yuki’s friends in the French Tech branch is Frederic Mougin, a biologist, founder of the startup Gene-i-us:
“We are developing a patient-centric tool for patients to collect, share & monetize their medical, genomics, lifestyle, IoT data with academics & pharma industry.”
Yuki had promised she would introduce Mougin to people working with Facebook Singapore; among them: Nono. What biz plan can Gene-i-usimplement, in order to work with Facebook? Mougin is using a lot of buzz words, but when it turns out Ba’s cancer mutation has entered the stock exchange market, thanks to the efforts of a pharmaceutical company, his oncologist, Taka, fears a Ba Gate. More than ever, the privacy of genetic data is instrumental in the process of developing precision medicine. Singapore is the Chinese Mecca of I.P. and patents. A cryptocurrency, that is seen by financial specialists as a security, is used as a way to reward (healthy and sick) patients in exchange of their DNA data. Yuki is wondering if this kind of money will revolutionise the whole financial and pharmaceutical market as we know it, or will all digital currencies end up behaving like any other tradable financial asset? After all, a security is a tradable financial asset. Ba, Taka’s cancer patient, is trying to gain insight into the situation… While spending a few days in Malaysia both for business and vacation, TenBa’s founder gets to meet with a total stranger who in fact he only knows too well: Simone, Malaysian Chinese actress Michelle Yeoh’s niece. Between Ba and Simone, things are complicated. But it is only the beginning… Simone is trying to make an algorithmic cryptocurrency that could mimmic biological processes within the human body. Meanwhile, Manga artist Koba writes about the blurring frontier between curing and enhancing in the genomic precision medicine era, and the consequences in society. At school, Simone needs to present her Science Fair project alone. Overanxious auntie Michellehad bribed a student from Simone’s class. She wanted her niece’s science fair presentation to be filmed, live. A few days later, she sent a link to a video to a friend of hers, Chinese giant TenBa’s founder Ken Ba, a zillionaire from Shanghai. She’d compiled a 10 minutes extract for him to see, and a question:
“ — What do you think?” Ba said the video was very interesting and offered to have lunch in Ipoh, Michelle’s home town, next weekend, and discuss things. Simone, meanwhile, is stuck in Bangkok, where Ba has sent her a T-shirt as a thank-you gift, she’s not sure why. Also, as a hacker having served time in a Beijing prison, she is suffering from post-traumatic stress. In Singapore, rockstar US physician Tamir Subramanian is a keynote speaker at Facebook’s “The Patient Will See You Now” Breakfast. In the conference room nearby, a Facebook Open Day Q&A session for students from local high schools has just started. Simone is attending, she gets to meet with Nono, who ends up inviting her for lunch at the famous Facebook cafeteria.
— — — — — — — — — — —
Simone is impressed. The view here at Facebook cafeteria is amazing. Overlooking the whole bay of Singapore, sitting right next to Nono, with her tray full of great food. Mango lassi, chicken masala, cheese nan, chicken nuggets, cantonese rice, a few nems… and she hasn’t quite made up her mind yet about desert. So many options.
“ — Are you sure you’re going to eat all of these?” Nono is grinning.
“ — I’m starving,” she said. Actually, this was not true. She was scared, and tired. Also, she was too nervous to think and had just taken food at a random, like a somnambulist, sampling from everything. So many people. She wondered what they were up to, what competences they had, why they’d been hired. She couldn’t fancy herself working here. A few months ago, she was sitting in prison. Fear and desire are cousins from the same family. A few geeks were sitting next to them, she felt they were very much like her, nobody was making fun of her here. One thing leading to another, she found herself talking about a Japanese manga (and movie), Saint Young Men:
“ — Jesus and Buddha. Two olympic scenarios: one have Olympics with a ‘genetic handicap’ score, or two have two Olympics (‘natural’ & edited).”
“ — Haha. We’ll get there, I would guess. Are you a religious person?”
“ — Saying religions are opposed to transhumanism is bullshit. I believe one religion is pushing you towards enhancing yourself — confucianism — whereas the other one — christian faith — is saying that mankind is created in the image of that God who grants animals to us for our stewardship. That’s why we are slaughtering them. Like Chinese prisoners, for their organs.”
“ — …”
“ — …”
Nono is looking at Simone. He can sense she’s been to dark places, he just doesn’t know which ones.
“ — Small talk is not exactly your strong suit, I guess.”
Simone carries on eating.
“ — Oh but it is. Confucianism, ok, let’s say, the bulk of Asia, would say ‘CRISPR one another’, whereas the bulk of Europe and US (the Western world) tells you ‘Thou shalt not play God’. Moreover, lots of families in Asia are one-child families. You don’t want your one and only kid to be sick. If anything can be done, you just do it. I mean, to fix the kid. Whereas the Western world would typically decide that God wanted the kid to be sick, since no doctor seems to be able to fix him or her. ‘Oh, never mind, let’s give him healthy brothers and sisters’. Churchill used to say: ‘Four kids for homeland, religion, mother and death’. What I mean to say is we should use our homegrown Confucian thoughts to solve problems, as those international standards are from the West while we have our Eastern culture. See, small talk, and everything also can leh.”
Nono is grinning again.
“ — You wanted to talk about the blockchain.”
“ — You want that in coding language, or should I stick to small talk?”
“ — Coding language?”
“ — OK, but since we are having lunch, I’ll start with my own questions.”
“ — Questions for me?”
“ — Why not?”
“ — Fire away.”
“ — Will Elon Musk put 12,000 satellites into orbit over the next few years? To offer Internet connections to all of humanity? If so, what would become of the local terrestrial telecom operators? I’m sure China will take up the challenge, and probably Elon Musk will adapt the satellites to offer blockchain-like services to the whole of humanity. Would local states have a possible recourse to avoid being disrupted? Will we have to wait for the whole of humanity to have blockchain-like services to access rebooted medical services like genomic precision medicine, preventative medicine, anti-ageing treatments and things?”
“ — I’m afraid I’m none the wiser,” said Nono, with his signature grin.
“ — Can I leave you alone for a minute, Simone? I’ve got to see a colleague right now, for desert you can have sweet crepes with caramelised apples, melted chocolate, almonds, or anything else, as you like. But crepes are my favorite.”
“ — …”
“ — …”
“ — Aren’t you going to say something involving the words French, Eiffel Tower and crêpes? See? I was right. Small talk not your strong suit lah.”
“ — Ou t’es Chinois ou t’es chez moi, (1)” he added. With that, he was gone.
(1) word game, French. Either you are Chinese, or I feel at ease with you.
A few moments later, Nono was back. A young lady was with him, carrying a tray. Yuki had just arrived, she was done with her ballet class and was starving.
“ — Ah, there you are. Did you enjoy the crêpes?”
“ — Actually, I’m quite full, so…”
“ — Another time, then.”
“ — With pleasure.”
“ — Simone, this is Yuki. Yuki, this is Simone.”
“ — Nice to meet you.”
Both young women spoke at the same time, and the three of them laughed.
Nono resumed the conversation, while Yuki was eating.
“ — I’m not an expert in epigenetics. But Yuki is. Hein, bébé?”
He was literally smothering her neck with armies of gentle little kisses, while whispering to her.
“ — Hmmh? No, no, no! I’m not.”
“ — So you were talking about the methylation of money, or something like that, a new way of making or minting money, if I’m not mistaken,” said Nono.
“ — Actually it has more to do with the blockchain.”
“ — Really? How’s that?”
“ — The smallest known epigenetic modification is called a methyl group,” said Simone:
“ — This molecule, comprising one carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms, is attached to some of the DNA’s C bases by a DNA methyltransferase ‘highlighter’ protein. DNA methylation causes gene silencing. So we’ve got decoder proteins in the cell nucleus that recognise and bind specifically to methylated C bases. These proteins shut down transcription from genes that contain methylated DNA, preventing the production of the corresponding RNAs and proteins. DNA methylation is really more like a censor’s black xxxx than a highlighter, telling the cell: ‘nothing to see here’. Genes that contain methylated C bases are shut down by decoder proteins that bind to the methyl groups and block transcription.”
“ — OK, that’s probably too much information for me, but I get your point, more or less,” said Nono.
Yuki was still eating, and listening to the conversation.
“ — You want to create a blockchain money by using the mechanism that helps map the epigenetic landscapes of different types of cells?”, she asked.
“ — Since we know how to see which C bases are methylated and which are not… First, I was thinking of using histone codes, but these are way more complicated than this methylation thing, right?”
“ — Oh. Wait, I think I still …”
Yuki produced a small book from her handbag.
“ — Yes, I still have this. Maybe it can help.”
She flipped through the pages for a couple of minutes, then:
“ — Histone methylation? Histone acetylation? Histone phosphorylation? We still don’t understand those mechanisms very well, even if some of them are associated with DNA repair and transcription activation.” Then she said:
“ — There’s this SUMO thing. Are you going to use it for your digital currency, or genocurrency?”
“ — SUMO? Anything to do with the Japanese wrestling?”, asked Nono.
Simone had never heard of it.
“ — What she means is you should call your cryptocurrency SUMO,” said Nono.
“ — Wait, I didn’t…,” started Yuki.
“ — Te fâche pas, bébé (2)”. Nono was giving Yuki’s neck and ears plenty of little kisses.
“ — It’s a protein; not a sumo wrestler, or a Pepper robot performing buddhist funeral rites,” she said.
“ — Regions of the genome that are active, silenced or undergoing DNA repair are marked with distinctive histone methylation patterns. Certain proteins can be attached directly to histone tails. The attachment of SUMO and ubiquitin proteins seems to be associated with both gene silencing and gene activation, depending on the attachment site.” Yuki was reading from the book. She continued:
“ — Histone acetylation was the first histone modification to be discovered. It is always associated with gene activation. Histone phosphorylation, another modification, is associated with DNA repair and transcriptional activation.”
“ — Actually, for my digital cryptocurrency, I find the underpinnings of histone acetylation quite interesting,” said Simone:
“ — I would like to try mimicking the mechanism, translate it into a currency. First, it is always associated with gene activation. Minting genes, I mean money, right? Not only do transcription-activating decoder proteins bind to acetylated amino acids, but acetyl groups also have a more direct effect: their negative charge weakens the attraction between the negatively-charged DNA and the positively-charged histones. This interference relaxes the structure of the nucleosome (the building blocks which make up chromosomes), making the DNA easier to transcribe. Other similar histone modifications seem to be physically disrupting the nucleosome structure to make the DNA easier to transcribe. Transcribing DNA, minting money, everything also like real, you know?”
Yuki was a bit lost in translation…
“ — DNA methylation represses transcription; histone acetylation is associated with gene activation. Repress means blockchain, and activate means minting money,” explained Simone.
Yuki was still lost. She read from her book. “Histones are alkaline (basic pH) proteins. They are found inside the nucleus of eukaryotic cells. Their function is to package DNA into structural units called nucleosomes. Histones are the main proteins in chromatin. Chromatin is a combination of DNA and protein which makes up the contents of a cell nucleus. Because DNA wraps around histones, they also play a role in gene regulation. The familiar shape of a chromosome is that of an X. It is histones that make this familiar structure possible.” (source)
“ — But how are you going to write this money? Which computer coding languages are you going to use?”, asked Yuki.
“ — First, you need the right algorithms, and to come up with them, you need to pick the right biology stuff. I’m still working on both the biology stuff and the algorithms. As for the computer coding language, why not Python’s fastest Bitcoin library for starters; I’m getting familiar with a data-driven approach to cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple etc.) market analysis and visualisation using Python.”
“ — …”
“ — Bébé is into biology; not into computer coding, I’m afraid,” said Nono.
“ — And I’m not familiar with the biology stuff,” said Simone:
“ — Do you think that by fusing part of a transcription factor that can bind to specific sequences in the genome to a protein, I will get a hybrid protein? And if I just add two hybrids together, or a protein and a hybrid, I could get a new protein? What does money in crypto has to do with epigenetic editing? Using epigenetic modification patterns characteristic of a digital cryptocurrency with the blockchain tech, is it just unrealistic hype? By the way, we are still waiting for the pharmaceutical industry to invent and make use of these new proteins, and while we are at it, why not make new drugs that would be derived from the new proteins lah? And I’m not even talking about buddhist monks grappling with the meaning of video games.”
“ — Maybe you can use the chemical changes that affect how the raw DNA sequence is used to produce RNAs and proteins to produce money too, but I have no idea how to do that, I’m afraid.” Yuki looked like she was half sorry, half day-dreaming. (3)
Nono had just finished eating:
“ — I’m afraid I’ll have to get back to work. Thank you for the conversation, Simone. Let me add you to my WhatsApp contacts, can you give me your phone number? And if there’s anything I can do for you, let me know. Meanwhile, bébé, you should hang out with her. Reincarnation and video games, that sounds like brilliant stuff for your French Tech manga project.”
Yuki was finishing her meal too. Both girls discovered they wanted to go to a Daiso store that was in Suntec City, the mall nearby. Yuki wanted to buy some unsweetened green tea and Simone wanted to stock up on Pocky strawberry and chocolate, and Calpis, a Japanese uncarbonated soft drink.
(2) Don’t get upset, baby (French)
(3) Scientific informations about epigenetics (biology) found in “Introducing Epigenetics. A Graphic Guide”, by Cath Ennis and Oliver Pugh. Publisher: Icon Books, 2017. Pages 43–55.
Catherine Coste
MITx 7.00x, 7.QBWx, 7.28x1–2 certified
Teacher and Member of the Walking Gallery of Health Care, founded by US activist Regina Holliday
Table of Contents:
Episode 1 of Season 2: Your DNA Will See (and Mutate) Your Credit Card Now
Episode 2 of Season 2: The Bitcoin That Pulled the Double Helix Apart
Episode 3 of Season 2: Kabuki Theatre and Desktop Epigenetics
Episode 4 of Season 2: Tenjin and TenGene
Episode 5 of Season 2: TenGene, Gene-i-us and a thousand planets in between
Episode 6 of Season 2: The Re:Creators Fault Line and the Epigenetic of Worldwide Middle Class
Episode 7: The Methylation of Money
Episode 8: “Biology has gone digital. Time to learn about it.”
Episode 9: Year of The Earth Dog
Episode 10: (Zebra-) Crossing The Rubicon
