Feel Flee to Donate
Episode 3 of The French Tech Comedy
(Read Episode 1 and Episode 2 of my French Tech Comedy)
At Yayoiken in Tenjin Fukuoka, over a dish of delicious fish and veggies, the conversation that could be heard on the first floor of the busy restaurant was quite unusual for a Saturday night. Three guys in their late twenties were discussing what seemed to be some kind of obscure startup project.
« — Isn’t that your third bowl of rice? »
« — Never say no to free food »
“ — It’s home-made style food; not free food.”
« — So say it again? How did you pitch him? »
« — The business model of their startup, AlleleCoin, is a genomic cryptocurrency backed by disease-protective loci. And yes, it is scalable. »
« — Haha! Is this some kind of extreme disruption humour, or is it a serious business model? I mean, can the guys really do that? »
« — Who are you chasing? Investors, or customers? »
« — Right now, they have none of those. »
« — You mean, no investors? »
« — No investors, no customers. »
« — What does loci mean? »
« — Let’s google it…
A locus (plural loci) in genetics is the position on a chromosome. Each chromosome carries many genes; human’s estimated ‘haploid’ protein coding genes are 19,000–20,000, on the 23 different chromosomes. A variant of the similar DNA sequence located at a given locus is called an allele. »
« — Wow. Looks like we need some kind of google map for our DNA stuff… And the blockchain. Where did you say those guys are based? »
« — In Shanghai. Maybe in some garage… There’s a mathematician, a geneticist or microbiologist, and a computer programmer. The perfect team… »
« — So you really got to pitch Ba!?! Wow… »
« — If by pitching you mean talking to some rich guy for less than half a minute, yeah, technically, that’s what he did. »
« — So if that’s pitching, what is it you guys call bitching, then? »
« — Bitching around with you, like now. »
« — Ha, I guess we’ll never stop shoving each other… »
« — Isn’t Ba in Japan right now? I heard that his cancer is back and he is in Tokyo for some kind of cutting-edge treatment with stem cells. »
« — See, you’ve got one customer already: Ba. Once you’ve got the clients, investors will follow. Chase customers first, then investors. Thumb rule of marketing. Startups usually flip that around. Not good… »
“ — I’m afraid the truth is we have no customers, no investors and no loci.”
But Mat and Paul were not done with the googling.
« A current approach to identify functional loci is the use of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), in which hundred of thousands of physical variants (single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs) across the genome are genotyped and compared among thousands of subjects to assess association with the phenotypic trait under study (for example a disease). Because it is assumed that functional loci have fixed positions, differences of allele frequencies between cases and controls are tested within each genetic polymorphism. Thus, by genotyping hundred of thousands of physical loci we might be able to identify the subset of functional variants (or at least variants that are in linkage disequilibrium with the functional ones) that determine any phenotypic trait. »
« — Yeah, well I heard that we all have a lot of variants, only a few will mean disease, and we don’t yet know how to do it, that genotype/phenotype matching thing. Cause it all boils down to this, right? The matching of genotype (those loci things) with phenotype — DNA variants that will cause you to have asthma, or red hair, or be tall, or have blue eyes. So here, tall, or blue eyes, or asthma are called phenotype. »
« — I’ve heard some scientists published a paper saying this variant and this one are bad news, and six months later, they discovered another group of scientists from another castle in the Disunited Kingdom of Academia knew this was wrong because the said variants were only a characteristic or signature for some kind of belonging to some ethnic group, like Scottish something, or Jewish something… In some other cases, like Angelina Jolie, belonging to an ethnic subgroup means you have more chances of having breast cancer. But there is only one very specific case, for which we can know for sure. Jolie happened to belong to this subgroup. Good for her… Now, for the vast majority of women, who don’t have the ‘Jewish genetic mutation’, we don’t know for sure… I guess time and BRCA1 and 2 testing will tell…»
« — North Korea has nukes, give them population genomics… »
« — Ooh speaking of pitching… Just got another of those neat spams coming from my US network… »
« — Spams? »
« — Yeah. They’ve got loads of those in the US. Automatic mail. To sell you something, or ask for money. »
« — What does it say? »
« — Once again, the French San Francisco Biotechnology Network (FSFBN) is partnering with the March for Science SF to support local life science research and its visibility in the community. We have organized a Say-Cheese Pedal the Cause team and would love to have support from you.
We’re offering $1,000 sponsorships, the benefits include:
· Linked logo on our team page and FSFBN landing pages
· Logo on March for Science San Francisco Say-Cheese Pedal the Cause cycling jerseys
· Raffle item/presentation at our March 6th Pub Crawl for Say-Cheese event
· Thank you social media posts to our combined FSFBN/MFSSF 20,000+ followers
The deadline to be included on the team jerseys is February 11th, contact us soon to sponsor or feel free to donate directly to our team’s page and we’ll be in touch soon to help you take advantages of the benefits. »
« — Feel flee to donate?! Doesn’t mean anything. If you want the person to give money, you don’t ask her to run away at the same time. Sounds kind of absurd, and quite cheesy. »
« — Free; not flee »
« — Aaah sorry, my Japanese got in the way of my English… »
« — Yeah well that’s just business as usual. Getting loads of similar stuff in my mailbox. But hey, I hardly ever open it. »
« — Really? »
« — What’s so odd about it? Don’t you have that in Japan? »
« — I don’t think I would ever use the expression ‘Feel free to donate’. Sounds kind of weird to a Japanese ear, I guess… Plus, shouldn’t they make you feel compelled to donate, which is the opposite of free? Is it just junk mail, like this spam you were talking about, or is it an efficient way of doing business in the US? I mean, the mail you just read was about business; not spam, right? »
« — You never know. But try it with Ba. Pitch him and just conclude with the feel-free-to-donate mantra, then see what happens. And of course, the ultimate Say-Cheese selfie with Ba that you will post on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Weibo, WeChat, WhatsApp, Line, Twitter… »
« — At last, I’ve found you. Weren’t we supposed to meet at that Italian eatery just in front of Libro bookstore? »
« — I’ve send you a text. It was too crowded there. You know, that gourmet Chianti festival… Didn’t you get my text, and pic? Plenty of Geishas to help you taste the wine… »
For a second, Nono was confused. He promised he would let Yuki play with the AI, or at least, the app version of it, during the week-end. But of course this had to be kept secret. So technically, a professional Geisha had his iPhone, his password and… the picture of her colleagues serving Chianti to clients.
« — Man, don’t tell me you didn’t see the erotic emoticon I designed just for you in this text. »
Nono flashed his usual smile.
« — Your eroticon? Brilliant. »
Mat, Paul, Tetsu and Nono. All working in Taka’s lab. When they got out of the restaurant half an hour later, they were exactly one minute 25 seconds too early to bump into Ba, a few blocks away from Tenjin train station.
« — You know what’s even more brilliant than Mat’s eroticon? This. »
Nono took out of his pocket what looked like four show tickets.
« — Facebook is organising a private breakfast for drug marketers about recruiting people for clinical trials. Who’s going? The four of us. »
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
