THE FRENCH VACATION SEASON WAS in full swing when Pat returned to Beaulieu and drove over to Sophia Antipolis for a progress report on LifeGen’s work. He was not in his usual good form in spite of the fact the French seemed to have put the virus behind them.
‘So where are you with your cocktail as you call it?’ he asked Michel Morel.
‘As we’ve reported we’ll be carrying out standard tests on animals, but this is not a new kind of drug or a vaccine, we could classify it a herbal medicine. What we hope, is its properties will counter aging, senescence, which is not classified as a disease, at least in the normal sense of the word, by health authorities.’
‘Has your work shown any significant progress to prove it will counter aging?’
‘As I told you Pat this is something new, it has nothing to do with swindlers, hucksters and snake oil, nothing to do with the usual dietary supplements or alternative medicines. NDGA had been around for quite some time now and there has been a considerable amount of serious scientific research into its effects on senescence.
‘That said, the molecule we have extracted from Larrea tridentata associated with Jatropha dioica, otherwise known as dragons blood, and various plants with powerful antioxidants—identified thanks to the Wallace Codex, show a remarkable gain in longevity in laboratory animals like mice. It’s why we decided to test it on primates, Rhesus monkeys, study the effects on stem cells. But it’s a relatively lengthy business.'
‘Is there any risk of toxicity.’
‘Not that we know of, individually the substances are nontoxic to humans, but for approval from the Federal Drug Administration and other agencies we have to follow procedures.’
‘Could I take it?’
‘I wouldn't suggest that Pat.’
‘Look I have to tell you something lads,’ Pat said adopting a quiet more intimate tone, ‘Robert will confirm it, but I am facing some health problems, the consequences of which are unpredictable and I’d like, firstly to progress this work, and secondly if there any benefits from this compound, I’d like to test it.’
They looked shocked and confused.
‘As I said, nothing is confirmed, it’s one of those things, no one lives forever, for the moment,’ he said smiling to soften the news.
The two scientists looked at each other.
‘Is that wise Pat?’ asked Michel.
‘Yes,’ he replied emphatically.
‘We can’t recommend that Pat, but its up to you.’
Kennedy his face set was unmoved.
‘Fine, we can arrange that,’ said Michel, ‘but we will have to monitor your condition on a permanent basis.’
‘That can be managed.’
‘Blood tests and things like that, two or three times a month, at least,’ added Henri.
‘Good.’
‘Do you have any er ... um … capsules ready?’
‘No, but they can be prepared without too much difficulty.’
A few days later Henri personally delivered a month’s supply of capsules to the villa. He also informed Pat they would have an independent medical laboratory in Beaulieu take blood samples once a week for analysis and Pat should return to Sophia Antipolis for a full check-up in the event of a problem and at the latest after one month.
Pat agreed to ask Robert McGoldrick to send them his MRI scans and other data for comparative analysis to evaluate progress, that is if there was any evidence of the Galenus formulation, as they called it, on Pat’s well-being.
‘Normally with this kind of herbal medicine the only risk is allergy, so if you have a reaction call me at one Pat,’ Henri told him.
Robert McGoldrick worked closely with LifeGen, in fact it was he who had proposed Pat invest in longevity which was linked to his own field of research, and more especially that related to life extending enzymes such as RNA polymerase III, a complex process of transcription present in the cells of almost all animal species, including humans.
LifeGen was about to undertake clinical trials on Rhesus monkeys with a compound made up of a cocktail of different molecules including Galenus-1, which had demonstrated, for as yet unexplained reasons, greater benefits than individual substances such as NDGA, which they hope would be a first step in greater longevity.
Ageing, or senescence, was the main cause of disease, as Steve Swarz had demonstrated through his work on worms, his nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, that microscopic creature which in spite of its size possessed all the physiological properties of an animal. Its use to study the ageing process had been developed thanks to numerous mutations that had been linked to the rate of senescence, with some mutants living up to 10-times longer than naturally occurring worms.