Informed Consent Read Online Free Page A

samples from the controls with the hyperhomocysteinemiac group who received the supplement.”
    The supplement. It sounded so innocuous, like an over-the-counter concoction of herbs that a person might buy at her local pharmacy, not quite believing it would work. But this supplement was a powerful blend of B-vitamins and fatty acids that were often deficient in dementia patients. The working hypothesis had long been that coblamine deficiency was responsible for demyelination of the myelin sheath and that the sheath could be repaired through nutrition, supplements, and perhaps, someday, prescription drugs. None of this was particularly cutting edge.
    “And the tissues?” Norman asked. “We’ll thin-slice those to confirm that the supplement did help to regenerate the sheath?”
    “We hope.”
    “And then … the nano-robotics team can start its trials?”
    “Soon. We just need a healthy control slice.”
    The nano-robotics team, there was the cutting edge.
    Greta had long suspected that the supplement would work better if it were delivered in massive quantities directly to a patient’s glial cells, where the myelin sheath was formed. But how to get it there? The answer had come to her on a rare evening off while she was watching Innerspace on late-night cable, marveling at how a movie about a miniaturized Dennis Quaid being trapped inside Martin Short had managed to net an Oscar. And then it hit her. A surgeon could insert a nano-robot into a patient’s body and, using a simple joystick, remotely guide the tiny robot to the glial cells, where it would coat the cells with her supplement. She’d been so excited that she’d headed straight into the lab at one o’clock in the morning to flesh out her idea without even bothering to change out of her pajamas first.
    Nearly a year had passed since her brainstorm—a mere blip in time in the institutional research world, but to Greta it felt like an eternity. Each day that passed had seemed to her to be a failure, a missed opportunity. So she worked, harder, faster, committed to bringing her cure to fruition.
    News of her work had spread through the scientific and technological communities, and she’d been offered a plum speaking engagement at a joint conference put on by MIT and Harvard. That had resulted in an infusion of cash from the Alpha Fund.
    And now her borderline harebrained notion was this close to reality. If the brain tissue samples showed that the supplement had even a small positive effect, then the next stage—the nano-robotics phase—would go into production just as soon as she had a healthy brain tissue slice to use as the standard. She was convinced—certain to her core—that if her nano-robots became a reality, the horrifying specter of cognitive degeneration would someday be nothing more than a historical footnote. She prayed she was right. Otherwise the Faustian bargain she’d struck with the Alpha Fund had been for nothing.

6
    S asha watched Dr. Kayser methodically cut his grilled salmon into bite-sized pieces and mix the fish into his large salad. Then he arranged the little ceramic bowl of dressing just so onto the side of his plate and looked up at her.
    “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked, nodding his head toward her stew.
    “Just waiting for it to cool down a bit.”
    He smiled, blinked behind his glasses, and scanned the room.
    The restaurant was nearly empty—the noon rush was long over, the lunchtime crowd back in their offices. The only other patrons were a cluster of business suits at the bar.
    He took a bite of salad, chewed, swallowed, and dabbed at his mouth with the corner of his napkin. They’d exhausted the social topics—the twins, his health, the Steelers—it was time to get to the point of their meeting. But she’d learned long ago never to rush a witness. He’d start his story when he was ready. She eyed her bowl again, but it was still steaming. So she folded her hands in her lap and waited.
    He repeated the bite,