Ryan checked his watch for the billionth time. At that exact moment the digits on the screen behind the Delta agent changed again. We would now be departing an hour behind schedule.
“Sonovabitch.”
“Relax. We’ll make the connection.”
“Thank you, Pollyanna.”
I dug a journal from my briefcase and began leafing through it. Ryan got up, crossed the waiting area, recrossed it, returned to his seat.
“So what did you learn?”
“About?”
“Stem cells.”
“More than I ever wanted to know. I was up until two.”
A man the size of South Dakota dropped a bag on the floor and flopped into the seat to my right. A tsunami of sweat and hair oil rolled my way. Ryan’s eyes met mine, then shifted toward the windows. Wordlessly, he got up and changed location. I followed a compassionate thirty seconds later.
“Stem cells are taken from embryos?” Ryan.
“Stem cells can come from embryonic, fetal, or adult tissue.”
“It’s the non-adult forms that have the Christian zealots in a frenzy.”
“The religious right is strongly opposed to any use of embryonic stem cells.”
“The usual sanctity of life crap?”
Ryan did have a way of cutting to the chase.
“That’s the argument.”
“And G. W. Bush bought in.”
“Only partly. He’s trying to sit on the fence. He’s limited federal funding to research using existing stem cell lines only.”
“So scientists needing government grants are only allowed to experiment with cells already growing in labs?”
“Or with stem cells derived from adult tissue.”
“Will that do the job?”
“In my opinion?”
“No. Give me the thinking in the Politburo.”
Nope. That’s it. Back to my journal.
After a few moments, “O.K. Give me the stem cell basic course, condensed version.”
“We’re agreed on courteous listening as a protocol?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Every one of the two hundred cell types in the human body arises from one of three germ layers, endoderm, mesoderm, or ectoderm.
“Inner, middle, and outer layers.”
“That’s excellent, Andrew.”
“Thank you, Ms. Brennan.”
“An embryonic stem cell, or ES cell, is what’s termed pluripotent. That means it has the ability to give rise to cell types deriving from any of the three layers. Stem cells reproduce themselves throughout the life of an organism, but remain uncommitted until signaled to develop into something specific—pancreas, heart, bone, skin.”
“Flexible little dudes.”
“The term ‘embryonic stem cell’ really includes two types: those that come from embryos, and those that come from fetal tissue.”
“The only two sources?”
“To date, yes. To be perfectly correct, embryonic
“And before the egg is implanted in the mother’s uterus.”
“Right. At that point the embryo is a hollow sphere called a blastocyst. Embryonic stem cells are taken from the inner layer of that sphere. Embryonic
“And the grown-ups?”
“Adult stem cells are unspecialized cells that occur in specialized tissues. They have the ability to renew themselves, and to differentiate into all of the specialized cell types of the tissues in which they originate.”
“Which are?”
