Excerpts

This Bird’s Name is of a Flock

“Myself and Sarah had been working on a project called DNL, short for ‘De Novo Life’ for 2 years now at a fairly large Biotech company based in San Diego. ‘De Novo Life’ or ‘Synthetic Life’ means building a cell from scratch that has all the key characteristics of being living. It had never been done before and the new solution we were tweaking seemed to show some promise and the breakthrough we had been looking for”

Opening Chapter

The Berliners

“Both my father and older brother had died in the war, my father in 1942 presumed dead from the cold on the eastern front, and my brother years later from the western invasion in the north. It was just me and my mother now. Although she was petrified that she would lose me too she knew she couldn’t stop me from continuing to fight. I hated to put her through the worry but we were still at war and all the men and teenage boys then were expected to do their bit.”

Opening Chapter

The Good Doctor

“I got a bleep after lunch that a young male had been taken into A&E in a critical condition and they needed me down there right away so of course I put down my coffee and rushed to emergency. Right away it didn’t look kosher and I couldn’t pick up on what was going on with this guy, there were no signs of physical injury or any other red flags that might explain his critical condition. I put him on the Intensive Care Unit for monitoring and carried out further tests”

Opening Chapter

Lead Generation

“I had a sales job interview with a midsized IT reseller that sold any type of IT products that their clients required and this was a golden opportunity to break into the tech industry that was exploding at the time. It was clear that the Director of the company that interviewed me, Chris my future boss, was only interested if he thought that I could get on the phone and start selling and would train me up on any tech knowledge that I required”

Opening Chapter

Big Pharma

“I leant forward, ‘This is big Jim, Duncan’s team has been working on this for two years now and they have made a significant breakthrough, they believe they can reverse the progression of Multiple Sclerosis to such an extent that we can virtually call it a cure’

Jim looked at Duncan, ‘Is this right Dunk?’

‘Yep John is right, I mean there are still some issues that need to be ironed out but we have been approved by the MHRA, (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency), to get a clinical trial underway hence this meeting”

Opening Chapter

Memoirs of a Student Doctor

“There was an introduction party at the medical school bar in the evening as the first event of the freshers’ week. Some events were obviously titled, such as ‘comedy night’ or ‘a day on ice’ but others had intriguing sounding names like ‘VOM’. I spruced up and nervously waited in the common room for other housemates I could go with, ready to take on this new world, or simply have a few drinks and work out who the hell I was going to be friends with for the next five years”

Opening Chapter