Russell knew the implications as well as Edmund. They needed a large institutional investor to underwrite their securitized package, and if it was known on the street that LifeDeals was getting shorted, that partner would be very hard to find. Everyone remembered what happened in 2008.

“We need to start going through the 13Fs right away,” Russell said, referencing the quarterly statements institutional investment managers had to file with the SEC outlining their holdings.

“And I need to start making some calls.”

Russell had left Wall Street with more intact relationships than had Edmund, and he could easily plug into the rumor mill. It was, after all, a very small community. Edmund didn’t need to say anything, both men knew what was at stake.

7.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
NEW YORK CITY
MARCH 1, 2011, 7:30 P.M.

Off by themselves, Pia, Lesley, and Will were sitting in the mostly empty hospital cafeteria nursing cups of postprandial tea and coffee. Seeing what Rothman and Yamamoto were working on had left each of them shell-shocked. As medical students, they were well aware from an academic standpoint what was being done in the lab and having seen it with their own eyes made it real and concrete. They’d been to the future, and it was difficult to absorb.

“I can’t get over it,” Lesley Wong said. “I’m still blown away. Growing organs from a patient’s own stem cells. Something like that is going to revolutionize medicine.”

“It’s certainly going to revolutionize the care of degenerative disease,” Pia said. “It’s going to provide cures instead of just treating symptoms.”

“Down the road we could grow our own organs and freeze ’em for when we need ’em,” Will said. “Hey, I wonder how Columbia divides the cash on a medical breakthrough like this. This is going to be huge. Yamamoto said that the university has filed patents, but don’t you think that Rothman and Yamamoto have to get some kind of cut? Don’t you think, Pia?”

Pia had come with Lesley and Will not because she wanted company per se, but because she still felt unnerved by what she had seen and wanted to talk about it. After Dr. Yamamoto led them out of the inner lab with the organ baths that morning, they’d settled in a corner of the lab with the intention of discussing tissue culture fluid. Instead they couldn’t stop talking about the progress Rothman had made in organogenesis. As interested as they were, they realized that reading books from the library and doing Web searches was fruitless. The textbooks on this stuff hadn’t been written yet.

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Pia said, responding to Will’s question about Rothman and Yamamoto getting a cut. “Money and I don’t have much of a relationship.”

“But he’s gotta be looking at billions here. Doesn’t he? I’m going to call my dad, he’ll know someone who knows.”

“Your dad?” Lesley said.

“Yeah, his broker is pretty well connected.”

“I don’t think you should be talking about any of this to others,” Pia offered. “Particularly people outside the medical center. Remember what Yamamoto said. At least during this month while you’re working there or until the key publication is released.”