Bio-chemists needed!

MaggieMc

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Hi guys,

I'm hoping someone can help me out because my scientific knowledge is very limited. I'm outlining my second book (my first goes on sub next week - yay!), and it will be a mystery/police procedural. I have the main plot, but I need some help on an important sub-plot.

I have a character, Emma, who has been awarded a grant by a company to continue research on a drug/compound that she has been working on for some time. She sets up the lab, is funded for research assistants etc and the lab is set up at a university where the company has close connections. There will be another character, let's call him Professor James for now, who is very well regarded in the field and has a long history of collaborations with the funding company. I want Professor James to have carried out some research, which he has published, which suddenly has potential practical applications if Emma's research is successful. Maybe his could be a biotech thing? A drug delivery system that would only be useful if someone could come up with a new drug?

Ultimately it will be discovered the Professor James falsified his research - he was confident that he would get away with it as no-one would look too closely at his work given that there was no practical application.

The book is not going to go into the science in any great detail, but I will need to be able to describe it generally. If anyone could suggest a drug/biotech combination, or maybe a drug/drug combination that would make sense for the plot I'd appreciate it! At the moment I'm thinking of something for Asthma with a new form of sniffer, or maybe a new form of epi-pen.

Thanks in advance!

Maggie.
 

GeorgeK

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Most if not all of a given scientist's work will ultimately be proven to be incomplete, unreproducible, impractical or out right wrong. There need not be falsification or malicious intent. That's part of the reason that falsification is so detested among scientists and when it is found it's not uncommon to sort of throw the baby out with the bath water. All that scientist's previous good work will get thrown into doubt. OTOH a stellar performer with a long history sometimes will get a pass and when they have data that seems a bit off, it is possible that the community will accept the findings at face value...until someone else tries to build on it.

So, you have a very plausible plot. My simplest suggestion is have made up names of chemicals that have short hand names or abbreviations. Only describe vaguely what they do or how they are supposed to or not interact. Those not in the know won't care and those in the know will fill in the blanks on their own.
 

waylander

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Big pharma researcher here. This is quite plausible if Professor James has shown that the drug, or class of drugs, Emma is working on has application in an unexpected area. A bit like Viagra was being developed as a heart drug when someone found it was good for something else. She could be working on a class of kinase inhibitors as an approach to a neurological condition e.g. Alzheimers when Prof James work shows that the same kinase in implicated in some form of leukemia.
 

MaggieMc

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Thanks so much guys. Good to know that this is plausible : ) I like the alzheimers idea too...am going off to do some work with my friend google now : ) Thanks for taking the time to post!