“Claims made by scientists, in contrast to claims made by movie critics or theologians, can be separated from the scientists who make them. It isn't important to know who Isaac Newton was. He discovered that force is equal to mass times acceleration. He was an antisocial, crazy bastard who wanted to burn down his parents' house. But force is still equal to mass times acceleration.” Dr. Kary Mullis, inventor of Polymerase Chain Reaction, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Kary Mullis was waiting for me in Austin when I returned home from too many days away. It was good to see him, especially when I realized that he might be about to change the world. Again.
My week began with a trip to Omaha to spend a day with the fascinating folks at Waitt Broadcasting. George Pelletier gave me an exceptional bottle of cabernet and Michael Delich intuitively linked Picasso to Third Gravitating Bodies. I was impressed.
In New York I saw my friend the neurologist, Dr. Larry McCleary, who told me of a new book on synaptic connections that he thought might support my theory on Thought Particles. I immediately ordered it from Amazon and then emailed my office to push back the release date of Thought Particles: Binary Code of the Mind until May 23 so that I might slip in another chapter.
Had a great time at NASDAQ with Kelly Winkler, the new managing editor of Inc. magazine (trust me, these people are headed in the right direction.) Then on to Woodstock with my buddy Dean Rotbart. We wanted to be able to say, “We were at Woodstock together.” When I arrived back at my office in Austin, Kary Mullis handed me an article from Science Magazine that he thought might apply to my research. Interestingly, it quoted Joseph LeDoux, the same guy that Larry McCleary had told me about.
“So what's new in Kary-world?” I asked.
“Roy, I think I've figured out how to make people immune to communicable diseases.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I know how to make a person immediately immune to Anthrax, SARS, the common cold, whatever you want to be immune to.”
“Are you sure it will work?”
“I'll be extremely surprised if it doesn't.”
“Have you filed a patent?”
“Yeah. And there's nothing on record even remotely like what I'm planning to do.”
“Do you have funding?”
“I haven't asked for any yet.”
Thirty minutes later I had a biotech specialist in my office and watched as Dr. Mullis carefully explained all the details to him. The man was stunned. We have it all on video. An hour later my lawyer was drawing up incorporation papers for Altermune, Inc. The next day I called 4 friends and asked each of them to match the money that I was putting in. Everyone said yes.
Explaining PCR, his first invention, is easy for Kary Mullis. “The problem with DNA research was that everyone was looking for a needle in a haystack. So I just figured out how to turn the haystack into needles.” In about a year we'll know if Kary Mullis has changed the world again.
Every week is interesting at Wizard Academy.
But some are decidedly more interesting than others.
Roy H. Williams