CHAPTER 4

Agarwal Rakesh 

In recent months, Myra Rakesh has been preoccupied with her marriage drifting into mediocre docility. She sees herself clinging onto a sloppily composed sequel, despite it being stripped of the fun and spontaneity of the original. It is the aloofness that is most disappointing. Agarwal has become too serious, too scholarly. Too professorial.

The internet answered her call for assistance. According to trustworthycouplecounseling.com (International Woman’s Day Special! $150 for a week of unlimited messaging), she and Agarwal need to repair the emotional disconnect, through pursuit of more active engagement. He must be willing to see more value in her career as a business analyst. They could share more details of their separate working lives, maybe laugh again at the absurdities. 

Consequently, she surprises him by entering their bedroom while he accumulates piles of clothes on his side of the king-sized bed. He is packing for his flight to New Orleans early tomorrow. She asks him why he is upbeat this evening. “You’re typically a little jaded about the thought of traveling.”

Agarwal impulsively interprets his wife’s questioning as covert criticism. He steps on his toes to retrieve a suitcase from their closet’s highest shelf, as he wonders why it is problematic that he might be happy in his preparations for a meeting of the American Academy of Gerontologists. “It's different being one of the organizers.” Agarwal thinks he is making an effort to be patient. “I'll be in the limelight.” 

He has his back to her when a sharp pain shoots through his groin. He prays he hides the discomfort from Myra. She has been nagging him about his hip for a couple of weeks.   Are you keeping up with the physical therapy exercises? Are you working on losing weight?

“Also, I’m hyped about my presentation.” He turns to face her, careful not to reveal his  discomfort, and places the carry-on upon a surplus towel that he has previously laid over the white storage ottoman at the foot of their bed. The faded cotton cover keeps him out of trouble. According to Myra, upholstery is a magnet for the dirt that inevitably accumulates on travel bags.

“I’m going to show some of Steve’s unpublished data. He’s been working with a new kinase inhibitor.  It’s a candidate anti-aging drug that we’ve been testing in cultured cells. It repairs the damage caused by high metabolism and inflammation.”

Even that abbreviated account of his recent work contains more information than he would typically provide, but there again, she did ask why he was in a good mood. 

“Really?” She does not give up. “I thought you never showed unpublished data at a conference. You’ve told me it’s too risky, because a competing lab might reproduce your work, publish it first, and steal all of the credit. So, what’s changed? Have you warned off the competition by threatening to lawyer-up with Deepak? It would be nice if he could finally make a positive contribution to our marriage.”

Myra’s brother-in-law has always been a source of tension. She labels him as pompous, arrogant and ostentatious, whereas Agarwal views these characteristics as worthy credentials. Because they have helped Deepak become a highly-successful DC attorney. 

“Unlike your corporate world,” Agarwal counters, “any disputes that we might have with our competitors are not resolved through lawsuits.”

He refrains from pointing out that scientific disagreements are, in fact, rarely resolved; there is no judge and jury, no formal arbitration process to turn to. Occasionally there may be a long meeting, or a conference phone call, at which the participants each express their views, but the outcome is one that makes nobody happy. More often, the victor of a dispute is the one who works behind the scenes with the more effective badmouth. 

“Anyway, we don’t fear being scooped.”

“Why not?” Myra asks.

There is a long answer to that question. 

There is a long answer to that question. His lab’s unpublished data are included in a manuscript that was submitted for peer review several weeks ago. He had requested the paper be handled by a journal editor he knows. Editors are gatekeepers. They will reject a manuscript without peer review, given an adequate excuse. The specifics of the study are not impugned, because that would encourage the authors to email back with counter-arguments. Consequently, papers are rejected through generalities too vague to be refuted. The study is deemed too superficial for the journal’s specialized audience, or too esoteric for its multidisciplinary platform. 

Agarwal had subverted this triage system, by convincing the editor the journal would benefit from publishing a paper that connects with hashtags for life extension: #Longevity and #HealthyAging. Thereby improving the journal’s citation rate, and hence its income stream from future publication fees, and paid subscriptions from academic libraries. 

He had excluded key rivals as peer reviewers (by inferring they were biased competitors), and indirectly recruited his kinase-friendly colleagues (by heavily citing them in the manuscript, thereby advertising their expertise to judge his work). 

He provides a shorter answer to Myra. “The paper is essentially already accepted. Only one small additional experiment was requested, plus minor changes to the text. It’ll only take Steve a week to fix. It should be posted on-line shortly after. Our rivals won’t have time to take advantage.” 

Myra presets him with a smirk of superiority to accompany the hands on her hips. “You’ve always been scornful of the corporate world’s methods and constraints. And yet, here you are, borrowing techniques from the business sector. Scenario analysis, competitive profiling and risk assessment.”

He has the urge to dispute that their working lives are somehow similar. Debate is an instinctive reaction for a scientist. It is natural for them to stress-test hypotheses, challenge methodologies, and question presented data. He could assert that academic research is pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. As such, it sits above the fray of the private sector, that is driven solely by profit margins. But he will not throw bullshit at Myra. Science in an academic setting is all about whatever it takes to generate income for the lab.

In any case, Agarwal knows there are occasions in his domestic life when being argumentative, or even just expressing an opinion, is simply a bad idea. He recognizes this is one of those situations. Similar to the time when he did not fight Myra’s desire to decorate their bedroom walls with abstract art. One blurry painting might be an attempt to depict ghostly trees shrouded in mist. In another, an unnatural cloud formation meets a surreal horizon of unrealistically static water. She claims it brings tranquility to the room. He has never voiced his distress at either the lack of structural clarity in these images, or their four-figure price-tag. But he nurses dissatisfaction that not provoking a quarrel fails to earn him any relationship credit. 

Myra  remains determined to pursue a point of view. “Maybe our two careers are more aligned than you thought?”

Now he can hear an undertone, a sharpness to Myra’s words. A seed of apprehension begins to germinate. There may be a veiled message that he lacks the confidence to uncloak. Perhaps: it would be good for us to talk more about work. But why would she say that? He damn sure cannot read minds! Then suddenly, it all seems much more ominous. It would be good for us to talk more. 

It is in his design to treat a relationship issue as if it were a check engine light. To hope the problem will fade away by itself. Unimpressed by his silence, Myra retaliates by criticizing the attitude he takes towards his unreliable hip. He is informed he could work on that problem by losing ten pounds. He wastes too much time on the internet, he is going from stocky to flabby, and the extra weight is not attractive.

Agarwal is not too perturbed by the thinly veiled threat of less frequent sex. He feels it is his fate anyway. An inevitable consequence of having the same partner for almost 35 years. By which time, he thinks, it is normal that enthusiasm cools - the Coolidge effect. An unintentionally apropos moniker that Agarwal has gleaned from the scientific literature. It designates a phenomenon that has not only been observed in humans, but also in other mammals. It is named after the 30th US President, who allegedly disappointed the First Lady with his lack of enthusiasm for the physical side of their long marriage. 

As for the accusation that he carries too much fat? No, he tells himself that Myra’s elfin physique is the outlier. Her clothing purchases often reach her closet via a seamstress, to accommodate a double zero anatomy. That, he decides, is a biased marker for determining what qualifies as being overweight. Everyone she knows is bulkier than her.

Nevertheless, he grudgingly gives his agreement to perform more exercise when he returns home, but not because he actually intends to. He just wants to quieten his wife, finish packing, and get some sleep. Hopefully uninterrupted by one of those extended and frustrating dreams in which he is unable to reach the airport before his flight takes off.

It is eight o'clock, the evening before the conference begins, as Agarwal passes through the bollards that pedestrianize Bourbon Street, at its southwest boundary with Canal Street. He knows he cannot return home from New Orleans without visiting this legendary spectacle. Even though Deepak had warned him it has gone downhill. 

The high earlier that day had surpassed eighty, which is unusual for mid-March. The warmth lingers, so Agarwal is troubled by the extent to which young women underdress. Throngs of inebriated visitors funnel through the narrow roadway in both directions. He has read somewhere that if you stand still for just one minute, over a hundred people will walk past. It would be a larger number, he concluded, if a normal walking pace were possible. 

It is much louder than he had expected. Partly because voices elevated by excitement and alcohol reverberate off the brick and stucco buildings that flank this narrow street. There are also tap dancers, who amplify their dance routines with shoes to which bottle caps or the bottoms of steel cans are attached. Plastic builder’s buckets are repurposed as drum kits.

Each intersection is guarded by either local police on horseback, or State Troopers with their distinctive brimmed hats and shiny cars. One of their policing accomplishments had been in the news the previous month. An arrest of a street hawker for disobeying a court order prohibiting public displays of an albino python. Agarwal knows these reptiles are not venomous, so the tourists were not in danger. The real question is whether the rule of law is applied evenly. He sees evidence that dealers are comfortable taking care of business on the side streets. Drugs might be fine, but zero tolerance for harmless snakes. 

He is both surprised and disappointed that the street does not offer a cultural harvest of vibrant blues and jazz joints. There are just invasive weeds: strip clubs, tacky T-shirt stores, and hole-in-the-wall bars where Agarwal learns of a new social aspiration. Being photographed double fisting a pair of fluorescent high-alcohol cocktails: hand-grenades.

Young male revelers leer over balconies, broadcasting bead necklaces and catcalls: “let’s see your tits!” Their tone is aggressive, almost menacing. As if they are releasing all of their pent-up outrage that wolf whistles have become culturally outlawed. And yet, despite their belligerence, a couple of obliging blouses are raised. Agarwal looks away in embarrassment.

A steamy bar draws his attention. At first, it is the dangerously relaxed attitude towards building capacity that catches his eye. Then he sees that among those who struggle for service are a group Agarwal recognizes from the conference, members of the information theory caucus. These researchers share the belief that the molecular instructions to defy aging remain with us all, immutably, and it is the ability to read this information that becomes corrupted over time.  Reversing those miscues, they say, will restore our innate longevity protocols. 

This concept grew out of a description of epigenetic reprogramming in the early embryo, the process of erasing markers of aging that are inherited from the egg and sperm. This was a startling demonstration that human cells can naturally revert into a younger version of themselves. Overnight, rejuvenation became a buzzword in aging research: could youth be regained experimentally? Absolutely. So says a Harvard geneticist, David Sinclair, whose scientific footprint is matched only by his social media presence. He has published results that indicate cultured cells can be de-aged by either genetically manipulation, or by a bespoke chemical cocktail. This announcement was accompanied by a barrage of his dramatic sound bites. We can reverse human aging! In a decade there will be a pill to rejuvenate youth! There is no biological limit to human lifespan! 

Agarwal had proposed Sinclair be invited to speak at the AAG meeting, but the other co-organizers had vetoed the idea. Sinclair is a snake oil salesman. Have you heard about Sirtris Pharmaceuticals? Sinclair founded that company, and its drug pipeline, based on his report that the sirtuin protein has anti-aging properties that can be activated by resveratrol, the red wine compound. In 2008, Sirtris and its promise of an elixir of youth were sold to GlaxoSmithKline for the tidy sum of $720 million. Clinical trials faltered, and the magic of resveratrol was exposed as the ultimate of scientific smackdowns: an assay artifact in Sinclair’s lab. 

Controversy inevitably bubbles to the surface of a sea of chaos. Which, as far as Agarwal can deduce, is the current status of aging research. That became clear to him during his first sit-down with the organizing committee; he had been shown the results of a survey circulated to those who had attended the previous AAG symposium. The questionnaire had included the most fundamental of questions: what causes aging? Surely a consensus could be expected to emerge from an international panel of the leaders in this area of research? 

The sole source of agreement? A dislike of surveys. Less than half of those polled took the time to respond.

The responses that were received underscored the state of discord between multiple, competing hypotheses concerning how and why we age. No single proposal garners general goodwill. As if the prize is more important than the process; the prestige that comes from being the one who solves the problem is more worthwhile than the solution itself.  

Couldn’t these researchers have managed just one point of agreement? Agarwal had assumed loss of function – too little of something – would be a unifying point. For example, too little telomerase enzyme, and hence the erosion of telomeres, those DNA sequences that act as shoelace sheaths; once worn out, either the shoelace or the chromosome unravels. But no, he had been surprised to learn there is an antithetical theorem: hyperfunctionality. The too much hypothesis. Too much fat, or blood pressure, or blood clotting. Tumors arise from too many cells. Male pattern baldness is the result of too much dihydrotestosterone.

Another of the groups in the survey, the wear-and-tear clique, had advocated aging to arise from the accumulation of molecular and cellular injuries. But any semblance of unanimity had evaporated over internal disagreement on the origin and functional significance of the damage. Is it causation or correlation? Is it sustained at the genetic, protein, or cellular level? Is it increased damage or decreased ability to repair? 

All of this disharmony discourages Agarwal from approaching the delegates in the bar. He fears his position as a conference organizer will be a gravity well for a backbiting commentary on opponents of the only, rightful theory of aging. This is worlds apart from his enjoyment of kinase conferences, which he views as far more collegiate. Take Roger Spinnit, for example. He willingly shares his reagents to everyone in the field. Such as SP-210, which was key to the success of Agarwal’s recent paper. And Traci Weber, who has invited him to visit her institute next month, to give a seminar. Nick Robbins – yes, he is rather full of himself – but last month in Texas he had expressed the importance of protecting Chuck Standish’s legacy. That is true camaraderie. 

Chuck Standish. His death sent shockwaves through the community. Agarwal recalls how the event has tested Standish’s closest friends. Traci Weber, for one. Moreso Barry Pike, who retired shortly afterwards. Spinnit also suffered more than most. On the morning the remains had been discovered, all of the attendees assembled in the lecture theater to provide statements to the police. Except Spinnit. He had felt it necessary to wait for an attorney, before driving himself to the police station for his interview. It must have been terribly embarrassing. Of course, no charges were filed. How could they be? Scientists do not resort to murder. They can be content with simply wreaking vengeance upon a competitor’s reputation. Usually behind their back, in the conference bar. Or by writing about it, typically in an article that reviews the current status of the field.

Agarwal also mourns the terrible passing of a colleague he is proud to have collaborated with. He is suddenly very drained and lost. Like he has unplugged from his physical body, and is now as formless as Myra's abstract wall art. 

It is being bumped by a staggering drunk that reconnects him. That, and the street’s unwelcome smelling salts. An earthy aroma of manure, the pungency of urine, and the sulfurous odor of cannabis. 

There is a disturbance ahead. Between two groups of inebriated young men, naturally. “Come down here and say that”, shout those in the street, arms wide and beckoning. “How ‘bout you come up here,” is the response from the balcony.  

The confrontation reinforces his distress. Being unhappy in a crowd of strangers is a sure way to become lonely. He turns back towards the hotel, dodging discarded beads, and pools of fluorescent green vomit. All-in-all, Agarwal concludes, this is one sordid theme park. A Westworld scenario, but without assistance from androids. Even the daily sanitation routine is a nod to the 1973 movie: before dawn every morning a cleanup crew is on site. This true-life version is armed with disinfectant spray, mechanical sweepers, and high-pressure hoses. 

And everyone turns a blind eye as the debris is flushed into the bayous.

By nine-thirty Agarwal is in bed, texting Deepak. You are dead right. Bourbon Street is terrible.