“Why all this frantic activity?” Kim asked.
“It’s the new alkaloid,” Edward said. “We’re already beginning to learn something about it and it looks awfully good.”
“I’m pleased for you,” Kim said. “But why all the rush? Are you under some sort of deadline?”
“It’s purely an anticipatory excitement,” Edward said. “The alkaloid could prove to be a great drug. If you’ve never done research it’s hard to comprehend the thrill you get when you discover something like this. It’s a real high, and we’ve been reexperiencing that high on an hourly basis. Everything we learn seems positive. It’s incredible.”
“Can you say what you’ve been learning?” Kim asked. “Or is it some kind of secret?”
Edward moved forward in his chair and lowered his voice. Kim glanced around the lab but saw no one. She wasn’t even sure where Eleanor was.
“We’ve stumbled onto an orally effective, psychoactive compound that penetrates the blood-brain barrier like the proverbial knife through butter. It’s so potent it is effective in the microgram range.”
“Do you think this is the compound that affected the people in the Salem witchcraft affair?” Kim asked. Elizabeth was still in the forefront of her mind.
“Without doubt,” Edward said. “It’s the Salem devil incarnate.”
“But the people who ate the infected grain were poisoned,” Kim said. “They became the ‘afflicted’ with horrid fits. How can you be so excited about that kind of drug?”
“It is hallucinogenic,” Edward said. “There’s no doubt about that. But we think it’s a lot more. We have reason to believe it calms, invigorates, and may even enhance memory.”
“How have you learned so much so quickly?” Kim asked.
Edward laughed self-consciously. “We don’t know anything for certain yet,” he admitted. “A lot of researchers would find our work so far less than scientific. What we’ve been doing is attempting to get a general idea of what the alkaloid can do. Mind you, these are not controlled experiments by any stretch of the imagination. Nevertheless, the results are terribly exciting, even mind-boggling. For instance we found that the drug, seems to calm stressed rats better than imipramine, which is the benchmark for antidepressant efficacy.”
“So you think it might be an hallucinogenic antidepressant?” Kim said.
“Among other things,” Edward said.
“Any side effects?” Kim asked. She still didn’t understand why Edward was as excited as he was.
Edward laughed again. “We haven’t been worrying about hallucinations with the rats,” he said. “But seriously, apart from the hallucinations we’ve not seen any problems. We’ve loaded several mice with comparatively huge doses and they’re as happy as pigs in the poke. We’ve plopped even larger doses into neuronal cell cultures with no effect on the cells. There doesn’t seem to be any toxicity whatsoever. It’s unbelievable.”
As Kim continued to listen to Edward, she became progressively disappointed that he did not ask her about her visit to Salem and about what happened to Elizabeth’s head. Finally Kim had to bring it up herself when there was a pause in Edward’s exuberant narrative.
“Good,” Edward said simply when she told him the head had been replaced. “I’m glad that’s over.”
Kim was about to describe how the episode had made her feel when Eleanor breezed into view and immediately monopolized Edward’s attention with a computer printout. Eleanor did not even acknowledge Kim’s presence nor did Edward introduce them. Kim watched as they had an animated discussion over the information. It was obvious Edward was pleased with the results. Finally Edward gave Eleanor some suggestions along with a pat on the back, and Eleanor vanished as quickly as she’d appeared.
“Now where were we?” Edward said, turning to Kim.
“More good news?” Kim asked, referring to Eleanor’s printout.
“Most definitely,” Edward said. “We’ve started on determining the compound’s structure, and Eleanor has just confirmed our preliminary impression that it is a tetracyclic molecule with multiple side chains.”
“How on earth can you figure that out?” Kim asked. In spite of herself she was impressed.
“You really want to know?” Edward asked.
“Provided you don’t go too far over my head,” Kim said.
“The first step was to get an idea of molecular weight with standard chromatography,” Edward said. “That was easy. Then we broke the molecule apart with reagents that rupture specific types of bonds. Following that we try to identify at least some of the fragments with chromatography, electrophoresis, and mass spectrometry.”