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eyebrow. They had talked about that earlier. Calum was paranoid about anyone getting hold of the Almasti DNA and using it in a way he didn’t
approve of.
    ‘I’m still making lists of different places that could do the work,’ he said.
    ‘Fine.’ She shrugged, as if the matter was of no importance, then went on: ‘It’s just that I also have contacts with a laboratory in Oxford. If you wanted to, you could
pop the sample in to them for genetic sequencing. I can highly recommend them – they’ve done work for several Nobel Laureates, as well as Oxford University.’
    ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Calum said noncommittally.
    ‘They’re very discreet. Nothing will leak out.’
    ‘Well, maybe I want it to leak out.’
    She stared at him. ‘Pardon me?’
    ‘We
have
talked about this before, Gillian. I want the information to be made as widely available as possible. I want the
world
to be able to make use of that DNA.’
    ‘Even if you won’t say where it came from?’
    ‘Information shouldn’t be owned,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s not like diamonds, or land. It’s a resource that should be freely available.’
    ‘I’ll remind you of those words the next time you think someone has got hold of your bank-account details. And knowing where the DNA came from
is
information, isn’t it?
Shouldn’t you make that freely available?’
    He smiled. ‘OK, I take the point – some information should be kept private, but DNA sequences? If DNA doesn’t belong to the person or creature that it’s been taken from,
then it doesn’t belong either to the person who takes it or the researchers they give it to. Genes can’t be copyrighted. At least, they
shouldn’t
be copyrighted.’
    She stared at him sympathetically for a moment. ‘You’re still hoping, aren’t you?’
    He looked away. ‘Still hoping what?’
    ‘Still hoping that, somewhere out there, some unknown plant or animal has a DNA sequence that will help regenerate nerve cells.’
    He shrugged. ‘Starfish, newts, salamanders – they can all regenerate lost tails or lost limbs. Who’s to say there’s not something out there that can do the same with
spinal nerve cells?’
    ‘And you think that the more laboratories working on the problem, the better the chance that someone will solve it?’
    He nodded. ‘Yes. That’s exactly what I think.’
    ‘Has it occurred to you, Calum,’ she said softly, ‘that the laboratories working in the public domain are, by and large, underfunded, underequipped, understaffed and
underresourced? They may have all the bright ideals of public service in the world, but if they have trouble paying for a test-tube cleaner then how are they going to make any big breakthrough in
the fields of genetics or medicine? No, it’s the private companies that have the resources. They can put millions of dollars into a project to solve a problem—’
    ‘If they see the chance of making
billions
of dollars from marketing the final result,’ Calum finished. ‘And part of their tactics for doing that is to keep prices high
and to control the supply. Only those who can afford the cure will get it.’
    ‘You
can
afford it!’ she cried stubbornly. ‘And if you can’t then there are people in your life who will afford it
for
you.’
    He shook his head sadly. ‘But I’m not the only paraplegic person in the world, Gillian. What happens to the rest of them? The big pharmaceutical companies are there to make money for
their shareholders – that’s their
raison d’etre.
They aren’t much into philanthropic gestures. You know as well as I do that there are strains of bacteria resistant
to almost any antibiotic we can throw at them. The big pharmaceutical companies could solve that problem within a year if they threw money at it, by working on modified versions of the antibiotics
we have, but they won’t, because all those antibiotics are out of their licence period and won’t make them any money. That’s the sad