ReGenesis s02e02 Episode Script

Caroline, it's been six weeks, David is AWOL, face it.
Look, you've lost your chief scientist, and a hell of a lot of morale around here.
I have a major investor coming to the lab this week.
I'd like you to meet Audrey Graves.
In Toronto for the AIDS conference? I'll be speaking.
- About Africa? - Yes.
Then I will be listening.
- How's David Sandstrom's recuperation? - It's going great.
We have a disease outbreak.
Two in three die.
You're on the verge of a major goddamn epidemic.
If you don't start asking for more help now, you are seriously, seriously fucked.
You may know science, you do not know China.
Oh, look at that.
Yeah, that lives in your colon, it's crucial to natural body functions but if ingested or inhaled klebsiella can kill you.
- David.
- Caroline, what a surprise.
Any idea what this bacterium is? It's a freak.
It's got pieces of bacillus cereus and an old klebsiella.
He must have been exposed to it once and now he has the antibodies to kill it.
And when he kills the bacillus cereus He kills the klebsiella.
- Clever.
Clever.
- So what are you gonna do, grab somebody off the street and load them up with bacillus cereus? I volunteer.
Don't do this.
David, go home.
Miss Graves - Listen to me.
- Sean! This has AIDS, it's from Africa.
It's a new strain.
Police, don't move! He's in cardiac arrest.
The syringe, where will it go? - The crime lab.
- What about the blood inside? - Forensics will have it.
- Okay.
He has no vitals.
I'm a doctor.
He's been shot once in the head.
Could you come with me? She was stabbed in the neck with a syringe.
I'm just gonna make a phone call, okay? - It will be all right.
- Okay.
I can't I can't I have to make a phone call don't touch me Don't touch me! Relax.
M'am.
Miss Graves, listen to me.
You have to lie down.
- I need a telephone.
- You're in shock.
You've been injected with a hypodermic and possibly exposed to HIV.
There's somebody I need to I need you to lie down in this stretcher please.
Oh, no I can't.
Miss Graves, Miss Graves.
- I can't I - Are you having a boy or a girl? A boy or girl? - A boy.
- What's his name? What's his name? Richard.
Okay, I want you to lie down for Richard.
I need you to lie down for Richard.
Okay? Hey man, you got a cell phone I could borrow? How about a cell phone I could rent? Morrison.
Hey, it's me.
David? Where are you? Uh, I'm at the corner of broken down streetcar and homeless guy.
You're in Toronto? - Yup.
- I want to talk to you.
He'll be fine.
He looks great.
He'll be fine.
Still infectious diseases, eh? What's going on? Come.
No, the HIV physician in Amsterdam.
Yeah, Dietrich! Fly him in.
Well I'm not an idiot, just get him here.
They won't let me fly so just call my OB and get her in here too.
Okay.
Audrey - I just want to get out of here.
- I know and you will.
Right now the syringe that was used on you is at NORBAC.
Why? I thought it was going to Crossfields in San Francisco.
Well the police didn't release it till an hour ago.
It would take a day to ship it to Crossfields and I think we're all anxious for results.
- You think? - So we'll test it for you.
I know you want the best labs working on this, the best people.
I have David Sandstrom.
Yeah, David Sandstrom.
Well, first of all, NORBAC will find out if it was HIV injected into you and not you know, cherry Kool-Aid.
And if it is HIV The kid who attacked you said it was a new strain? Yes, from Africa.
Okay, well it's not unusual to have new strains.
If it is new, NORBAC will find out what makes it new and determine the best treatment.
In the meantime the hospital has you on anti-retrovirals? Uh, Trizivir with a synergistic enhancer.
Good, that's good.
So I'll go talk to the team back at the lab and find out if there's anything more that can be done for you.
And what about my baby? Oh You know if we assume the worst and you do progress to infection, the HIV is very unlikely to cross the placenta.
So the very best place for him right now is exactly where he is, you know, right inside you.
David, thank you.
Why do you want NORBAC involved in a single medical case? We'll talk about it later.
Right now I want you to go to the lab, Carlos is already working on this.
I want you to examine the diagnostics - and figure out what to do next.
- At the lab? Yeah.
I kind of fired my ass a couple of months ago, remember? We'll talk at the lab, David.
Uh, Mr.
MacPherson.
You're the scientist? Yes, Carlos Serrano.
Thank you for seeing me.
How was your flight? Long.
Too much time on my hands to think.
Thinking's not good when you're travelling to to pick up your son to I don't understand what happened.
He's not a madman.
Why would he? He stabbed some pregnant woman with a needle? Please come on.
Have a seat Mr.
MacPherson.
Do you know what that is? Sean was wearing it.
No.
It's a comfort doll pendant.
People all across Canada make the actual doll and then send them to Africa as packing material in the medical supply boxes.
They are given to babies and children that are dying of AIDS.
The poor things.
When volunteers leave Africa, they're given a pendant.
I've never been to Africa.
When I saw that your son was wearing one I knew that he had seen what I've seen.
I had to leave Africa.
I was a doctor with MSF and I could have very easily been swallowed up in the anger and pain that Sean was.
Is that what happened to Sean? It was a desperate cry and things got out of hand.
But this, this is a sign that your son was a person of compassion.
Audrey Can I call anyone for you? Your husband? I'm not married.
Oh.
Well is there someone who can come and stay with you till you get the okay to travel? A friend? The baby's father? My baby's father is donor 0133 at the New Manhattan Fertility Clinic.
Do you have children, Caroline? No.
You want it bad, a superman To take up the task at hand, and bleed for you You smoking gun, you riot of one Put down the muscle and come up a fighter Lions rage They rattle their cage like they do Like the fools parading, they're waiting in vain For superman For superman For superman Hi.
David! David.
How sweet of you to grace us with your presence.
Good to see you too Mayko.
- Hey Jill.
- David, it's nice to see you.
- Uh, we should talk.
- Yeah, we should.
Bob.
Bob, I got you a souvenir from China.
Okay.
David.
So China, People's Liberation Army.
What was that all about? It's a long story for another time if you're buying the beer.
I'll be back in two minutes.
- Sure.
- Tell me all about China.
So here I am.
I'm glad you're back.
Yeah, good to Uh, here.
Bob.
I'll be back in two minutes.
- Sure.
- Tell me all about China.
So.
Caroline, can I have a moment? Sure.
How is Miss Graves doing? I think I calmed her down.
She's gonna be okay.
I know it's not my place to get into the politics of what goes on in here.
That's all right.
What is it? It's about this money you're going after, Miss Graves and the American Pharmaceutical Council.
Carlos, we have to make up 40 million dollars the United States cut from our budget.
I realize that but have you considered the ramifications of that money.
We may have to rearrange our priorities at times, yeah.
Half a million children die every year in Africa because those same drug companies do not have the financial interest in finding the proper dosages for HIV infected children.
- That's what we should be working on.
- I know what you're saying Carlos, and what I'm saying is While we're doing this maybe we could discover something new.
Oh, sorry.
I'll come back.
No, I'm finished, David.
What is it? What's going on? Oh, uh I'll have Wes - bring you our current case files.
- No, no.
I mean What's going on? Me, here, how? Well I don't consider a Post-It note on a bottle of scotch a resignation.
Nobody knows I quit.
Only Wes knows.
As far as everyone else is concerned you were recovering from mental and physical exhaustion sustained while solving the Spanish Flu outbreak in Denver.
You spun me into a hero? If it got out my chief scientist quit in the middle of a crisis he created, NORBAC would have been finished.
A tough six weeks.
So Are you back? Yeah.
Good.
Yeah, good.
What were you going to do if I didn't come back? You did.
What's going on? Wow, I missed hearing that from you.
Come here.
Look at this.
A school lunch program in a little Pennsylvania town.
Kids ate chicken poisoned with a prion.
- Oh shit.
- Yeah, three times a week for months.
I remember that whole mad cow disease scare.
Well there's all this research being done on them.
While you were away, Caroline asked me to keep an eye on it.
Lucky you.
They were looking for deteriorating effects of the disease: learning difficulties, physical impairments.
- I think I found something good.
- Something good? What? - Edmund Si at Columbia.
- Yeah, I know Eddie.
Well he improved sea slug memory with prion-like proteins.
Yeah, well he could never get it to work in a rat, let alone a human.
I think it's possible.
I'm listening.
I've found I.
Q.
spikes.
Sudden increases of 15-20 points.
Wow.
So we know there are people who survive the disease, and we know some people die from it, but I think Well I think there's a third group.
Those who thrive get smarter.
If you figure that out it'll be great news for people with dementia.
Alzheimer's, brain injuries.
This is good shit, Mayko.
Where are you going next with this? Well I've read about a British neuroscientist who's been working with people exposed to mad cow.
He's developing out there tests with MRIs.
It's very cool.
- You two should hook up.
- He arrives tomorrow.
What? Nothing.
Good work, Mayko.
Hey Bob - Do you have RNA leader? - I think so.
What are you doing? Killing HIV.
Do you get a perverse pleasure from killing viruses? No.
Hey Did you wish David would stay away forever? Yes.
But not really.
Sometimes I guess.
You? Same.
Thank you.
So the blood is HIV positive and the coroner confirmed it was Sean's blood.
Okay, so what do we do now? We can RT, genotype and sequence this strain of HIV.
What about Audrey, what can we do for her? Nothing just yet.
She doesn't actually have HIV.
But you just said the blood she was infected with has HIV.
I did, but right now it's just free floating in her blood.
Yeah see, it's gonna need a couple weeks before it starts replicating and making a permanent home in her cells.
That's the point of no return, that's infection, when we call her HIV positive.
But HIV's a very weak virus and right now the antiretrovirals are fighting back.
Chances are HIV gives up, disappears altogether.
- And she would never get sick? - Never get sick, never become HIV positive.
- She's lucky in a way.
- Yeah, she's lucky.
Six months pregnant and stabbed with a syringe of HIV.
I wish I was her.
What I meant was 40 million people in the world have HIV or AIDS, and they did not suspect a thing until they were infected.
They did not have the luxury of immediate antiretroviral therapy.
I know.
Let me know what you find.
- What's say you and I get a beer later ? - Sounds good.
You can come too Bob but you need to have a shitty week first.
Okay, I'll get on it.
Let's find out how Sean got infected.
Let's also find out what kind of drugs he's been treated with, - find out how the strain evolved.
- I'll call Africa.
A SAP.
So we finally got a virology lab, eh? Yeah.
You think it's big enough? You signed off on it.
Yeah, but in the model it was only like this big, so Are you being cute with me David? 'cause I'm I'm really not in the mood for cute.
Okay, not cute, I'll need you to run a RT-PCR for HIV on a blood, - Now.
- That'll take until 1 a.
m.
Yes it will.
You got someplace else to be? No.
Jill, I know you're mad at me, but while I was away I thought about a lot of things, and you.
- You thought about me? - Yeah.
- Was I furious in your thoughts? - You're always furious in my thoughts.
- You left us holding the bag.
- I know.
We had a vaccine to design.
Where were you? Oh, a leave of absence apparently.
- Actually - Actually you were walking out the front door.
You bailed on your own lab.
Whatever.
Just leave me to it.
Again.
Carlos no hablas es beer.
- What are you doing? - Give me a pipette.
- Why? - Just hand me a fucking pipette, we'll do the PCR together.
You and me.
Just like old times till 1 A.
M.
Oh what fun.
The devastation, the decimation of society.
I don't think anybody yet understands the full sweep of the carnage of the pandemic.
Death, death of a father, death of a mother, death of an uncle, death of an aunt, death of a friend.
We're just recognizing that we are in one of the most intense human predicaments this world has ever created.
These are 10-year-olds.
Death, country after country.
Namibia, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Masutu, Swaziland, Mozambique.
Country after country.
You don't have the capacity Billions and billions of dollars short I have been free of personal hygiene for almost a week.
My teeth are knitting sweaters.
Not that you care.
Well I'll set up quantitative PCR and we can check the titers in the morning.
You sure? Yeah.
- Thanks.
- Yeah.
David Why don't you sleep in? I'll come in early and check the titer.
Thanks, Jill.
Goodnight boss.
Goodnight.
Nothing Nothing's really changed Carlos.
You know, just try to keep their sores clean and give them an aspirin.
After all those promises, still not enough HIV drugs.
So did Sean say that he got HIV from a needle stick? All he said was it's a new strain.
Right, another one.
And now a woman and her baby halfway across the world are at risk.
Chuck, we're trying to trace back the strain, back before Sean to patient zero.
Sean mentioned he was in Mizuzu three months ago.
Yeah, yeah he came down to my orphanage right after that.
He only He only stayed for a month though.
When he left your clinic, did he say where he was going? So Carlos, how did you know that Sean was working with me here in South Africa? He had the pendant.
You still got yours? You ever miss hands on medicine? Some days yes.
Doing better now, huh? Mostly.
Oh God.
Dear David, I concur.
You need time off.
Hope it'll be fun.
See you in a week.
-- BOB Oh Bob.
Shit! What? We found three different strains in the blood we tested.
Oh, did we screw up? Impossible, we're not working with any other strains of HIV except this one.
Why the anomalies? How much closer are we to finding patient zero? Maybe a comparison of his blood can help us out.
Okay, we're working on it.
Okay, get Mayko to check the sequence against the HIV database.
I'll be right in.
Okay, well it matches nothing in the database.
So what he said is true: a new strain of HIV.
- Can you generate protein structures? - Yeah, already did.
- What are we looking at? - Okay so these are the structures for the three HIV proteins that drugs know how to fight.
Target it here, here and here.
The drugs basically know how to see these pockets - and they click into them.
- Right, they hinder HIV replication, but what about Audrey's strain? Okay, so this is the new reverse transcriptase.
This is what Audrey has.
Sneaky little mutant.
The drugs come across this, they just stroll on by, they can't see any pockets so they don't know where to target.
So the antiretrovirals Audrey's been taking She may as well be on massive doses of macaroni and cheese for all the good they're doing her.
So the drugs I'm taking aren't helping me at all? No, your HIV is still replicating.
Viruses mutate and a drug resistant strain surfaces from time to time.
It's what happens when someone begins a drug regime and then does not complete it.
The virus gets wise and evolves.
It's what we call an escape mutant.
So a new virus, make a new cocktail.
It's not that simple.
We've compared the protein structure of your particular strain with every available HIV drug.
It's predicted to be resistant to all of them.
All of them? I want to explore other options.
- Like what? - Inhibitory RNA.
I want this disease out of me.
Miss Graves You'd be asking us to silence the gene that allows the virus into the cell.
That could prevent other things from getting into the cell, things that you need.
You wouldn't survive the treatment.
But there are some biotech companies already experimenting with RNAis, - why can't you do it? - RNAis would need weeks of preparation and three to five years of testing before we could even dream of giving it to you.
If we did try it right now the RNAi might target other genes say silence the gene that tells your heart to beat.
- It's just not ready for human trials.
- So stem cells.
We are still years away from that option.
So what then? Should I just get on a plane to a lab that will do something for me? There's There's personalized medicine.
I mean there are drugs out there in clinical trials right now doing amazing things.
Some of them even stop the virus before they get into your cells.
They're just not available to the public.
I bet they'd be available to you though.
Well then what? Then we collect every HIV drug on the planet and we mix, match, test, Maybe within a few days come up with the perfect cocktail for you.
But you have to get us those drugs.
Wes, I need you to track down the cell line that best replicates HIV.
Virology at Toronto Hospital? ASAP.
I want them to start infecting cells and culture today.
- Simon? - Mayko Tran! - Finally.
- Yeah, how are you? How was your flight? Quite long, yeah good, good.
- Good.
David, come meet someone.
- All right, Simon Jessup.
So you're the neuroscientist, eh? Awfully jet-lagged but here to assist.
- Well, David Sandstrom.
- All right.
- Is Caroline around? - No, she left with Audrey.
Okay, so do you guys want to go grab a beer and talk - about what we're gonna try to do? - Yeah, maybe you should do you think you can prove this whole I.
Q.
spike thing? If they're there I can locate, verify and quantify, yeah.
Why didn't anybody think about this in the U.
K.
? Well your scientists here thought to look for something good, not just something bad.
I think Dr.
Tran is brilliant.
What? I mean yes, yes she is.
Excuse me for a second.
Bob Can I see you in my office please? A watch from China.
I saw it and I thought, "Bob needs a watch".
Thank you but I already have a watch.
Bob Have a seat.
Have a seat, Bob.
I got your note.
Oh.
"Dear David, I concur, you need time off.
Hope it'll be fun.
See you in a week.
Bob.
" Did you know that there's a big cloud of pollution over Asia right now? It's over three kilometres thick.
It's true.
It's called the Asian brown cloud.
It could kill millions.
Yeah, it goes all the way from Sri Lanka to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal.
- It's huge and it's growing.
- Are you mad at me Bob? - Yes.
- Why? You left me.
I left everything Bob.
But I thought you understood and I thought you'd be coming back, and every day I would open the door and it wasn't you, and it opened again and it wasn't you.
And you didn't come back, and you didn't come back, and you didn't come back, and you didn't I'm sorry.
Just don't do it again.
I won't.
It's a very nice watch, David.
Thank you.
So what was Carlisle like? Rolling hills, pubs on every corner, - I could see Scotland from the garden.
- Hmm, it sounds lovely.
Yeah, if you like wet, miserable boredom.
As soon as I turned 15, I left the farm, moved down to London.
What did you do there? I was in a band.
I didn't go back to school until I was 23, and now I'm Professor Jessup.
Are you ready? We're gonna turn this on.
About time.
Okay - I want you to play close attention.
- Okay.
- All right? - Okay.
You know You don't look like you grew up on a farm.
Okay Mayko Tran, watch this.
This is what's inside your head.
Now watch what your temporal lobe does when I.
- Fuck.
- Right, cool huh? - Yes.
- Yes.
And - And if I may.
- Okay.
Right, nice.
Look, look.
Sound, sight and touch.
You respond very nicely to each.
Okay, well thank you.
I have been a functioning human being my entire life, except for that year that I had mono, that sucked.
Quick, the five things I asked you to remember.
A goat, a starry night, a wizard's cap, the Eiffel tower and Pi AB.
- Pi what? - Area of an ellipse - Farm boy! - Farm boy.
Boy, you're in trouble now.
Sean McPherson.
Yes.
He was? That's great.
As I understand it, he was on a UNICEF jeep heading out of Serowe.
He was there? Yeah Can you no, can you tell me where they got the medical supplies? Okay.
No, thank you very much.
I haven't heard from him since he left South Africa.
This strain has 10,000 times more virus per millilitre - than anything I've ever since before.
- 10,000? Have you heard anyone talk about something like that? No, not at all.
So what are you gonna do now? I'm trying to find a cocktail that would fight it and still trace Sean back to patient zero, but If there's anything new you can give me, don't hesitate to call.
Yeah, absolutely, and I will ask around, see if anyone knows anything.
Thank you my friend.
- Anything? - No.
The kid moved around a lot.
He was at a clinic at Kasama, Zambia about a month ago.
He wasn't sick when he was there, and they have never ever seen the strain that we found.
Do they know where he went when he left? No.
So we lost him.
Shit.
- David.
- What's the matter? We've been infecting the cells The cells, and the - The culture the - Bob.
Bob.
We've been infecting the cells in culture with Audrey's HIV.
Yeah.
Bob, what's the matter? Just would you just wait.
Stop for one second.
What the hell is wrong with you? She's sitting in the hospital David, she's six months pregnant and she has no one.
And now you're telling me the baby's at risk? No, I'm telling you she needs to have her baby out right away.
Well what happened? You said the baby's protected in the womb, that the disease doesn't cross the placenta.
What I was trying to explain to you is that this strain is so virulent Audrey could progress to full blown AIDS before the fetus is full term, okay? Which means the baby's chances of contracting HIV perinatally, have increased too.
He's too young to be born.
- How many weeks gestation? - Twenty-six.
Caroline, he'll be tiny yes.
And he'll be weak, no question, but he'll have a chance.
At this point his only chance.
Sean's dad just sent us these pictures.
These could be anywhere in Africa.
- So we're no further ahead? - Hey, how's it going? We contacted lots of different places on the continent.
We cannot find one single clinic that treated Sean or anybody else with this strain of HIV.
Do you know if patient zero is male or female? I don't know.
- Was Sean a nurse? - A volunteer.
Okay, so he didn't touch needles.
My bet is he got HIV from sex.
Was he gay or straight? - I don't know.
- Ask his parents.
How are you doing? I've started a personalized medicine.
We're prepping Audrey for a bloodless C-section tonight.
I'm just really scared.
Oh, to you and the baby, it's gonna be okay.
All right.
We all set? What do you say? Can you stay with me? Sure.
So we sorted and combined and recombined all of the available drugs commonly used for HIV and all the ones in clinical trials, - and we end up with this.
- 141 combinations, Good.
Okay.
- Let's do drugs.
- Okay.
Bob Now it is.
What's the smoke for? They're cauterizing blood vessels as they go, making sure your blood doesn't contact the baby on his way out.
- What's happening? - He's almost here Audrey.
So why did you decide to name him Richard? - Is it after somebody? - Tissue clamp.
- My father was Richard.
- Yeah? Your father had a good name.
Where did you grow up? Audrey, look at me.
Where did you grow up? All over the world.
I was an army brat.
Yeah? Me too, I grew up all over the world.
No army though, I was just your average annoying brat.
There we go, we got you.
Just a little bleeding, they're getting it under control now.
Why isn't he crying? He's too small to cry: underdeveloped lungs.
I want to see him.
You will.
They need to run some tests first.
I need to hold him.
I need to hold him! A hundred and forty fucking flasks.
- A hundred and forty-one.
- Not a single goddamn taker.
Well there's one that slows the virus down a little more than the others.
But not enough to stop it from replicating.
- What drugs are in it? - It doesn't matter.
***-457 Tenofovir.
All this work and the best we can come up is something that has no effect at all.
Thank you.
I just talked to Sean's parents.
If he was gay, they weren't aware of it.
Gay or straight in Africa a vast majority of the cases are transmitted heterosexually.
More than fifty percent of the victims are women, so.
Is there anything else I can do for you? We need to find patient zero.
If not we're going to a completely untreatable strain on our hands.
- The drug cocktail's not working? - Nothing.
How's the baby doing? I think we'll know more later.
Two million Africans die every year of AIDS.
It's the worst plague in human history and it's beating us.
You know, the Pope thinks that millions are dying in Africa because of a pathology of the spirit.
He should try telling that to 20,000 kids in Bulawayo.
That's fucking sick.
Yes it is.
There's no way I'm going home tonight I'm finding my way to your bed instead As the room spins below us I see the books that you said you'd read Do you have the results of the baby's test? What is it? Richard Grave's CD4 count.
- Oh no.
- HIV.
Oh shit.
None? Not one? No, not that it would have helped her anyway.
What do you mean? I had a look at the results of her blood tests.
She's She's progressed to infection.
She's HIV positive.
And Richard, what about him? I can't sleep Turn up the dark I've seen so much that I've seen it all before Turn up the dark I've seen so much that I've seen it all before There are so many hours in our day And we fill it all with liquor And reading clever things to say Next on ReGenesis You think can stop HIV with aspirin? - Maybe, maybe.
- It's crazy.
We have to let the drugs work for 12 hours.
Bob, it's going 12 hours and minus what, ten big fat minutes? I'm checking the dishes.
Hello I'm Principal Oakley.
I understand you may have some good news for us.
We'll know more when we've done a few tests.
- It helps if you wear a magic hat.
- An electroencephalogram helmet.
Ruby ate all that infected chicken.
We need answers, please.
Does she have a previously registered I.
Q.
increase? - Yeah.
- Exhume the body.
So I should just throw the dice with my son's life? With this strain of HIV, we have no time.
- Carlos, what's going on? - I have to go back to Africa, David.
There are There are people dying there.
They need me.
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