"Revelations"

[Aidan Driscol 0]

"Revelations"

A Log by Midshipman Aidan Driscol

 

 

After the research he and Shadow had conducted Aidan went into the lab and checked on his experiments on the virus. The results were due soon and he hoped he would have something to show for.

 

He started to pace in front of the experiments. When he realised what he was doing he chuckled, basically he was doing the same he used to do with his various ex girlfriends when they couldn't get ready in time. It had always been five more minutes to quickly change the shoes which then had led to another 5 more minutes because now the shirt didn't fit with the shoes anymore. He was patient, he just hated waiting for things when there were deadlines to meet or appointments to keep. And he sure had done a lot of pacing lately.

 

In a corner an apparatus started to beep which meant he would finally be able to obtain accurate readings and interpret them accordingly. Aidan walked over to the beeping apparatus and tapped away on its console firstly to turn off that annoying beeping and secondly to draw up the readings on the monitor.

 

When he studied the results he felt how his heart started to beat faster right after skipping a beat and he got a strange feeling in his stomach. The implications of what he saw before him were... well, he didn't quite know what they were or would turn out to be. It all depended on how quickly they could find a cure.

 

But he now had the answer to the question how the virus changed the DNA of the organism it infected. Usually a virus would carry its own DNA or RNA plasmid which it then 'injected' into a cell and either have it replicated by the cell's enzymes immediately until the cell basically burst and released heaps of virus offspring. Or it injected its genetic material and 'inserted' it in the host cell's DNA where it remained dormant and got replicated along with everything else during cell divisions until at some point the virus decided it was time to strike and it started replicating its DNA again until the cell burst. Either way, the genome wasn't really altered and the host cells had to die sooner or later.

 

This virus however didn't carry a plasmid it simply carried short strands of DNA. Just to be 100% certain Aidan looked up what these short segments of DNA encoded. There were five different segments which occurred over and over again. He had no doubt what two of them were. One was a start sequence which basically was the 'on' switch for genes and the other was a stop sequence, the 'off' switch. That's how the enzymes 'reading' the DNA for protein synthesis knew where to start and where to stop reading. And when Aidan saw what the other sequences encoded it all fell into place. They encoded restriction enzymes which are used in the cell to 'cut' DNA strands and a different kind of enzyme that 'glues' it back together.

 

Aidan got an empty PADD and quickly noted down all his findings and then put the same information on three more PADDs. One he would keep, one would go to the Doc, one to the Chief and one to the Colonels. He would first go to sickbay and share his results with Doctor Tordai and then try to get a hold of Chief Condacin who would then inform the Colonels.

 

As soon as he was done he rushed out of Science and stopped shortly at the nearest replicator on his way to sickbay. She had said no coffee but maybe she'd change her mind once a steaming mug was standing in front of her... (to be continued)