We're up early this morning. We both woke at about 6 and it seemed a good idea to have a cup of coffee, so here we are. I have an appointment in Launceston just after 9. We've become used to having our meetings with doctors and so on here in Longford. but today I have to have my annual assessment by the Podiatrist. Apparently, she needs a particular machine which is too big to fit in the back of her car.
Marilyn says she'll come with me for a drive. When you're retired and people make every effort to bring their services to your door, it's a pleasure to get out into the wider world from time to time. We might even pop into Coles on the way home. We haven't been in a supermarket for months. Oh, the joy!
I don't know what inspired today's story but here it is.
THE WAY AHEAD NOVEMBER 27, 2020
Murray had done very well at school and his teachers all noted that he could have chosen any career for himself and been successful. He was quite keen to stay in education, perhaps at a University level, but everyone sniggered at that idea. “You have a gift, son. Don’t throw it away on trying to teach some ungrateful spotty adolescents,” said his father.
There was encouragement for him to look at something in finance; an assured way of earning some serious money was to keep it close to you, but everything changed on the night of his High School Graduation where the Guest Speaker was Professor Fiona Stanley. One sentence in her address caught his attention: "In my dreams I would sail out to all the undiscovered islands and inoculate the inhabitants in a whirlwind race to conquer disease and pestilence."
It was as if a switch had been thrown in his brain and Murray knew, without any doubt, that his life’s work would be in the field of Medical Research. He often thought about that ‘lightbulb moment’, many years later, as he struggled in his laboratory with the routine and mundane tasks which took up so much of his time. In his youthful innocence he had seen himself finding a cure for childhood leukemia or an elixir to slow down the aging process but, after all these years he had not worked on anything more significant than a treatment for male impotence.
He tried hard not to show his excitement when, in 2020, a virulent strain of an acute respiratory disease started to make its presence felt. As the seriousness of this new COVID-19 became apparent, the resources of the medical world were galvanised into seeking a cure. “Forget what you’re doing,” said his boss. “Covid-19 is the only game in town and the laboratory which develops the first vaccine will have their future assured.”
Murray knew that the tiny laboratory where he worked didn’t have access to the same resources as the big players in the US and Europe but great discoveries of the past had often occurred in very simple settings. Murray thought of the mould on Alexander Fleming’s windowsill at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington; the genius, he thought, is in recognising the significance of the discovery, rather than the discovery itself. There is no reason, he told himself, that I can’t be the one to discover the next penicillin.
He threw himself into his work with his typical passion and each night, after a day in the laboratory, he spent hours on the internet, chatting with fellow-researchers across the world. The big pharmaceutical companies were very reluctant to talk about their progress, of course. After all, there will be an enormous profit to be made by the first company to get their vaccine on to the market but there were enough individual researchers out there with an altruistic belief in the common good to make Murray’s evenings worthwhile.
Each night, he would fall into bed for a few hours’ sleep and not once did he lose heart. Every little step forward excited him and gradually the way ahead started to become clear in his mind. He started to wonder whether the answer would really be found in focusing on the vascular and respiratory aspects of the illness. The virus certainly attacked those areas but was it just too obvious that these were the areas which deserved most attention?
Over time, a new approach started to develop in his imagination. It was as if his thoughts were being controlled by other intelligences. He shared his ideas with close confidants across the globe and many of them offered their support and gradually an international team was established.
From the beginning, Murray was determined that, if the vaccine were to be worthwhile it had to be administered orally or through a nasal spray so that it could be available to the most remote areas of the world. His passion was infectious and things happened quickly: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation heard about the project and have promised funding, the World Health Organisation has agreed to conduct the testing regime and Rotary International will coordinate the roll-out in third world countries as they did in the program to eradicate Polio. Yes, the poor of the world will get the new vaccine first and the US and European billionaires who thought that, as usual, they would have priority will have to wait their turn.
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