The lab smelled of growing things.
That was the first thing she noticed when Dr. Anita Krishnamurthy walked her through it — the faint organic smell of tissue in culture, of protein solutions and growth medium, of cells doing what cells did when given the conditions to do it. After twelve years of ORs that smelled of antiseptic and climate control, the smell of growing things struck her as the most optimistic smell she had ever encountered.
Dr. Krishnamurthy was showing her the vascular replication work. On a screen, a three-dimensional rendering of a synthetic liver's vascular tree — the branching structure that, in current BioForge models, was too regular, too mathematically precise, the thing that Priya had been able to feel with her hands for twelve years. The thing that made the rich pay fourteen crore rupees for a real one.
"We introduced a stochastic variation algorithm into the growth matrix eighteen months ago," Krishnamurthy said. "Random variation within biological parameters. Controlled irregularity." She pulled up a comparison: two rendered vascular trees side by side. The left one — BioForge Series 7 — was beautiful and regular. The right one was beautiful and irregular, branching with the same controlled randomness as a real tree in a real wind.
"It looks natural," Priya said.
"More than looks. The rejection rate in animal trials is one point two percent over twelve months. That's lower than natural organ transplants." Krishnamurthy said it with the contained delight of a scientist who has found a result better than they were looking for. "The controlled irregularity is actually better matched to the host vascular system than the real organ is. Our synthetic adapts to the host's exact parameters."
"When can you go to human trials?"
"Ethics clearance for phase one. First trials in three months." She looked at Priya. "We'd want you in the OR for the first case. Your hands will tell us things the sensors won't."
Priya looked at the two vascular trees on the screen. The regular one and the irregular one. The one that the rich had paid people from slums to die for, and the one that would make that payment meaningless — that would close the clinical gap that had provided the thin medical cover for the luxury preference that had been the engine of the Provenance Service.
It was not justice. Justice for the hundred and nine was moving through courts. Rao had received four years, reduced to eighteen months served on appeal by lawyers who were very good at their jobs. It was not enough and it was also what the system had produced.
