Translation

Interview

Aan : Step-sister
Door : Lianca van der Merwe en Glendys Hoepelman

Lianca van der Merwe
I know you work with vaccines but what field to you work in again?

Step-sister
I work in the field of biochemistry.

Lianca van der Merwe
I thought you studied sport something

Step-sister
Yea, sport science.

Lianca van der Merwe
Ooo, and that is also biochemistry?

Step-sister
Biochemistry is the combination of biology and chemistry, I studied how human bodies respond to medicine. But I’m not doing experiments anymore. I am now just a project leader, but I have a team of biochemist that work under me.

Lianca van der Merwe
OK, so you just manage the people now. Hand like how big are your teams?

Step-sister
I have 4 teams of 6 people reporting to me. It’s quite hard taking over this role. I’m not sure what exactly happened under the previous management, but the team wasn’t trained properly and now they make a lot of mistakes. The environment I work in is highly regulated and each time my team makes a mistake, I have to do a lot of paperwork to explain where the problems come from. It’s very stressful for me and my team is thoroughly demoralized.

Glendys Hoepleman
Have you tried team building something or taking them out to bond or whatever?

Step-sister
The company has made a budget available for that, yes. But we have a massive backlog of work and since I am new I’m still trying to figure everything out too. It’s also hard to speak to my team sometimes.

Glendys Hoepleman
Because of the cultural or corporate differences between, Dutch, American and South Africa?

Step-sister
No because my teams work in a sterile environment so it’s very difficult for me to go into the room where they work. It’s a mission and I have to follow this whole process to get in there. The supervisors should be on top of things but often they don’t go in the rooms either. I have now started forcing the supervisors to go in once a day.

Lianca van der Merwe
Wait, so the team has no supervision all day, no wonder they mess up.

Step-sister
No, there is a team leader, but he doesn’t say anything when things start going wrong and he doesn’t ask for advice.

Glendys Hoepleman
So why doesn’t he get in trouble? Why do you always get in trouble?

Step-sister
I have started coming down harder on them these days. But that also antagonizes them. It’s pretty hard at the moment. The company is pretty cool though and I like the offices.

Lianca van der Merwe
What do medicine companies look like. I imagine white sterile halls. Something like ‘One flew over the cookoo’s nest’

Step-sister
No not like that. We have offices of course but also massive labs.

Lianca van der Merwe
Oo, labs sound cool. I don’t remember ever really being in a lab.

Step-sister
Yea, my job is pretty cool. We grow the cultures and cells to make medicine in there.

Glendys Hoepleman
So there are like petri dishes everywhere.

Step-sister
No, those are just for experiments. We grow the cells and cultures in massive containers.

Lianca van der Merwe
Wow, that sounds amazing! Can I come have a look one day?

Step-sister
Unfortunately, not. Like I said it is a highly regulated environment. At my previous job I was part of the crew that monitored the cells 24/7. I had this alarm connected to my phone that would send a message when something went wrong.

Glendys Hoepleman
So sometimes the cells just die?

Step-sister
Naw, they don’t always die. The cells are very temperamental. Sometimes they change color, sometimes they get weak and then strong again but, yeah, sometimes they just die. The alarm on my phone would go off sometimes in the middle of the night, and then I would need to go to the lab. But sometimes nothing had happened or it was something stupid like the printer ran out of ink.

Lianca van der Merwe
That’s annoying. So what cells are you growing exactly?

Step-sister
The cells that we were using, is called the hybridoma cell line. So it's a hybrid between the spleen cell from a mouse, because the spleen is the part of your body that makes antibodies. But the spleen cells die quickly. So they managed to fuse it with the tumor cells, which is like immortal. So it's like a hybrid cell that lives wherever and keeps making antibodies.

Glendys Hoepleman
So the tumor doesn't die and what is the other one that they use? The spleen cells? And why do you use the spleen cells specifically?

Step-sister
Because it's the part of your body that is part of your immune system and makes antibodies.

Lianca van der Merwe
Aaaa, my knowledge of biology is almost nothing, so this is fascinating.

Step-sister
Yes, it's pretty cool. It's also a little bit controversial because the tumor cell line that they use to make these immortal cells was like harvested from a cancer patient a long time ago and they never told her. So, the whole science is based on using these cells from one specific person.

Lianca van der Merwe
But doesn't that like sort of corrupt the data?

Step-sister
No it doesn't. The only purpose of that is that you want the cell to be immortal. it doesn't affect the way way that we use it.

Lianca van der Merwe
But it's only from the one person what if other people's cells react differently?

Step-sister
No, but because it's a fusion the other have of the cell is making the antibody. They fuse it with different spleens, they fuse it with cells that create different kinds of antibodies. Byt the tumour cell is just to make the cell immortal.

Glendys Hoepleman
So, this lady that you harvested the tumor from....

Naomi
We didn't. Someone in science did it.

Glendys Hoepleman
And you never told her.

Step-sister
No one ever told her.

Lianca
But she is probably dead now. How long ago was it?

Step-sister
I don't know.

Glendys Hoepleman
So, it's controversial just because she doesn't know that she was a test subject.

Step-sister
Because they are using her body for science and no one ever really got her permission.

Glendys Hoepleman
Were the cells like harvested in an unethical way? Because they did a lot of weird studies on people way back in the day.

Step-sister
Maybe, I think that they probably harvested the cells and told her they were investigating that and I think that they probably didn't intend to use it but, well.

Glendys Hoepleman
I guess the only thing that can happen is her family can claim like compensation somehow or royalties. Ha, exactly. Royalties on DNA. That's gonna be a thing in the future.

Step-sister
Probably

Lianca van der Merwe
I like all the stem cell research. I have all these crazy like face mask products from Japan that's using stem cells. It's really good. Makes your skin look like a baby’s. I've been using face serum with stem cells from apples and fruits and stuff for years. Like the enzymes from that, I don't know how the technology works of course.

Step-sister
I actually have a friend in South Africa who I worked together with in the beginning when I started working. She has a PhD in some biological science and she eventually brought out like a whole like skincare range. She's making a shitload of money.

Lianca van der Merwe
I think there's a lot of money and the beauty industry is actually kind of funny because what was someone saying? Like a lot of the products, the way they are developed, that don7t have such a huge impact because they can only be used externally. They don't actually make as many changes as we think. Like if it was something internal or like hardcore science…someone explained it to me once but now I don't remember what he said. But he was just like beauty products are a scam.

Step-sister
To some degree because they can only affect change on the superficial layer of your skin.

Lianca van der Merwe
They can’t sell them over the counter as soon as they actually, I guess like, penetrate or have a molecular effect.