A small but ambitious start-up biolab in Nelson is expanding into a larger facility, raising questions of concern to the community.
Kimer Med started up in August 2020 and moved into its current lab in 2022. The six staff are excited about moving into their new premises – a former seafood-processing factory that is being fitted out as a PC2 lab – and they are advertising one job for a second biomedical research scientist.
PC2 (Physical Containment Level 2) is the second-least stringent in the four categories of containment labs, designed for research that is being carried out on potentially dangerous organisms. According to MPI, New Zealand has “many” PC1 and PC2 labs and “a handful” of PC3 ones. By international standards, PC2 labs can be used for research on pathogens that are considered low risk, such as salmonella and influenza. They can also be used for GMO research.
The work currently being undertaken by Kimer Med is on DRACO broad-spectrum antiviral therapeutics. DRACO (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer) technology was developed by Todd Rider at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology around 14 years ago (see research paper here) and was initially hailed as a great breakthrough in medicine until he abandoned it for undisclosed reasons. Rider’s research used cell lines from mice, a monkey, a cocker spaniel, a woman with cancer and a sub-cell line of HEK-293 (from a baby aborted in the 1970s).
Now Kimer Med has taken up the project, under the leadership of Rick Kiessig, an entrepreneur who has worked for NASA and had a consultancy in Silicon Valley. His team is working on drugs to combat dengue, Zika, influenza and other viral diseases. Their website announces that they have “achieved success against more than 19 different viruses” in trials, and “confirmed efficacy and safety”. Funding is coming partially from private investors, topping up a grant from the New Zealand Government through Callaghan Innovation. The company has also secured a lucrative contract funded by the US Department of Defense.
Kimer Med’s website proudly proclaims that their vision is “to end viral disease” by developing broad-spectrum antiviral drugs that can be ready for immediate use in a disease outbreak. Whether this is a serious goal or mere rhetorical flourish is difficult to ascertain. Nevertheless, it provides a striking illustration of the deeply humanistic and rationalistic basis of modern science. “Ending viral disease” is a project that fits neatly into a worldview in which God is not acknowledged and nature is not respected, in which man autonomously decides what he wants and, with supreme self-confidence, goes about to impose his will on his surroundings.
Who made it anyone’s business to eliminate viruses? What would happen if we did? Chemical medicines may reduce the symptoms of disease, but do they make people more healthy and well? A few simple statistics point to an answer to the last question: Americans today are the most-medicated population on earth and the most unhealthy. According to their newly-appointed Secretary for Health and Human Services, they are the sickest people in recorded history.
More immediate questions spring to mind. Were the people of Nelson asked if they wanted this kind of research carried out on their doorstep? Do they even know that work is being done in their community on dengue, Zika virus and other dangerous pathogens, which at present are not in circulation in New Zealand? And if the Gene Technology Bill is passed by parliament, will this or other PC2 labs be primed and ready to start working on GMOs, also without the public’s knowledge or comment?
Too many questions: not enough answers.
