Leaving the Pharm

LEAVING THE PHARM is a mix of high seriousness and prankish vandalism. That is, protagonist Travis Belknap, a pharmacology PhD candidate at UCLA, can question the ethics of the genome editing tools he studies while also having “pulp novel” escapades like stench-bombing a marijuana dispensary.That Travis is not the typical graduate school grind owes much to two friends he acquires: Rizwan Habeeb is a Muslim ex-convict who works as a bicycle mechanic. Rizwan, in turn, introduces Travis to Zara York, who works at McDonald''s. A Christian anarchist, she mostly tags businesses she believes corrupt society while mocking her Christian values. These two friends of faith influence Travis, helping him see how biotech tools increasingly violate boundaries by manipulating Nature, or what they call God''s—or Allah’s—handiwork.How will Travis find his passion in a field increasingly abandoning its botanical beginnings with plants and herbs for an omnipotent, digitized world of drug design in silico on computer screens?