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David E. Shaw

The realization struck upon meeting non-fiction author, Cathy Lazere, co-author of Natural Computing: DNA, Quantum Bits and the Future of Smart Machines.

Cathy and I discovered that we had each written about people leading two lives. My character Jude Wagner works in computational biology and law enforcement to fight cancer. The real world David Shaw, she said, made billions on Wall Street. Like Wagner, Shaw had close relatives who died from cancer and devoted his wealth and intellect to develop life-saving drugs.

My friend’s book was recently reviewed in the Wall Street Journal. Here’s a snippet:
“Shaw thought protein dynamics problems provided a good fit for his interests and his background in developing novel machine architectures,” the authors write. “He had a personal interest as well: his mother, father and sister all died of cancer.” Mr. Shaw hoped that he could design a computational tool that would “someday be used to develop life-saving drugs.”

Wall Street Journal article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704682604575368383568123848.html?mod=WSJ_Books_LS_Books_5

To protect the Stanford Grid, I join forces with the San Francisco FBI. They just want me studying electronic surveillance to safeguard the project.

But nothing is simple and we all have our own agendas. The boss thinks I’m a defiant son-of-a-bitch, he doesn’t want me looking into the deaths of my former colleagues and I sense jealousy for my relationship with Special Agent Nathalie Noiret who says I smell different from the other agents who eat and sleep ambition and nerves. Apparently, her fellow feds reek of Mennen deodorant and coffee while I smell of sweat and purpose.