159
FEEDBACK [email protected] FORTUNE.COM // JUNE .1 .19
In one darkened lab room in the bowels
of the 330,000-square-foot facility,
“Tommy’s dancing molecules” are getting
zapped with laser light in a high-powered
microscope. Appearing as zigzagging dots
across a black display, the molecules are
RAS proteins inside of cancer cells. Muta-
tions of the gene that encodes the instruc-
tions for making the protein are at the root
of 30% of all human cancers. “Tommy” is
Tommy Turbyville. A scientist working for
Leidos, he is trying to figure out if there’s a
way to directly target the mutant proteins,
which cause some of the deadliest forms of
the disease, including cancer in the pan-
creas, colon, and lungs. The discovery of a
drug that inhibits RAS could save millions
of lives, but the private sector, which has
come up empty after 30 years, has largely
given up pursuing it on its own.
With a trim white beard and black
glasses, and wearing jeans under his lab
coat, Turbyville is full of energy as he
bounds across the lab to explain that by
tracking the dancing molecules, measuring
their speed, and creating computer models
for how they move, the project aims to
uncover new vulnerabilities in mutant
RAS that could be attacked with drugs. In
another part of the lab, a $1 million robotic
setup is injecting different compounds into
test plates of RAS proteins.
Leidos scientists also operate a $7 mil-
lion cryo-electron microscope that cancer
researchers all over the country can use for
free. Another project is focused on finding
a way to lower the required dosage—and
cost—of administering the HPV vaccine.
“It’s the perfect example of what a
national lab should be doing,” says Len
Freedman, chief scientist at Leidos’s
biomedical research subsidiary. “RAS is
behind some of the most common cancers,
but despite thunderous efforts, nobody
has gotten close to [designing] an inhibi-
tor.” Still, the lab’s efforts are starting to
bear fruit. Clinical trials for humans are
starting this year for several promising
drugs to address some RAS-related cancers, though it’s unknown
whether the trials will succeed.B
ACK IN SAN DIEGO, SEA HUNTER spends most of its time
these days in dock, going out to test new tweaks to its
hardware and software about once a month. In person,
the ship is larger than it looks in pictures—nearly half
the length of a football field—and more fierce, with its two pointed
outriggers and sharp bow. There’s a small plastic “good luck” hula
girl in the cockpit but almost no other human touches. Visitors
without clearance aren’t allowed to see what’s below deck, al-
though it’s obviously not crew quarters. “That’s where the unob-
tainium time machine is,” CEO Krone jokes later.
The biggest threat to the ship these days is the occasional loaf-
ing sea lion that clambers onto one of the outriggers and won’t be
moved. “You just have to wait until they get off,” says Cook, smiling
in the California sunshine, while giant destroyers and cargo ships
ply the blue waters of the bay and cruise past the famed Point
Loma Lighthouse nearby.A CLOSER LOOK
From lef t: A scientist at the Leidos-run
National Cryo-Electron Microscopy Facility;
it houses a $7 million microscope used
in cancer research.