Crying Exes and Cellular Regeneration

"Roshi, it's just a contract to appease my family's investors. My heart is yours!" Kavadh pleaded, striking a tragic pose that belonged in a cheap theater. I adjusted my safety goggles, mortified by his public shouting. I had just returned from a brutal five-year surgical residency in the frozen northern colonies to strike a vital funding deal for my bio-aether lab, only to find my supposed true love parading around with a weeping stand-in. Instead of throwing a dramatic tantrum like a proper scorned woman, I handed back his ring, asked him to please step off my centrifuge's power cable, and returned to my cell cultures. I don't have time for a man who treats romance like a hostage negotiation; I have the Simurgh Laureate to win. To secure my funding, I'm forced to share a laboratory with Behrouz Jahandar, my obnoxiously brilliant and infuriatingly handsome academic rival. As Kavadh spirals into obsessive regret - realizing he tossed away a diamond for a pebble - I'm too busy dodging falsified data to care. But when my sweetest, most trusted lab manager turns out to be playing all sides to steal my magnum opus, will my stubbornness be enough to survive the brutal world of peer review?