godfather of surgery

Chapter 1079 Funding is not a problem
After the new plan was determined, everyone started to get busy again. There are now two routes for tumor treatment, and a third route or even more routes may be opened in the future.

As long as manpower and funds can afford it, it is most reliable to max out every possible technology tree and then make choices based on the circumstances later.

The path of combining scientific research with clinical practice is getting wider and wider. Yang Ping is very satisfied with his decision. Without strong scientific research capabilities, Sisi's treatment can only go around in circles with the old methods, like entering a dead end, with no hope at all. With strong scientific research as support, Yang Ping can study new methods to solve problems and then promote some medical technology innovations.

Yang Ping felt that Tang Shun was right. Cell therapy has a bright future and it will develop into a huge system. Stem cells are just a branch of cell therapy, so Yang Ping decided to expand the stem cell experiment and upgrade it to a cell therapy room. For the time being, he just changed the sign, and in the future he would expand the talent team and laboratory space.

In the future, Sanbo Laboratory will need an entire building, or even several buildings, instead of being confined to these few floors. Yang Ping calculated the space that can still be used in the Institute of Surgery. If it continues to develop in this way, the space here will soon be used up.

The cell therapy laboratory is about to establish a ward to apply research results to clinical practice. For example, CAR-T cell therapy, which costs 1.2 million per injection, will be carried out. In the future, CAR-NK cell therapy will also be carried out, as well as the K-NK cell therapy that is currently being tested.

Once the clinical ward for cell therapy is established, the stem cell therapy ward will also need at least one floor, because the patients who can afford stem cells are either rich or noble, so the ward conditions cannot be too shabby, at least single rooms should be provided. Other cell therapies also need one floor. So the cell therapy side needs three floors, and three floors are still quite tight. One floor for the tumor laboratory, one floor for the surgical ward, one floor for the independent ICU that will be opened soon, one floor for the operating room, and one floor for the outpatient department. With this calculation, eight floors have been fully utilized, and it seems very tight. Because one floor in the surgical ward is definitely not enough, it is already very tight. In the future, with the increase of interns, doctoral students, and master's students, it will be necessary to set up a separate floor as a teaching area, otherwise everyone will be crowded in the ward, and the space will be very tight.

This is just the initial development. This building is definitely not enough. Yang Ping immediately reported his needs to Dean Xia, hoping to find a piece of land in the hospital to open up a new area dedicated to the laboratory. Separating the surgical research institute from the laboratory will give it more space.

These things were already in the plan of Dean Xia. There was still a lot of land that could be developed in Sanbo Hospital, and Dean Xia had already planned an area specifically for the laboratory. Even if the hospital didn't have land now, he only needed to report to the higher-ups, and soon they would grant him a piece of land.

As for the money, with the current status of Sanbo Hospital, no matter how much money is not a problem. After being the dean for so many years, this is the first time that Dean Xia is not worried about money. In the past, he always went out every few days for money, and even drank until his stomach bled, but he only made a little money. Now, as long as he reports it, the money will be deposited immediately.

Dean Xia has done a lot of things as the dean over the years, but he has never sought personal gain. He is strong without desires, so he is not afraid of anything and dares to do anything. Because he has no handle, he will not hesitate to do things. For some unreasonable things, he dares to speak up and argue with his subordinates and superiors.

Dean Xia has also been thinking about the expansion of the hospital recently. Once cell therapy develops, the scale of the oncology department will definitely expand, and then the tumor surgery department will also expand. The surgical research institute can not be expanded now due to staffing issues. If it were to expand, it would probably have expanded several times its current size.

Now Sanbo Hospital is expanding slowly and in a controlled manner, and the quality must be guaranteed during the expansion. The bigger the hospital is, the better it is. When a hospital develops to a certain level, it needs to focus on some cutting-edge technologies, rather than trying to steal jobs from grassroots hospitals. In that case, no matter how big the hospital is, it will be meaningless. It will just squeeze out grassroots hospitals and take the source of disease from grassroots hospitals to yourself. Such a large scale is meaningless. There was originally a dense forest, but now a tree absorbs all the nutrients in order to grow taller. The whole forest will eventually die. What is the meaning of this lonely tree?

Therefore, Sanbo Hospital is very cautious about expanding its scale. It will not expand blindly and meaninglessly. It will become strong first and then big. It is not about being big but not strong, but about becoming powerful.
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After adding more plans, the researchers in the laboratory would logically feel frustrated, because the original experiment had encountered difficulties and now they need to change their thinking, which will increase the workload, and the future of the new plan is still unclear.

But now, the researchers in several laboratories are not only not depressed, but are very excited, because the K virus treatment research has achieved a success from 0 to 1, which is groundbreaking. Not to mention that there was such a high tumor elimination rate before, even if it is lower, as long as it is not zero, it is a success.

The virus laboratory of Nandu Medical University used to play a purely supporting and marginal role, but now it has transformed into a leader, because Yang Ping has delegated this project to them. It would be strange if they were not excited.

Lu Xiaolu's tumor laboratory was originally only responsible for the K virus treatment project. Now, they are the leaders in both K virus treatment and NK cell treatment. One team is simultaneously spanning two of the world's top projects. How can they not be excited?

The stem cell experiment has not only received the topic of NK cell therapy, but has also been upgraded to a cell therapy laboratory. The research scope has expanded several times. Subsequently, the personnel, funds and experimental sites will also expand several times. Tang Shun's team will probably wake up laughing in their dreams for many days and nights.

Researchers in several laboratories follow big bosses like Yang Ping. They have projects, funds, and equipment, and they are all provided in large quantities. Which one of them is not happy and excited? In the past, it took a lot of effort to apply for a project, and in the end, the funds were tight, and there was no guarantee that there would be any results. Now, the world's top projects are easy to come by, and the results are successful as soon as they are announced. There are also journals for publishing articles. Such scientific research conditions are hard to find anywhere in the world.

The road of this project is getting wider and wider. Yang Ping has a clear idea of ​​the whole project in his mind. He will build a project system with K factor as the core. This K factor is very special as a cytokine. It has not been found in the human body before. This time, it was also discovered when culturing Sisi's tumor cells. The discovery process is actually worth thinking about. Maybe we can use the process to study a method to create or discover new cytokines.

The human body has endless mysteries. Current biomedical science has only figured out a small part of it, and there is still a lot of unknown territory. This has aroused Yang Ping's great curiosity.

K factor was discovered by Yang Ping by accident. When analyzing the components of the culture medium of Sisi tumor cells in vitro, he found some protein molecules that were not found in the mother solution. This protein macromolecule was K factor. Later, many tumor cells died automatically. After analysis, it was found that it was this K factor that initiated the apoptosis program of tumor cells. This discovery is in line with the traditional wisdom that "there must be an antidote within five steps."

Yang Ping decided to study the discovery process of factor K as a research topic. He wanted to know why factor K appeared when tumor cells were cultured in vitro. If he could crack the mystery, it would open a door to a new world.
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Embedding K factor into NK cells is a genetic engineering job, so Yang Ping handed it over to the genetics laboratory of Nandu Medical University. They have advanced gene recombination technology. These projects of Yang Ping will drive the entire laboratory of Nandu Medical University and directly bring it to the world's top academic level.

The structure of K factor is very special. From the analysis of its gene sequence, it is a combination of antigen receptor structure, cytokine structure, and protein molecule structure suitable for cell armor. Antigen receptors are responsible for identifying tumor cells, while special cytokines are responsible for initiating the apoptosis program of tumor cells. It contains molecules similar to perforin and granzyme, but its effect is many times that of perforin and granzyme, so it can play a role both outside the cell and inside the cell.

Yang Ping was wondering if when the tumor cells were being cultured, immune cells and various immune factors were mixed into the specimen, and they combined in some way in the special culture environment to form the current K factor.

If so, Yang Ping formed a new idea, can the K factor be split? The antigen receptor part is embedded as an antigen on the surface of NK cells, responsible for identifying tumor cells. The factors that can kill tumor cells are embedded in granzymes and perforins, allowing them to be released and enter tumor cells. Protein molecules with cell armor factor effects are also embedded on the cell surface. "

Yang Ping feels that this is the only way to make it work. Otherwise, the entire cell surface will not be able to play any role, and the factors that can kill tumor cells cannot be released. Then the NK cells only obtain cell armor and antigen receptors, and their combat effectiveness is greatly weakened.

Such NK cells are perfect in theory. Under the guidance of antigen receptors, the factors that can kill tumor cells penetrate tumor cells, enter the interior of tumor cells, and complete the task of hunting tumor cells. Yang Ping discovered a very interesting phenomenon. The combination of K factor and NK cells is so perfect that it easily breaks through the many difficulties currently faced by NK cell therapy. K factor is simply a partner tailor-made for NK cells.

Yang Ping spent almost 100 paintings and envisioned more than 100 possible combinations, and then used his optimization method to classify these 100 combinations into levels.

In the afternoon, Yang Ping brought these pictures to the genetics laboratory in person to communicate with Lin Lan. Lin Lan is Su Nanchen's wife and Yang Ping's sister-in-law. She is an outstanding genetics scholar who once studied in the United States. She was recruited by Nandu Medical University with an annual salary of two million. At the age of 28, she was a doctoral supervisor and a very outstanding genetics scientist.

Yang Ping told Lin Lan his idea, and then handed the experimental plan to Lin Lan. Lin Lan was very surprised after reading it. This experiment was a big project. From gene recombination, cell culture, structure retesting, etc., the scientific research cost of the whole process was staggering. It was estimated that it could use up the scientific research funds of Nandu Medical University for one year.

Lin Lan said awkwardly, "The goal of the experiment can be achieved, but it involves the reorganization of more than a hundred different plans, and this reorganization is very complicated. It is not a simple reorganization. The research funding is too high and it is simply unaffordable. How much does our entire school have in a year? If I were to complete your project, it would almost require building a new laboratory. If all the expenses are calculated, it would cost hundreds of millions and it would be impossible to do it."

"Funding is not a problem. All funding will be covered by our fund. You give me a detailed budget and I will hand it over to the Sanbo Research Foundation. They will be responsible for the funding of the entire experiment." Yang Ping said lightly.

Lin Lan forgot that Yang Ping had a scientific research fund. This fund was open and transparent. It was said that there were billions of funds in the account, and the funding pool was constantly increasing.

"You are responsible for everything. Do you mean we don't have to pay a penny to participate in this project?" Lin Lan was quite surprised.

As a family, Yang Ping nodded and said, "You provide the people and technology, and we provide the money. This project will require genetic recombination technology in many places, and we will set up a cell therapy laboratory soon, and the demand for genetic recombination technology will be even greater by then."

Lin Lan is well aware that cell therapy requires a huge amount of genetic recombination, and its first step is to perform various recombination operations on immune cells to obtain immune cells that meet the requirements.

It turned out that Lin Lan's task in K virus treatment was relatively simple. Recombining K factor with adenovirus was also considered marginal auxiliary work. Now that he has joined the new topic of NK cell therapy, he has obtained hundreds of millions of scientific research funds at once. And this is just the beginning. This brother-in-law is really generous.

"In that case, what do we have to worry about? As long as it's about genetic recombination, leave it all to me. If you don't have enough manpower, I'll recruit people right away. We'll set up a cell therapy laboratory this year, and leave all the genetic research to us. How do you think?"

What else can we do? We are all family.

"Of course." Yang Ping agreed on the spot.

Lin Lan was a little confused. When she was in the United States, she had never seen such a straightforward scientific research fund. A few hundred million yuan was just a matter of words, and it was estimated that more than 1 billion yuan would be available in the future. In this way, her genetics laboratory took advantage of this favorable wind and became the world's top laboratory.

Lin Lan continued to read Yang Ping's scientific research plan. The more she read, the more surprised she was. This topic was not simple at all. It simply crushed other NK cell therapy research in the world.

"We guarantee that you will be satisfied with our work on genetic recombination. According to your suggestion, we will split the K factor. Don't worry, after the splitting, we will make the recombinant perforin and lysosome more powerful, allowing it to easily enter the cell and then release the lysosome with enhanced combat effectiveness." Lin Lan said happily.

Yang Ping said: "We want this effect."

"Nan Chen is on his way here, let's have dinner together." Lin Lan put away the research plan.

Yang Ping didn't expect them to be so polite: "Don't be polite, you are busy too, I have to hurry back too."

"No, that won't work. It's time for dinner now. You can't leave. We have to have dinner together. It's a rare opportunity for you to come here." Lin Lan said with a smile.

Don't you come here often? Why do you say it's rare?
"Really, you're welcome. I'm in a hurry." Yang Ping thought he should go back.

Lin Lan smiled and said, "Nanchen is almost here. Let me tell you, last time you came to Nandu Affiliated Hospital and went back with an empty stomach, Dad was criticized by Su Xiaomei. So you should listen to us and stay here for dinner. If you go back with an empty stomach like this, your elder brother and I will be criticized by Su Xiaomei again."

"Yes, no one can afford to offend the princess of the Su family. How could she let her husband go back with an empty stomach?" Su Nanchen had already arrived.

PS: James P. Allison, the 2018 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, has mentioned many times in interviews and articles that stem cell therapy and immunotherapy have the potential to become the core means of future medicine. In an interview with Nature, he said: "We are at the beginning of a new treatment model that will allow us to manipulate the immune system more deeply and achieve real control over cancer and other diseases." The way to conquer cancer in the future may be cell therapy. In fact, CAR-T cell therapy has conquered some blood tumors. CAR-NK cell therapy is a newer generation of immune cell therapy.