godfather of surgery

Chapter 1081 How big a place does an office need?

The recombination of NK cells has been completed. Yang Ping provided more than one hundred NK cell recombination plans. It is impossible to reorganize them all at once. Lin Lan only reorganized the highest priority NK cells, and the rest will be completed in batches.

The seed cells of the recombinant NK cells are sent to the cell therapy laboratory for cultivation. Compared with viruses, cells are much safer, not to mention that NK cells are the body's immune cells.

The human immune cells include lymphocytes and other phagocytes. Lymphocytes include T lymphocytes, B lymphocytes, K lymphocytes and NK lymphocytes, among which NK lymphocytes are relatively small in number.

NK cells kill target cells mainly including tumor cells, virus-infected cells, larger pathogens such as fungi and parasites, and can also kill cells of allogeneic transplanted organs or tissues. The receptors on its surface can recognize polysaccharide molecules expressed on the surface of virus-infected cells, and then release toxic molecules mediated by activation, such as perforin, granzyme and tumor necrosis factor, etc.

Yang Ping is now splitting the K factor and embedding it into NK cells, and named this cell K-NK cell, which means NK cell embedded with K factor. This cell prolongs the survival period, and is very accurate in identifying tumor cells, and has a much stronger killing power against tumor cells, because after the K factor is split, it becomes a navigation antibody and a factor that initiates tumor cell apoptosis.

The entire process of K-NK cell therapy is very expensive because all the steps are new, so it costs more than CAR-T cell therapy.

Why is cell therapy expensive? Because the technology is too complicated. For example, CAR-T cell therapy. The CAR-T currently on the market is autologous CAR-T, which transforms the tumor patient's own T cells to specifically kill cancer cells in the patient's body. It is a cell therapy, which is different from small molecule drugs and traditional macromolecule drugs; it uses genetic engineering to transform cells, so it is also a gene therapy; it uses the patient's own cells to produce, which is a customized drug for individuals and cannot be mass-produced. All these determine that the technical requirements of CAR-T cell therapy are extremely high, and the cost is naturally high.

NK cell therapy is more technically complex. Simply put, the first step is to separate a large number of NK cells from the patient's body through leukocyte separation technology; the second step is to genetically engineer the separated K cells to express chimeric antigen receptors or receptors decomposed from K factors, so that NK cells can specifically kill specific tumor cells. This step of genetic engineering of NK cells will use specific viral vectors to transfer embedded genes. Due to the large amount of engineering work required to manufacture NK cells, the cost of viral vectors is very high. The third step is to expand these NK cells to a certain number, that is, to culture them in the laboratory. Only after completing all these steps can the NK finished products be infused back into the patient for treatment. Each step requires a specific laboratory to complete, and the requirements for technology and equipment are very high. The safety standards of the entire production process are very high, so the cost is also increased. In short, this kind of experiment is very expensive and ordinary people can't afford it.

Currently, three top laboratories are cooperating to complete this experiment. The scale of the experiment is rare in the world. Yang Ping is like a marshal commanding a large army, while Tang Shun, Lu Xiaolu and Lin Lan are the generals leading his troops. Yang Ping needs to coordinate the entire situation and make sure that no details can go wrong, so that the experimental goals can be achieved as quickly as possible.

Now, because the cell therapy laboratory needs to be expanded, the demand for buildings has increased instantly. After Yang Ping reported the matter to Dean Xia, Dean Xia immediately treated the matter as a top priority.
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The conference room in the administrative building of Sanbo Hospital.

Dean Xia and several other hospital leaders discussed the expansion of the hospital. Sanbo Hospital still has an eight-story building that is vacant, and the animal laboratory is now located there. Dean Xia is planning to vacate that building for Yang Ping to use as a laboratory. The entire eight floors of the building will be used as laboratories, which should be able to alleviate the current shortage of space. But after the building is vacated, where will the animal laboratory be moved? The animal laboratory cannot be mixed with the scientific research laboratory. Those pigs make it smelly every day, and the laboratory has very strict requirements for cleanliness and sterility.

"Don't we still have a lot of vacant land? We can build a few more buildings. Before the new buildings are built, we can find a corner to temporarily build a light steel house or a board house to use as an animal laboratory. The conditions of an animal laboratory do not require high conditions. In fact, it is just a pig farm with better conditions." Dean Sun expressed his thoughts. Dean Sun is now in charge of logistics.

"If the entire eighth floor is reserved for laboratories, there will be no room for development of other departments, such as the Sports Medicine Center, Orthopedics, Trauma Emergency Center, Oncology, Plastic Surgery, General Surgery, etc. There are not enough beds now. Can half of them be used for clinical departments?" Another vice president frowned.

"No, the cell laboratory has very high requirements for cleanliness and sterility. It must not be mixed with clinical departments, and it is not easy to manage." Dean Xia rejected the proposal.

"What should we do? Rebuilding the building will take more than a day or two. We never thought that the hospital would develop so fast. For example, the general surgery and plastic surgery departments are developing very rapidly now. It was completely unexpected. Director Fang and Director Lan talked to me several times, but I kept it to myself and didn't dare to give in because we have to leave the only remaining empty building to Yang Ping." Dean Sun said in embarrassment.

"Yang Ping's eight-story building should be enough for now, but it will definitely not be enough in the future. The cell therapy laboratory needs several floors. Stem cell experiments and other cell laboratories must be separated. There are also clinical wards for cell therapy, international diagnosis and treatment centers for cell therapy, separate administrative areas, etc. Tang Shun's laboratory needs at least five or six floors, and Lu Xiaolu needs two floors, so there is no seven floors. The floors here cannot be allocated to other departments in any way." Director Han is now the deputy dean in charge of business. In fact, Director Han did not want to be a dean, but in order to assist Yang Ping, he reluctantly served as the deputy dean for business.

"Let those clinical departments bear with it for now." said another vice president.

"If it really doesn't work, we can vacate all the administrative buildings and find a vacant lot to build a light steel house or a simple board house to use as an office. As for the administrative building, it only needs to be able to shelter from wind and rain, and there are no rigid conditions required. We can move in after the new house is built." Dean Xia thought about it for a long time and came up with a good idea.

Dean Sun said: "If this is the case, we can get through it temporarily."

Dean Xia waved his hand and said, "Let's do this. Build a three-story prefabricated house as soon as possible. Then we will have an office. We can give the entire administrative building to the clinical departments. Let's be patient. How big a place does an office need? A room with a desk, a phone and a computer will do. The requirements are not high."