godfather of surgery

Chapter 1090: Friend and Enemy
Director Zhao calmed down this small disturbance with a basket of eggs. As the director of the Medical Department, he has to face various complaints, disturbances, disputes, etc. almost every day. He has been through many battles and is experienced, so he knows how to deal with any situation.

He was too lazy to explain and persuade people, wasting time, and he was too lazy to ask the security guards to solve the problem by force. The young staff learned from Director Zhao, and a seemingly difficult disturbance was easily resolved by Director Zhao.

The first PET-CT of the experimental pigs has been completed. Thanks to the Internet connection, the pictures quickly appeared on the laboratory's electronic reader, and images of NK cells with special markers were scattered on the images.

Of course, Tang Shun and Lu Xiaolu didn't know how to read the film, so they could only listen to Yang Ping's explanation. Hearing that the pictures were out, Yang Ping came to the laboratory.

Sure enough, compared to the K virus that needs to experience a lot of damage to the immune system, NK cells, as their own cells, can move freely in the experimental pigs, quickly spread throughout the blood, and then slowly gather towards the tumor.

However, a problem arises. The distribution of NK cells is consistent with the blood vessels of the experimental pigs. Even inside the tumor image, it is consistent with the distribution of tiny blood vessels and capillaries. It is difficult for them to break through the blood vessel wall and enter the body fluid between tumor cells.

"Look, are these images formed by the aggregation of NK cells? It seems that the tumor is covered?" Tang Shun could also see something through intuitive observation.

Lu Xiaolu also came over and it seemed to be the case. The image of NK cells gathering covered the tumor.

Yang Ping shook his head: "Many NK cells are in the blood vessels. Some of them penetrate the capillary walls and reach the gaps between tumor cells, but whether they can play a role is still unknown."

In fact, some cells can pass through the capillary wall, such as white blood cells. Because white blood cells can deform and move, when there are pathogens somewhere in the body, white blood cells will pass through the capillary wall to engulf the pathogens. NK cells are a type of white blood cells, so NK cells can also penetrate the capillary wall and wander in the gaps between tumor cells. However, NK cells penetrating the capillary wall does not mean that they can approach tumor cells, because tumors have their own barriers, which are obstacles that prevent NK cells from contacting tumor cells. This is also the reason why cell therapy is not good for solid tumors.

However, this is only the first imaging examination, and there will be many more imaging examinations in the future. In addition to imaging examinations, there are many other examination items.
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Another topic of cooperation among several major laboratories is to implant certain gene fragments of immune cells into the carrier adenovirus. Although it is not yet clear whether the K factor is really formed by the recombination of gene fragments of immune cells, in order to carry out research as soon as possible, they have regarded the hypothesis as true and recombined the genes of the two.

If we follow this line of thought, the scope for manipulation will be much larger than the original K factor combined with the carrier adenovirus. Not only can we use certain gene fragments on immune cells to arm the virus, but we can also camouflage it. This camouflage is long-lasting and can help the virus avoid the attack of the immune system. When the attack of the immune system is weakened, the virus's adaptive self-change to the immune system will also be naturally weakened. In theory, the new recombinant virus can escape the attack of the immune system.

Viruses are both the old enemy and the old friend of mankind. It can be regarded as a special relationship of both enemy and friend. Viruses are non-cellular organisms that must parasitize in living cells and multiply by replication. They are extremely small, between life and non-life, and have no metabolic structure of their own. The structure of the virus is simple. It is a nucleic acid wrapped in protein. It can replicate and reproduce rapidly in the host cell. In other words, the virus must parasitize the host's cells to survive.

The word "virus" comes from Latin, which originally means snake venom or human semen. That is to say, it is given both the meanings of "destruction" and "creation".

People generally think that it is not a good thing and has a certain degree of destructiveness. As long as it breaks through the human immune system and infects the human body, people will become sick and die. Whether it is the influenza virus that gives us headaches and runny noses, or various other more serious infectious viruses, once it infects the human body, it will cause disease or death. This is its destructiveness.

As for its other side - creativity, it actually exists, but we know very little about it. Viruses also contribute to the habitability of the earth. Ocean Synechococcus contributes a quarter of the oxygen on the earth through photosynthesis. The DNA that really works in Synechococcus comes from the genes of viruses. According to scientists' estimates, 10% of photosynthesis on the earth can be attributed to viral genes. They not only contribute to the oxygen we breathe, but also regulate the temperature of the earth. Viruses are also very close to our human body. 8% of the DNA fragments in the human body come from viruses. Under certain conditions, these viruses may still be reactivated. On the other hand, when our cells make new viruses, they may also insert their own DNA and then transfer genes in other hosts. Looking back at ourselves from the perspective of viruses, organisms are essentially just a bunch of DNA that is constantly mixed and transferred.

According to the ideas given by Yang Ping, three tasks need to be done: split and study the functional gene fragments of immune cells, study the most suitable viral vectors, and study the structure of viruses that have coexisted peacefully with humans. Only after these three issues are clarified can this topic be considered to have touched the door.

The breadth and depth of these research topics are unprecedented. In the face of these grand topics, Professor Zhang Zhiwei feels that the topics he had previously researched were simply childish.

In the past, Professor Zhang Zhiwei would not even dare to think about carrying out such a grand research, not to mention that his imagination and strategic judgment ability were not up to this level. Even if the scientific research plan was placed in front of him, he would definitely not dare to accept such a task.

The cost of such a project is huge. All the research funds collected are just a drop in the bucket. The time span is also amazing, and it is likely to fail in the end. Even if Professor Zhang does not worry about his professional title, none of his researchers will follow him to do such a project, because they cannot get output in a short period of time. Without papers, they cannot be evaluated for professional titles. It is difficult to gain a foothold in the academic world without papers and professional titles for a long time. Besides, if Yang Ping did not have his own funds, if Professor Zhang Zhiwei applied for the project, it would most likely not pass the expert review, because the review experts could not understand such a project at all, and it would definitely be sneered at and judged as unrealistic and boastful.

But now it is different. With Yang Ping's strong financial support, Professor Zhang Zhiwei does not need to consider too many problems. He only needs to conduct research slowly at the pace and does not need to worry about whether he can succeed in the end, because most of the explorations of the unknown will end in failure.

Looking back at the history of medicine, many innovations that seemed absurd and incomprehensible at the time were eventually proved to be wrong. However, mistakes do not mean they are meaningless. Correctness is the result of the accumulation of these mistakes.

This is not just the case with medicine; the development of any science is like this. Aristotle believed that force was the reason for maintaining the motion of objects. This wrong judgment lasted for two thousand years and was later corrected by Galileo and Descartes. They believed that force was not the reason for maintaining the motion and that objects could maintain motion without the action of force. At that time, this was just a rough hypothesis and they only reached this conclusion through ideal experiments. Later, Newton proposed Newton's first law based on their research.

So in science, any new theory is imperfect at the beginning. It is rough, may contain errors, or may even be completely wrong. But even if it is completely wrong, it has immeasurable value. It provides experience for later generations and a foundation for research.

Lin Lan's genetics laboratory began to draw the genetic map of the K factor. At the same time, it also began to draw the genetic map of various immune cells in the human body. After the genetic maps of the two were completed, they were compared to see if they had any overlapping fragments, and if so, which ones they were.

If it is found that the fragment of K factor can be found to overlap in immune cells and immune factors, then Professor Yang's hypothesis is true. For a genetics scholar, completing this project is enough to reach the top of the pyramid of the world's academic community.

Lin Lan obviously didn't have enough researchers or equipment to handle this big project. On the second day after the meeting, before her budget was released, Yang Ping's research fund transferred 500 million yuan to their laboratory account as an advance payment, and they would make up for it if the budget was not enough.

With this money, Lin Lan felt at ease. She was now planning both the talent allocation and the hardware equipment towards the goal of building the world's top genetics laboratory, and she was determined to build the genetics laboratory of Nandu Medical University into a world-class laboratory.