godfather of surgery

Chapter 1017 Using Viruses as Tools

Will this case be operated on here? Xia Shu was very interested and asked again.

Yang Ping nodded: "Of course, we need to prepare in advance and come up with the best plan in advance. Let's find a time to discuss it formally. In the next few days, everyone should check the information and gain a comprehensive understanding of this case."

Yang Ping does not intend to discuss it now, because many people have not looked up information and lack knowledge in this area, so the discussion will seem pale and powerless and will not have any value.

So Yang Ping asked Song Zimo to distribute the case materials, and asked everyone to take time to look at them carefully, and then choose a time for everyone to gather in the conference room to discuss them seriously. After dealing with these things, Yang Ping decided to go to the laboratory to see Lu Xiaolu.

With so many things happening recently, Yang Ping was worried that Lu Xiaolu might be emotionally unstable, so he asked Tang Shun to take good care of him and he would try to find time to visit him so that he could feel the warmth of the team.

Guan Ruyan never appeared again, and all his social media accounts were cleared and there were no signs of activity. Some people said that he went to the United States, because an alumnus who graduated from Nandu Medical University had seen him in the United States. It was said that he was seen delivering food. Once, his food was robbed on the road, and he sat on the ground crying. The alumnus saw that he was Chinese and went up to ask if he needed help. To the classmate's surprise, this person turned out to be Professor Guan whom he had seen before. However, this gentleman refused to admit that he was Guan Ruyan, and kept saying that he had recognized the wrong person, and then stumbled away.

No matter what, Guan Ruyan got the punishment he deserved.

President Rao voluntarily resigned to take responsibility for this matter, and Professor Su Qingyun was appointed as the president of Nandu Medical University and concurrently the president of the First Affiliated Hospital of Nandu. This incident had a far-reaching impact not only on Nandu Medical University, but also on the entire education sector. An academic rectification movement swept through universities across the country. Some things are arduous and cannot be accomplished overnight.

Yang Ping chatted with Lu Xiaolu for a while and asked about the current situation of the experiment. Lu Xiaolu was in a very stable mood. He now put almost all his energy into scientific research.

Ding Xinyu resigned from Nandu Medical University and went to work as a teacher in a vocational high school. This was her own choice and Lu Xiaolu respected her choice. Lu Xiaolu would often take time to visit her and the children and sometimes help the children with their homework.

In his research on tumor cell apoptosis, Yang Ping began to think about a new approach. He wanted to find a suitable virus, combine the virus with the K factor, and then inject them into the human blood. He would let the blood carry this special virus throughout the body to find tumor cells and then kill them.

Using viruses as tools, according to the literature, this method has been tried by some people. Oncolytic viruses use this principle. Oncolytic viruses are a special type of virus that have the ability to replicate and have a certain ability to kill tumors.

The discovery of oncolytic virus was an accident. A cervical cancer patient was injected with rabies vaccine because she was bitten by a dog. The vaccine itself was a modified virus. After the virus entered her body, it accidentally killed the cervical cancer tumor cells, so that the patient's cervical cancer was miraculously cured.

But this was an accidental incident, and no one was able to solve the mystery later, and naturally no one found anything valuable for the treatment of cervical cancer. However, it opened the chapter of using viruses to treat tumors.

In 1991, Martuza et al. published an article in Science magazine, which showed that transgenic HSV had a certain effect in the treatment of malignant glioma. Since then, oncolytic virus therapy using HSV has received increasing attention in the medical community.

The principle is to genetically modify some viruses with weak pathogenicity that exist in nature and make them into special oncolytic viruses. The oncolytic viruses take advantage of the inactivation or defects of tumor suppressor genes in target cells so that they can selectively infect tumor cells without harming normal cells. The oncolytic viruses replicate in large quantities in tumor cells and eventually destroy them. At the same time, oncolytic viruses can also stimulate immune responses and attract more immune cells to help continue killing residual cancer cells.

In recent years, there has been an increasing number of studies on oncolytic viruses. The most intensively studied oncolytic viruses include adenovirus and herpes simplex virus type I, which have entered the clinical trial stage.

However, there is no research in the world that combines oncolytic viruses with protein factors that initiate tumor cell apoptosis. Yang Ping plans to start his own experiments from this aspect. Yang Ping's idea is now very clear. He will transform the virus into a tool, combine the K factor with them, and then let the virus with the K factor infect the target tumor cells, constantly replicate and infect, and eventually kill all tumor cells. But what kind of virus is suitable for its own transformation object? This virus must have existed for a long time so that the human body can adapt to it and will not cause unexpected reactions. Secondly, this virus must have weak healing ability or no lethal ability, and will not cause harm to the human body.

  M13 bacteriophage!

Yang Ping screened various viruses in his mind, and finally felt that the most suitable one for the K factor tool was the M13 bacteriophage. This virus often parasitizes on bacteria or the human body and is harmless to the human body.

The M13 phage is very slender in appearance. It is a single-stranded DNA encapsulated in a cylindrical protein shell with several other types of proteins at both ends. The entire M13 phage is like a miniature precision machine composed of proteins and DNA.

The proteins on the sides and ends of the cylindrical bacteriophage can adsorb molecules of different substances, and different bacteriophages adsorb different molecules. This allows experiments to find out the bacteriophage that is most suitable for binding to a certain molecule. For example, experiments can be used to find out a bacteriophage that can adsorb the K factor.

  How to find such a specific phage?

The simplest method is to put the bacteriophage into a beaker containing factor K, then increase the acidity of the solution to wash away the bacteriophage that cannot bind to factor K. Repeat this process many times, and the bacteriophage that remains at the end will be the one that can adsorb factor K.

Of course, this method is the most clumsy, primitive and simple. If we use cutting-edge genetic engineering technology to change the proteins at both ends of the bacteriophage, we can create bacteriophages that can adhere to different molecules. In addition, the proteins on the sides of the bacteriophages also have adsorption capabilities. In this way, many bacteriophages can be created using different combinations. The K factor can adhere to both ends or sides, which significantly increases the success rate of the experiment.

Yang Ping wrote his ideas on an A4 paper and gave it to Lu Xiaolu. After reading it, Lu Xiaolu was very surprised. The breadth and depth of Professor Yang's knowledge was astounding. Otherwise, how could he break through the barriers between various fields and come up with such a fantastic idea.

"Start again according to this idea!" Yang Ping instructed Lu Xiaolu.

Lu Xiaolu felt sorry for the previous research results: "This is equivalent to starting all the previous research over again. Isn't it a bit too radical?"

Yang Ping shook his head: "No, it might be a good thing to change direction in time when you find that you are on the wrong road."

"Then I'll give it a try. In this case, your experiment is exactly what I'm good at. When I was in Germany, I did research on bacteriophages and oncolytic viruses. I remember that at that time, there was a team at Heidelberg University studying the apoptosis mechanism of tumor cells, but I don't know why they haven't collaborated on research after so many years?" Lu Xiaolu was very puzzled.

"Some inertias of thinking are difficult to overcome. There are subjective reasons as well as objective reasons. The barriers between professions deepen people's inertia of thinking. For example, the pathogenesis of Castleman's disease has always been believed to be based on interleukin-6. People have done a lot of research around it, and each of their research is from different angles. The terrible thing is that everyone's research seems to see a little hope, so they go further and further on the wrong path. No one ever thinks that the mTOR signaling pathway may be more correct. This is like a car. When everyone's energy and financial resources are all focused on improving the engine, few people go to study the motor. Whether subjectively or objectively, it is impossible to change the direction.

Yang Ping told Lu Xiaolu.

"So I think it takes great courage for you to change direction now," said Lu Xiaolu.

In fact, Lu Xiaolu didn't know that the reason why Yang Ping could start over at will was because he had a huge advantage that others didn't have: the cost of experiments in the system space laboratory was extremely low. This allowed Yang Ping to not consider anything else and just do what he wanted.

(End of this chapter)