Surgery Godfather

Chapter 2256: Chapter 1465: That Hand (2)

Lu Xiaolu was engrossed, his heart surging, not knowing what to say.

Yang Ping turned around and looked out the window. The sunshine had already entered the courtyard, and the leaves of the ginkgo tree rustled in the wind.

"It means that the research we’ve been doing over the past few years is not about creating new therapies," he said. "It’s about discovering the body’s inherent capabilities. All three of my theories are merely blind men feeling an elephant."

The whole morning, Yang Ping’s office had turned into a temporary command center.

Manstein brought in a laptop, pulling up all the mass spectrometry data on unknown factors from the past three years. Weber brought the original records of stem cell differentiation, over twelve hundred cell culture logs. Tang Shun opened the database of the K therapy clinical trials, containing follow-up data for more than five hundred patients.

They were like three detectives re-examining a crime scene that had been examined countless times before.

This was a series of "cases," with all three cases linked to the same "person."

"Look here," Manstein pointed to a heat map on the screen, "The expression level of the unknown factor is significantly correlated with the prognosis of spinal cord injury patients. The group with higher expression had rehabilitation scores twice that of the control group after six months. I used to think this was just a correlative finding. Now, I realize it’s no coincidence; the unknown factor is part of the repair program, and its expression level determines the activation extent of the program."

Weber flipped through his culture logs, turning page after page. When he reached the thirty-seventh page, his fingers stopped.

"I found it," he said, his voice somewhat tense, "An experiment I did two years ago that I thought was a false positive, so I didn’t include it in the paper. I replaced the stem cell culture supernatant with a homogenate of damaged tissue, and the proportion of neuron differentiation was five times higher than the regular group."

He looked up at Yang Ping, "I didn’t understand why at the time. Now I know, there’s an unknown factor in the damaged tissue, a signal to start the repair program."

Yang Ping took the log, glanced at it for a few seconds, and then handed it back to Weber.

"Repeat that experiment with our current detection methods to clarify the signal pathways. If this hypothesis holds, the tissue homogenate should activate downstream transcription programs through the unknown factor’s receptors."

Weber nodded.

Yang Ping said, "Draft the plan as soon as possible. This experiment is crucial, but it can’t be rushed. Rushing leads to mistakes, wasting time instead."

Weber stood still, took a deep breath, "Okay, I’ll draft the plan first."

Manstein was still going through his data, but noticeably slowed down, as if savoring something.

He suddenly said, "Professor, if our hypothesis is correct, our understanding of medicine might fundamentally change. We’ve always been doing ’replacement’, replacing hearts when they’re damaged, dialysis when kidneys fail, joint replacement for failing joints. But if we can find a way to activate the repair program, then what we’re doing won’t be replacement, but ’empowerment,’ letting the body repair itself. It appears the body possesses this potential, just sealed away."

"That’s the core of the balance theory. In fact, the balance theory I previously proposed is just a part of this grand theory," Yang Ping said, "The body’s self-regulatory ability far exceeds our imagination. Most of the time, we aren’t curing diseases but helping the body regain its self-regulatory ability. Surgery is to clear obstacles, medicine provides signals, but the real work is done by the body itself."

Tang Shun, who hadn’t spoken all this while, was jotting down notes quickly, only looking up after Yang Ping finished speaking.

"Professor, testing this hypothesis requires a lot of work." Tang Shun’s voice was steady, like delivering a formal report, "Testing the upregulation of the unknown factor in multiple tissue injury models to see if it’s ubiquitous: identifying the receptor for the unknown factor to prove it as a signal pathway’s initiation point: proving the repair program’s existence at the genetic level, such as using single-cell sequencing technology to measure cell states at different time points after injury to see if a unified transcription program is activated..."

Yang Ping looked at him, something complex in his gaze.

"You’re right, there’s a lot of work to be done, far beyond just this."

Yang Ping nodded, "Then proceed as you suggested. You coordinate; Manstein handles the molecular mechanisms, Weber takes care of cell-level validations, and Xiao Lu reviews the clinical data. We might be short on hands again."

Tang Shun promptly responded, "I’ll expedite the recruitment of talent."

"If there’s nothing else, let’s start implementing. Meet anytime if problems arise for discussion," instructed Yang Ping.

Tang Shun, Manstein, Weber, and Lu Xiaolu left, closing the office door behind them.

Silence returned to the office. Yang Ping looked at the overlapping writings on the whiteboard: repair program, unknown factor, the closure and activation of developmental programs, stem cells as execution units. Suddenly, it seemed these things weren’t his thoughts but rather they were seeking him.

After waiting for a long time until he was finally ready, they came knocking.

He stood up and walked to the window.

The ginkgo tree leaves swayed in the wind, and sunlight filtered through the gaps, casting dappled shadows on the ground. In the distance, the inpatient building stood under the blue sky and white clouds, with windows reflecting light like countless eyes.

At two in the afternoon, Yang Ping went to the general thoracic surgery department.

Director He’s patient for the tumor reconstruction was being discharged today. Yang Ping hadn’t planned to go, but Director He called three times, saying the patient wanted to thank him in person, and he felt embarrassed to refuse.

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