Surgery Godfather

Chapter 2268: Chapter 1470: Stirred Feelings

Theoretical breakthroughs are often discoveries rather than inventions, finding a pattern that already exists.

Yang Ping sat in the office of the Institute, placing three items side by side on the table: experimental data from the three-dimensional gene orientation theory, tracking records of stem cell differentiation, and clinical cases of K Therapy, flipping through them back and forth, like piecing together three puzzles, trying to align them.

He had been doing this for some time, ever since he discovered that there was a unifying mechanism working behind the three of them, he had focused most of his energy on pondering this problem.

The sunlight outside the window was serene, the shadow of the gingko tree fell on the paper, slightly swaying.

He leaned back in the chair, eyes closed.

For the past few years, his research has focused on the level of "cells". The three-dimensional orientation theory answers how cells know where to go, stem cell theory answers which cells to use for construction, and K Therapy answers how to activate the repair instructions. Three directions, three teams, three budgets. He had always pursued them as three independent directions, but at this moment, he suddenly felt that was wrong. They shouldn’t be three things; they should be one. Not three theories, but one theory. Not three mechanisms, but one mechanism.

Yang Ping stood up and walked to the whiteboard.

He drew a line on the whiteboard. "This is one-dimensional, a linear sequence, the order of gene arrangement."

Then he drew a plane next to it. "This is two-dimensional, a planar network, the regulatory relationships between genes."

Then he drew a cube. "This is three-dimensional, a spatial structure, the distribution of cells in three-dimensional space."

His pen stopped at the center of the cube. "The three-dimensional orientation theory says that the position of cells in space is not random; it is determined by genes. But the genes themselves are a one-dimensional linear sequence, so how do they define three-dimensional spatial coordinates? There must be some conversion mechanism in between, converting one-dimensional information into three-dimensional coordinates. This mechanism is the core of the three-dimensional orientation theory. But we have not fully deciphered it yet; we only cracked the secrets of muscle and skin, maybe we are looking in the wrong direction. Maybe this mechanism is not inside the cell, but between cells. It’s not a single gene directing; it’s the self-organizing behavior of the whole system."

He picked up the pen again and wrote a word in the lower right corner of the whiteboard: "Four-dimensional."

Time, genes unfold over time. Not all genes are turned on simultaneously; there is an order, a sequence. Some genes are expressed in the early embryo, some are expressed in the late stage, some only after birth, and some are never expressed unless activated by something. This sequence is also part of the code. The code dictates not only spatial coordinates but also temporal coordinates. When to start, when to end, when to accelerate, when to decelerate.

One dimension is the gene sequence, two dimensions are the gene regulatory networks, three dimensions are the spatial arrangement of cells, four dimensions are the unfolding over the time axis. Four dimensions, the same system. Not four different things, but four levels of the same thing.

Yang Ping wrote a line in the center of the whiteboard: "One dimension writes the code, two dimensions set the rules, three dimensions build the structure, four dimensions control the rhythm."

After writing, he stared at this line for a long time.

When Tang Shun knocked and came in, Yang Ping was still standing in front of the whiteboard. The whiteboard was already filled with words and diagrams, like a battle map repeatedly revised.

"Professor, what are you writing?"

Yang Ping turned around and put down the pen.

"I’ve always told you all, our research over these years has been blind men feeling an elephant. The three-dimensional orientation, stem cells, K Therapy, they appear as three things, but they may be three faces of one thing. Like a building, with a framework, materials, and construction instructions. The framework determines the shape, the materials fill the entities, the instructions control the sequence. Without any one of them, the house can’t be built. This mechanism is truly vast, and I’m contemplating how exactly to unfold research on this mechanism. Although we have already started, I still feel the direction is not clear enough, but I know how to achieve clarity, so I’ve been thinking about this."

Tang Shun walked to the whiteboard, looking at the layers of overlapping scripts.

"You mean, the process of the human body developing from a fertilized egg into a fetus is like building a house. The three-dimensional orientation is the framework, stem cells are the materials, and the signaling pathways activated by K Therapy are the construction instructions?"

"Yes, a fertilized egg is a cell, it divides into two, two into four, four into eight. At a certain stage, cells begin to differentiate; some become nerve cells, some become heart muscle cells, some become liver cells. They are always able to become the right cells at the right location and then form connections with surrounding cells. All of this doesn’t happen randomly; it’s constructed according to a precise blueprint. Everyone knows this blueprint is the gene. However, current research on genes is actually fragmented."

Yang Ping drew a circle on the whiteboard, writing a character at the center: origin, fertilized egg. Then he drew countless radial lines outside the circle, with each end labeled with a word: liver, heart, brain, lung, kidney, bone, muscle, skin...

"This diagram is the process of the human body forming from nothing. Starting from a single point, constructs layer by layer according to the blueprint. The blueprint dictates the position of every brick, and the construction team lays the bricks according to it. The bricks themselves don’t know where they should go; it’s the blueprint that tells the construction team, and the construction team tells the bricks."

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