signingbooks Chapter 1438 I Just Want to Laugh
Chapter 1438 I Just Want to Laugh
Chapter 1438 I Just Want to Laugh
The recovery of M7 has entered an accelerated phase.
By week eight, it could walk ten meters continuously with a stable gait, occasionally stumbling but able to adjust its balance on its own. By week nine, it began to try jogging, although it would stop to catch its breath after only a few steps, its lively demeanor was not much different from that of a healthy monkey. By week ten, it began to jump in its cage, leaping from the ground to the lowest perch on its first attempt, without hesitation.
“Jumping,” Eva said, watching the video, “is a higher-order motor function than running, requiring stronger muscle strength, better balance control, and more complete corticospinal tract conduction. The fact that M7 can jump shows that its neural network has been reconstructed to a fairly high degree.”
"Has it fully recovered?" Tang Shun asked.
“No,” Yang Ping said. “There is never a word ‘complete’ in the functional recovery after spinal cord injury in primates. It would be a miracle if we could recover 80 percent. M7 has recovered about 60 to 70 percent now. The remaining 30 percent may take a year, may take ten years, or may never be recovered.”
Weber was very happy.
“Professor Yang, I have spent my whole life researching stem cells, published the best papers, and won the highest awards. But the value of all those achievements cannot compare to the value of this one experiment I am conducting now.”
The M7 study was written into a paper. Stem cell technology had been used for spinal cord injuries before, and it was effective, but the effect was too small and too uncertain.
Weber now understands that stem cells alone do not have much effect on spinal cord injury repair. Their real role is to accelerate the repair of progenitor cells. In other words, the progenitor cell repair mechanism of the spinal cord must be activated first before exogenous stem cells can be effective. Previously, they were effective because there were some scattered and extremely small amounts of progenitor cell repair cells in the damaged spinal cord area, and these exogenous stem cells played a certain promoting role.
Yang Ping's research combines three-dimensional spatial guidance genes with stem cell theory in an attempt to find a unified theory. Now, a small molecule in this research has achieved phased results: in the field of spinal cord injury, exogenous stem cells have a synergistic promoting effect on the repair of progenitor cells.
The paper was primarily written by Lina and Hans, who spent two days working on a blank Word document to produce the first draft. After Weber reviewed it, he revised the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and references. After numerous revisions, the paper was finally published.
The reviewers' comments came back quickly.
Yang Ping sat in his office, an email from Cell on the screen in front of him. He glanced at it for three seconds and then opened it.
Three reviewers, two "minor revisions", and one "major revision".
The revision comments were two full pages long, the first of which was: "The primate sample size is too small (n=1), and the extrapolation of the conclusions is questionable. The authors need to supplement data from at least 3 animals, or provide strong theoretical arguments as to why a single case study is sufficiently persuasive at this stage."
Yang Ping printed out the reviewers' comments and drew a line under the first comment in red pen. The line was drawn very straight, with heavy pressure, the pen tip almost tearing through the paper.
He picked up the phone and dialed Tang Shun's number.
"Notify everyone that there will be a meeting in the conference room in half an hour."
The conference room was full of people.
Weber sat to Yang Ping's right, a steaming cup of black tea in front of him. His reading glasses perched on his nose, and he held the review comments in his hand, turning the pages slowly, occasionally writing a few words in the blank spaces with a pencil.
Mainstein sat opposite him, a thick stack of data from the past ten weeks of M7 spread out before him, divided into different sections by colored labels. His fingers tapped lightly on the data, like playing a silent piano piece.
Eva, Hans, Lina, and Fritz took their seats in turn. Tang Shun stood in front of the whiteboard, holding a black marker, waiting to take notes.
"Have you finished watching it?" Yang Ping asked.
No one answered. Everyone had finished reading, but no one wanted to be the first to speak.
“Then I’ll say it,” Yang Ping stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and took the marker from Tang Shun. “Three reviewers, two minor revisions, one major revision. The core issue of the major revision is just one point: the sample size is insufficient, n=1.”
He wrote the three characters "n=1" on the whiteboard, and then drew two horizontal lines below it with a red pen.
"The reviewers' questions are reasonable. Scientifically, n=1 proves nothing. A monkey being able to stand up could be accidental, it could be due to individual differences in that monkey, or it could be a special case of the surgical procedure. We need to repeat this, preferably with twelve monkeys."
“Twelve primate spinal cord injury models,” Mainstein frowned. “Adding M7, that makes thirteen?”
“Let’s go through them one by one,” Yang Ping drew a table on the whiteboard, six rows and three columns. “First, the animal source, preferably the same breed as M7. Professor Weber, do your partner institutions in Germany still have these experimental monkeys?”
“Yes!” Weber took off his glasses. “Heidelberg University has the largest non-human primate research center in Europe, with a breeding population of over a thousand rhesus macaques and cynomolgus monkeys. I can contact them to see if we can share animal resources and facilities through collaborative research.”
"What about the funding?" Mainstein pressed.
“I’ll figure out the funding,” Yang Ping said. “My research grant has enough funds, so this isn’t a problem.”
"What about ethical approval?" Tang Shun asked. "Ethical approval for primate experiments takes at least three months in China, but what about in Germany?"
“Four to six weeks,” Weber said. “European ethics review systems are more flexible than those in China. If you go through the fast track, you can get approval within a month.”
Yang Ping quickly wrote down a few keywords on the whiteboard: Heidelberg, shared facilities, four to six weeks.
“So the plan is,” he put down his marker, turned to look at everyone, “M7 will continue in China. We’ll add 12 more animals, six in China and six in Germany. The six in Germany will be done first, followed by the six in China. The same surgical procedures, the same evaluation criteria, and the same data analysis process will be used in both China and Germany. If the results of all thirteen animals are consistent, n=13, the reviewers will have no reason to question it.”
The meeting room fell silent for a moment.
Weber took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then put them back on.
"Professor Yang, are you suggesting that I conduct the experiments on those six animals in Germany?"
Yang Ping nodded: "You go back to Germany and repeat our experiment independently. You do it in the lab in Heidelberg, and we do it in Nandu. We won't know each other's results, and we'll compare the data after we finish."
“Blind comparison?” Weber’s eyes lit up.
"Yes, blinded control, cross-center blinded control. This is the strongest evidence—two continents, two laboratories, two teams, using the same method to produce the same results. If reviewers still don't believe it, then there's nothing credible about science."
Einstein leaned back and let out a long sigh: "It seems my clinical work will have to be postponed for a while, but it doesn't matter. Marcus is already capable of handling things on his own, and my department can function normally without me."
After thinking for a long time, Weber slowly said, "Professor Yang, in Germany, if someone made a suggestion like yours, to hand over their core data to another laboratory for independent verification, especially before the paper has been published, everyone would say they were crazy. Because it means that if the other party can't do it, your research will be wasted. If the other party does it first, you will lose your first publication rights."
"Ha ha ha ha……"
When Mainstein was about to say the third "haha," Weber interrupted him: "Young man, are you making fun of me?"
Mannstein stood up and couldn't help but laugh out loud again. He really couldn't hold back...
Weber felt deeply offended and his face was full of anger. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone, I just couldn't help laughing out loud, sorry..." Mainstein apologized with a smile.
Weber said seriously, "Then what are you laughing at? Was what I just said funny?"
"It's like this, let me explain... You just mentioned that Professor Yang entrusted you with such important core data, but he never intended for you to be the first to publish this part. The first publication right has always belonged to you. The project you're in charge of is just a very small part of Professor Yang's entire large project. There are countless similar smaller projects, such as the one I'm currently working on, the Twin Cities Spine Project in the United States, the University of Tokyo in Japan, and so on. Professor Yang simply wants to open up this large project and allow global resources to participate."
Mannstein tried his best to explain, and tried to laugh as he did so.
"You just mentioned the right to first release, like someone catching a one-kilogram fish in a pond. He's very nervous, worried that others might argue with him about ownership, because a one-hundred-kilogram fish is so rare and attracts attention. But if you change the scenario and catch a one-hundred-kilogram fish in the Pacific Ocean, nobody cares about your fish, absolutely nobody cares. I don't know if I've made myself clear. If I've offended you, that's definitely not my intention. I didn't mean to mock you, I just wanted to laugh."
Weber's fingers tightened on the table; that little gesture reappeared, but this time it wasn't tension, but some deeper tremor.
“I’m sorry, I misunderstood you just now,” Weber said, blushing. “I’m going back to Germany to do this replication experiment myself.”
"You'll make it yourself?"
"Yes, I do it myself. I don't hand it over to students or postdocs. I perform the surgery myself, administer the injections myself, and record everything myself. I'm seventy-eight years old. My hands may not be as steady as they used to be, but my heart is more steady than ever."
Weber's flight back to Germany is scheduled for next Wednesday.
In the week before he left, he practically lived in the animal house. He would go to see M7 every morning, every afternoon, and every night before going to bed. Fritz moved a chair for him and placed it next to M7's cage. Weber would sit in that chair, holding a notebook, meticulously recording M7's every moment.
"At 10:23, M7 walked from the east side of the cage to the west side, a distance of about 2.5 meters, in 18 seconds. Its gait was stable and there was no limping."
"At 14:07, M7 climbed up the lowest perch on its own, 25 centimeters high, in 6 seconds. Its upper limb strength has increased significantly, and its lower limb coordination is acceptable."
……
Elena would come to the animal room to see him every night, sometimes bringing an apple pie, sometimes a cup of tea. Webber would take the apple pie and continue writing while eating it. Elena would sit on the chair next to him, not saying a word, just keeping him company.
“Karl,” Elena finally spoke on the last night, “how long will it take you to finish after you go back?”
Weber said, "If all goes well, it will take three months for the first three animals, one month of preoperative training, one week of surgery, eight weeks of postoperative observation, and two weeks of data processing and analysis, totaling three and a half months."
"and then?"
"Then we bring the data to China and compare it with Professor Yang's. If the results match, the paper is published; if they don't match, we come back and redo it."
Elena looked at him, at the man who had been with her for over forty years. His hair was completely white, and the age spots on his hands were increasing, but his eyes were still bright, as bright as a young man's.
“You’ve changed,” she said.
"It's changed?"
“In the past, you wouldn’t trust others. You believed that only data produced by your own lab was reliable, and you doubted everyone else’s data. But now, you trust Professor Yang’s judgment.”
Weber was silent for a few seconds.
“Because Professor Yang is trustworthy,” he said. “He is the smartest person in the world.”
On Wednesday morning, Weber and Elena stood at the entrance of the research institute waiting for their car. Yang Ping and the others came to see them off.
"Professor Weber, once you arrive in Germany, please feel free to contact me if you need anything."
“I know,” Weber said. “Professor Yang, there’s something I’ve been thinking about for a week, and if I don’t say it now, I’ll never have the chance.”
"Please speak."
“I have made many choices in my life. I chose to do stem cell research, I chose to go to Heidelberg, I chose to accept the Nobel Prize. But the most important choice was the moment I saw the three-dimensional guided gene theory and progenitor cell activation in your paper, which made me decide to write you that email.”
He paused.
"It was because of that email that I finally got involved in something great."
Yang Ping reached out his hand, and Weber grasped it.
"Travelers!
"Yes, colleagues."
The car arrived, and Weber and Elena got in. As the car started moving, Weber rolled down the window, leaned out, and said his last words: "Professor Yang, see you in three months. Should I take that bottle of champagne to Germany or bring it back?"
“Bring back M7’s champagne; it must be opened in front of M7.”
Weber smiled, rolled up the car window, and drove the car out of the research institute's gate.
Yang Ping stood on the steps, watching the black van disappear around the street corner. The autumn wind swirled a few sycamore leaves, sending them twirling on the ground before settling by the roadside.
He turned and walked back to the research institute. The corridor was quiet. The door to the rehabilitation training room was closed, but through the glass window, he could see Chen Jianguo doing standing exercises. He was holding onto the parallel bars, his legs were straighter than before, and his back was very upright. Sister Li stood beside him, holding a towel in her hand, with a faint but confident smile on her face.
A few more sticky notes appeared on the wall. "Jianguo stood for nine minutes today." "M7 can walk now." "Professor Weber has returned to Germany."
Yang Ping stood in front of those sticky notes, looked at them for a while, but didn't touch them.
These words are not written for the present, but for the future.
The day after Weber returned to Heidelberg, he sent an email to Yang Ping.
The email's subject was "Arrived, starting work tomorrow." The body of the email contained only one sentence: "It snowed in Heidelberg today, very lightly, it melted as soon as it hit the ground. I miss the M7 very much."
Yang Ping replied: "M7 misses you too. Fritz said it looked in the direction of your usual chair three times today."
Weber did not reply, and Yang Ping knew that he had already started working.