signingbooks Chapter 1414 It stood up
Chapter 1414 It stood up
Chapter 1414 It stood up
"What did you say? Say it again."
Yang Ping's coffee cup froze in mid-air, wondering if he had misheard.
On the other end of the phone, Mainstein's voice carried a strange calm: "I said, that monkey can now walk six steps, not with assistance standing, not trembling and holding on for two seconds, but a real, coordinated six steps on all four legs."
"..."
"Professor? Are you listening?"
"I'm calculating!" Yang Ping put down his coffee cup. "What does six steps mean? Do you have a video?"
"The video has been sent to your email. Gait analysis shows that the weight-bearing ratio of the hind limbs has reached 62% of the normal level. There is still a deviation in the joint flexion and extension angles, but the movement pattern is correct. It is not compensation, not dragging, but a true neurally driven walking movement."
Yang Ping had already opened his laptop, and during the few seconds the video was buffering, he found himself holding his breath.
The screen lit up.
A rhesus monkey stood on the edge of the experimental table, its forelimbs gently holding onto the railing. Its hind legs, no longer dragging limply behind it as before, were firmly planted on the ground, and then it moved.
The left hind leg lifts and steps forward, the ball of the foot landing on the ground, bearing weight. The right hind leg follows, making the same movement. One step, two steps, three steps, on the fourth step the body swayed slightly, but it adjusted its center of gravity and continued walking. Fifth step, sixth step, then it stopped, glanced back at the camera, and fell down.
Yang Ping will never forget that look in his eyes. It wasn't pain or fear, but a kind of confused clarity, as if saying: Oh, so I can do this too.
"Professor, we have achieved the 50% recovery rate target ahead of schedule. No, to be precise, 62% of the experimental group animals showed measurable walking function, and three of them were able to walk more than six steps independently, which has exceeded our initial target of 50%."
Einstein's voice finally showed some fluctuation.
“I’m already packing my bags,” Mannstein said. “Professor, I want to report to you in person and share my joy with you in person. A phone call cannot convey how I feel right now. You gave me the theory, and I owe you a complete explanation. I want you to see the data with your own eyes, flip through the experimental records yourself, and hear me explain every detail in person.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone.
“And,” Mainstein’s voice lowered, “I wanted to thank you in person; it’s not enough to say it over the phone.”
Yang Ping held his phone, remaining silent for a long while.
“Come on!” he said finally. “Bring all the materials, I’ll come pick you up.”
When Manstein's plane landed, it was drizzling in Nandu.
Yang Ping went to pick him up personally. He watched the old German man walk out of the arrival gate and almost didn't recognize him. Einstein had lost at least ten pounds, his cheekbones were protruding, and his hair had gone from gray to almost completely white, but his eyes were still bright and piercing.
"You weren't asleep?" Yang Ping asked.
“He’s asleep!” Mainstein tossed his suitcase to Tang Shun. “He slept for four hours on the plane.”
Four hours is not enough.
"That's enough, Professor! I don't need to sleep now, I need coffee."
Yang Ping looked at him without saying a word. Mainstein's shirt was wrinkled, one button of his collar was undone, and he was holding a bulging briefcase tightly in his hands, as if afraid it would be stolen.
The briefcase contained key experimental data, evidence of a paralyzed monkey standing up again, and proof that a person had finally seen the exit after being stuck in a dead end for over a decade.
"Let's eat first," Yang Ping said.
"professor--"
"You flew ten hours from Germany, and the first thing you did after landing wasn't to eat, but to give a report?" Yang Ping glanced at him.
Mainstein paused for a moment, then laughed and said, "Okay! Let's eat first, then go back to the hotel to sleep. Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, in the institute's conference room, you need to give me two hours."
"it is good."
Yang Ping could have more time than two hours, let alone two hours.
At 7:45 a.m. the next morning, Mannstein arrived at the institute.
Yang Ping went downstairs to meet him.
"What time did you get up?" Yang Ping asked.
Mannstein said, "It was 5:30, I couldn't sleep, so I went through the PowerPoint presentation again."
"How many times is this?"
Mannstein thought for a moment: "If I count from when I left Germany, it's probably the seventeenth time."
Yang Ping smiled, said nothing more, and turned to lead him upstairs.
The conference room was already full of people: all the members of Yang Ping's research group, and several collaborators who had come from other research institutes, totaling more than fifty people. When Mainstein entered, everyone was talking in hushed tones; as soon as he came in, the voices gradually quieted down until they were completely silent.
Mannstein stood in front of the podium and took a deep breath.
His Chinese was fluent and every word was clear: "Ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to report to Professor Yang Ping on the progress of a research project. The theoretical basis of this research is Professor Yang's three-dimensional guided gene theory. The experimental design and execution were completed in my laboratory in Germany. What I brought today is not a paper, not a press release, but raw data."
He opened the folder, and the first page contained a table.
"This is the experimental design: twelve rhesus monkeys with complete spinal cord injury at the T9 segment. There are six control monkeys and six experimental monkeys. The experimental group received protocellular repair therapy based on the three-dimensional guided gene theory, which regulates the expression of specific genes within a 48-hour window after injury."
He turned to the second page.
"These are continuous electrophysiological data from monitoring."
The only sounds in the conference room were the turning of pages and Mainstein's slightly hoarse voice as he explained. He went through the data item by item, not skipping over a single outlier, and not embellishing any imperfect results. One experimental group of monkeys showed no functional improvement, and he dedicated a whole slide to analyzing possible reasons: off-target gene editing, excessive damage, and individual differences.
"Science cannot only report good news and not bad news. This failed monkey is just as important as the one that stood up. It tells us where the boundaries of this method are."
When he was twenty minutes into the story, he turned to that page.
That's a picture of a monkey standing.
It's not a blurry video screenshot, but a high-resolution photograph printed on photo paper. The monkey's forelimbs are not holding onto anything, its hind limbs are firmly planted on the ground, its body is upright, its head is slightly raised, and it is looking at the camera.
Someone in the conference room gasped.
“This is M7,” Mainstein said. “Twenty weeks post-surgery, this one—”
He turned to the next page.
"This is how the M7 walks."
The photos are a series of six shots arranged in a row, recording the entire process of the M7 taking its first two steps. The first photo shows the right hind leg leaving the ground; the second shows the leg swinging forward; the third shows the foot landing; the fourth shows the weight being borne; the fifth shows the left hind leg leaving the ground; and the sixth shows the body shifting forward.
Six photos, two seconds of action, are broken down into six frozen moments.
“This is not compensation, not dragging, not unconscious spasms.” Mainstein’s voice was a little strained. “This is real, neurally driven, purposeful walking. The signal comes from the brain, travels through the neural pathways beneath the damaged area, and reaches the muscles of the hind limb. This pathway was completely interrupted on the first day after the surgery. Now, it has been reconnected.”
He stopped and glanced at Yang Ping.
Yang Ping sat in the first row, his hands crossed on the table, his expression unchanged. But Mainstein noticed that his fingers tightened slightly. "Professor," Mainstein said, "I would like to invite you up to see a film."
Yang Ping stood up and walked to the front of the classroom. Mainstein stepped aside, typed a few words on the keyboard, and brought up an immunofluorescence staining image of spinal cord tissue.
"This is a cross-section of the damaged area. The red areas are neuronal markers, the green areas are axonal markers, and the blue areas are cell nuclei. Look here..."
He drew a circle on the image with a laser pointer.
"This is the center of the injury. Normally, this area should be a blank space, with no nerve fibers able to pass through. But look, the red axon has grown from upstream, passing through the injury area and forming a new synaptic connection downstream. This is the first time we have demonstrated that axons can reconnect in primates."
Yang Ping stared at the image for a long time without saying a word.
Everyone in the conference room was looking at him.
"Enlarge it!" Yang Ping said.
Mainstein magnified that region.
"Zoom in again!"
Zoom in again!
On the screen, the red axon fibers are clearly visible. They look like tiny rivers that start from the upstream of the damaged area, cross what was once considered an insurmountable barrier, and rejoin downstream.
Yang Ping straightened up and turned to the people in the conference room.
"The significance of this result is not the six steps, not the 62%, not that beautiful fluorescence image. The significance of this result is that our previous hypothesis was correct, it has universality, protocellular repair can be initiated, and nerves can be reconnected. This is not accidental, not luck, but a biological process that can be induced, regulated, and replicated."
He paused for a moment.
"This means that spinal cord injury is not the end point; it is simply a malfunction that can be repaired."
The meeting room was quiet for a moment, then applause broke out. It wasn't the polite, perfunctory kind of applause, but the kind that had been held back for a long time and was finally being released—a heartfelt clapping. Some people stood up, some followed suit, and finally everyone stood up.
Mannstein stood by the podium, somewhat taken aback by the applause. He glanced at Yang Ping, who was also clapping and nodded slightly at him.
That nod meant: This is what you deserve.
After the applause subsided, Mainstein continued speaking for forty minutes. He went through all the data, answered more than a dozen questions, then closed the folder and said something that surprised everyone.
"I came to China this time not only to report, but also to make a request."
He looked at Yang Ping.
“Professor, I want to set up my next research project in China. Not in the sense of a collaboration, but to move my lab here. Germany has excellent conditions and advanced equipment, but there's one thing that Germany doesn't have.”
He paused.
"You are here, and the source of the three-dimensional guided gene theory is here. I don't want to do research halfway around the world. I want to stay in the place where this theory was born and walk this path together with the people who proposed it."
The meeting room fell silent again.
Yang Ping stared at Mainstein for several seconds.
"Are you sure?" Yang Ping asked.
"determine."
"Where is your team? Your students, your postdocs, your technicians?"
“I asked them,” Mainstein said. “They said they had enough of Germany and wanted to come to China to eat hot pot. Some others hesitated, while others decided to stay. I respect everyone’s choice. But the core team, seven people are willing to come with me.”
“Seven people,” Yang Ping repeated.
"Seven people, plus me, eight. A minimal laboratory that can function."
Yang Ping leaned back in his chair and thought for a while.
“The institute doesn’t have any extra lab space right now, but I will help you coordinate to get a separate lab for you at Sanbo Hospital.”
"Professor, does this mean you agree?" Mainstein was surprised to see Yang Ping agree so readily.
There is no reason not to agree.
Yang Ping extended his hand.
Mannstein grasped it.
Two people shook hands in front of more than fifty people. There were no flowers, no champagne, no cameras. There was only one German and one Chinese man, shaking hands once in an ordinary conference room one morning.
Many years later, when people look back on the history of spinal cord injury repair, they will call it the "Yang-Maninstein handshake".
After the meeting, everyone dispersed. Yang Ping took Mainstein to the cafeteria for lunch. It was crowded and a bit noisy at lunchtime. Mainstein held his tray, looking at the dishes in the window, and felt a long-lost feeling.
"Braised pork belly".
"Ma Po Tofu."
Roast goose!
"Char siu!"
Sweet potato soup!
He wants them all.
Yang Ping smiled and said, "Don't rush, eat slowly. Can you finish it?"
“Yes!” Mainstein’s eyes then fell on another dish.
The two of them carried their trays and found a corner to sit down. Mainstein took a bite of Mapo Tofu, his face instantly turning red, and then he started chugging water like crazy. Yang Ping watched from the side and burst out laughing—a rare, completely relaxed laugh.
"How come it's become so spicy after not eating this for several years?"
Mannstein drank his third glass of water, and tears were almost streaming down his face.
"You're a Nobel laureate, and you can't even handle this little bit of spice?"
"The Nobel Prize doesn't teach people how to eat spicy food!"
"Professor, I really mean it, thank you."
"You've already said that."
Mannstein said, "I can't say it enough. Do you know what was the hardest thing when I was doing this experiment in Germany? It wasn't the technology, the funding, or the monkeys. It was the loneliness. Nobody in the world believed that what I was doing was right. Every time there was a group meeting, my students looked at me like I was some kind of fanatical old man. Only you knew what I was doing, only you believed that this path would work."
Yang Ping picked up a piece of braised pork, chewed it slowly, and didn't say anything.
“Now the monkey has stood up,” Mainstein said. “I can finally stand before you with my head held high and say—Professor, I have not let you down.”
Yang Ping put down his chopsticks and looked at Mainstein, who now resembled a young student.