Chapter 377: Chapter 0357: Big Topic

The regional competition for the Golden Knife Award proceeded methodically, becoming increasingly competitive, and the harsh scoring made it increasingly difficult to achieve full marks.

Yan Jiejun from Fuer and Su Fengyu from Fu Yi, dropped out of the full-scoring camp in the third round of surgeries due to the same mistake.

In a surgery for a distal humeral comminuted fracture, they incorrectly chose the suture for the cosmetic incision of a young female patient and were deducted points.

In the past, articular locations were contraindications for cosmetic suturing. The advantage of cosmetic suturing is fewer scars, but it is not as secure as regular interrupted suturing.

After joint surgery, early rehabilitation training is necessary, typically starting the day after surgery, in order to achieve satisfactory joint function.

The less robust cosmetic suturing cannot meet the needs of early rehabilitation training and can lead to cuts easily opening during movement.

Nowadays, cosmetic suturing techniques have greatly improved. If each stitch can hook enough dermis, the suturing can be initially robust, and what used to be contraindications can now be indications.

There was no problem with the cosmetic suturing techniques of Yan Jiejun and Su Fengyu, but unfortunately their mastery of surgical suturing techniques was not comprehensive enough, they lacked a sufficient understanding of the various sutures, so they made errors in their choices.

For their cosmetic suturing, they used absorbable sutures, which is a mistake that is easy for many surgeons to make.

Many doctors even call absorbable sutures “cosmetic sutures,” which is completely wrong.

Currently, the sutures used for cosmetic suturing must be non-absorbable, such as needle-bearing fine nylon thread, which needs to be removed after surgery.

Although absorbable sutures don’t require removal, the process of their absorption can cause foreign body reactions and inflammatory reactions if used for skin suturing, leading to more pronounced scars. This contradicts the purpose of cosmetic, this does not exist with fine nylon thread, which can be removed within a few or a dozen days after surgery.

If it were normal surgery, this wouldn’t be an issue. However, for a competition, one must strive for perfection.

After the third round of surgeries, those still maintaining full marks were Song Zimo, Su Nanchen, Lin Hao, and Cao Qian.

The teams from the other provinces were still weaker than those from Nandu Province, and no team from these provinces achieved full marks.

Lin Hao is feeling a bit pressured now. After three rounds of surgeries, he still hasn’t been able to pull ahead of Yang Ping’s team; they’re still firmly tied for first in the South China region.

Yang Ping is very clear about Song Zimo’s capabilities. This first assistant has no competitors in the regional competition, and he could even sweep the field for him in the national competition.

Unfortunately, the chief surgeon must perform more than half of the surgeries in the national competition, and the chief surgeon must personally perform the final surgery.

So Yang Ping is not in a rush right now. As long as he doesn’t fall behind in points, he temporarily doesn’t plan to step in directly; he’s concentrating on more important things.

A research plan to cultivate human muscles in a stem cell laboratory has been written.

All his time in recent days has been dedicated to this. The more than one hundred pages of research plan lying on the desk are mind-numbing to look at.

But there was no other option, the aspects covered by this large-scale research project were too broad.

Like building cars, it requires cooperation from many factories; it’s impossible for one factory to make all the parts.

Yang Ping wishes to focus on core technology. Although he plans to cooperate with Takahashi, he doesn’t hold out much hope for the Japanese; that is a backup plan.

Yang Ping’s main plan has already taken shape; he needs to find several domestic partners.

The gene laboratory at Nandu Medical University is a potential partner for obtaining or synthesizing inducing proteins.

Among the topics within the stem cell cultivated muscle cell research, there are several core technologies. Two have already appeared: induction differentiation technology and micro-infrastructure technology. The third core technology for the future is cell structure stabilization technology.

After a long search for micro-infrastructure technology, Yang Ping finally found a start-up company in Pengcheng, called Magic Cube New Materials Company. Its 3D printing technology can achieve 15-micron printing. Although it’s not yet enough, it’s promising.

This company was established by a group of overseas Chinese doctoral students, and it is uncertain whether the team has the ability to develop micro-infrastructure. This is the only hope of domestic companies.

Once these two partners are found, there is hope of completing the research project. Yang Ping plans to negotiate with each of them individually as soon as possible.

If Tokyo University can cooperate and share technology, Yang Ping could digest and absorb their technology then improve upon it, which would save a lot of time.

But such hope is slim, and Yang Ping does not harbor false expectations.

Therefore, in the main plan, they can only start from scratch to chew on this tough issue.

Overtaking on the bend has never happened before. Technology can only progress step by step. If you want to overtake others, you can only rely on speed.

Research funding is also a big issue; the funding for the first phase requires around 30 million yuan.

This investment is enormous. Even if you apply for a research fund and it is successful, it would amount to at most 1 million yuan.

A budget of 1 million yuan is a drop in the bucket. If you count the follow-up investment, this research project can reach the billion-level.

If there isn’t enough funding, it will be hard to carry out the project. These are very practical problems. Yang Ping now thinks that Xiao Su’s words were entirely correct.

Suppose there is a day when he can easily obtain tens of billions of yuan in funding, he would not have to worry about this money.

Someone knocked on the door, it should be Song Zimo who has finished his surgery.

“I was planning to have you write it, but you had to perform the competition surgery. I’ve already written it. This is the research plan I’ve written.” Yang Ping pointed to a thick stack of documents on the office desk.

Song Zimo glanced over the summary: “How come you haven’t written about the research funds?”

“It’s not that I didn’t write it, but that I temporarily couldn’t. The first phase requires 30 million yuan.” Yang Ping said with a smile.

Song Zimo took a deep breath: “The first phase requires tens of millions of yuan, this is a billion-level major project, aren’t we a little—”

Yang Ping waved his hand: “Let’s do this project. I’ll take care of raising the funds.”

Yang Ping believed it was time to get started without any further delay.

If they start now, they can gain momentum once they secure the championship in the Golden Knife Award and earn the reward of the system space laboratory. By then, the project would already be underway.

Yang Ping began to realize that it was impossible to accomplish anything without money.

Huawei invests billions of dollars in research and development annually, and after a decade or so, the Kirin chip was developed.

Other companies lack this kind of boldness and foresight, especially since the outcome of these kinds of investments is uncertain.

Compared to this painstaking technical development, constructing a few buildings for a huge profit seems like an easier choice. It’s quick and satisfying.

Duke University and Tokyo University had both invested millions of dollars into this project, and this was only the preliminary phase. They plan to continue investing billions more in research and development funds into this project.

“With all the research grants combined, you’d be lucky to get one million. The hospital’s funds, the Overseas Chinese Foundation, even if Director Han and Dean Xia agree, it doesn’t matter. The money belongs to the hospital, not to individuals. They won’t give you tens of millions for research.” Song Zimo was worried.

Tens of millions is not a small amount. If it were a business, there might be venture capital investments. But who would want to invest in potentially losing scientific research?

“I’ll figure out the money.” Yang Ping had thought about the difficulties when he had the idea.

“Thirty million. Some of the big professors might not have received thirty million in total research funding in their entire life.” Song Zimo thought the amount was too large.

“You focus on the competition. I’ll handle this; we have to do this project,” Yang Ping assured without doubt.

“Okay, no matter what, I support you. Even though there is a lot of money involved, we would just need to find a way out together.” Song Zimo fully supported Yang Ping.

He had to organize everyone for the review of today’s surgery, explaining to Yang Ping that they needed to find a way to raise funds when he had time.

In the WeChat group on his mobile phone, the results of Wei Danian’s genetic sequencing were finally out.

All hereditary diseases were ruled out: glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, pyruvate dehydrogenase and carboxylase complex deficiency, fructose 1,6-bisphosphatase deficiency, and oxidative phosphorylation deficiencies. All these inherited conditions that could cause lactic acidosis were not present in Wei Danian.

Despite employing the most advanced genetic testing technology in the country, they were still unsuccessful.

Dr. Wen Yulin’s genetic sequencing report, which was dozens of pages long, detailed the sequencing method, equipment used, and results.

Dr. Wen asked if they should continue with larger-scale sequencing, analyze its precursor molecules and metabolic products, or even re-sequence genes. This would be a major project.

Was there any need to continue if they couldn’t find the issue even through gene sequencing?

Such rare cases are valuable resources. It would be a shame to simply give up.

But the gene lab at Nandu Medical University could not possibly devote all its resources to gene testing for Wei Danian; there are many other projects they needed to work on.

They never would have committed to such a difficult task if it weren’t for the influence of Su Nanchen.

Yang Ping suddenly remembered the recent push notification functionality of his system for cases: the case-push feature allows for comprehensive medical activities on the recommended cases.

He went into the system space and using the case-push feature, he constantly modified the keywords, narrowed down the scope and, finally, managed to get a precision push case which was extremely similar to Wei Danian.

Yang Ping decided to conduct the most comprehensive examination on this experimental subject, running the subject through all kinds of laboratory and equipment tests.

However, he didn’t find any clues, so he attempted to improve the patient’s genetic sequencing.

All the inspection methods in reality were available in the system space, and in the system space, there was no need to wait in line: all resources were around the case.

It was astounding that after only a few hours, a gene sequencing report, dozens of pages long, was completed by the fourth generation of gene sequencing technology.

After examining the genetic testing report, the cause of the disease was still not apparent.

Yang Ping ordered a few more gene sequences. This colossal examination cost him tens of thousands of points.

However, compared to the simulated surgery, these points were still bearable.

Finally, one report showed: there was a mutation in the ATP5F1D gene, which is involved in mitochondrial function. This mutation led to a metabolic issue with pyruvate, which caused an accumulation of lactic acid.

“Could we continue testing, using the fourth-generation sequencing technology, focusing on the ATP5F1D gene, and do it multiple times? It’s possible that this gene might have had a mutation.”

Yang Ping left a message in the group.

“I really regret to say that at the moment, the fourth-generation sequencing equipment is not available.” Dr. Wen expressed her remorse as they were extremely busy with projects recently as well.

Approximately ten minutes later, Dr. Wen replied with an OK hand gesture.

“If we were to carry out a comprehensive re-sequencing, we wouldn’t be able to spare the resources. If we were to do a precise sequence of the ATP5F1D gene, that can be arranged.”

It would be almost impossible to find a lost treasure by searching every nook and cranny of every house in the entire city.

Now, they only needed to search one house. The task would be considerably easier.

It was Yang Ping’s first time using the case-push feature, and he wasn’t sure if the checks performed in the system space would be helpful in reality.

“We will use the fourth-generation gene sequencing technology, and the results can be out within a few hours. We will start tomorrow,” added Dr. Wen.

Once Su Nanchen saw the chat in the group, he called Lin Lan who then agreed to continue assisting with the tests.

Lin Lan was the director of the gene lab at Nandu Medical University and a doctoral supervisor. She was also Su Nanchen’s fiancée.

With Lin Lan handling the arrangements, Dr. Wen Yulin would definitely comply, considering Lin Lan was her doctoral advisor.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated on Novlove.com