Chapter 2262 - 1467: The Body Is the Foundation of Revolution (Part 2)

Chapter 2262: Chapter 1467: The Body Is the Foundation of Revolution (Part 2)

He turned around and looked at the few people in the room.

"I want to reiterate, the laboratory must turn off the lights every night at nine o’clock. It’s not a suggestion, it’s a rule. If anyone has any objections, you can speak now."

No one spoke.

"Okay, next topic. Lin Xiaoyu’s second K Therapy infusion is on Friday, I will personally oversee it."

Tang Shun opened his notebook: "The medication is in place, and the quality inspection report is approved. The infusion plan follows the optimized version from the first time, with the infusion time extended to two hours, pre-treated with anti-allergic medication. Lu Xiaolu has already communicated informed consent with the family, and they’ve signed."

Yang Ping nodded and glanced again at the map on the whiteboard. Four hundred and seventeen nodes, two thousand and thirty-eight connections. Every line is an unknown path, and every path needs someone to walk it.

But not to run, to walk. Step by step, carefully.

"Professor, when do you have time to visit the animal laboratory? We have new progress." Tang Shun suggested.

"I can go now!" Yang Ping said.

After the meeting was dismissed, Yang Ping stood in the changing room of the animal laboratory, carefully putting on protective gear one piece at a time.

Isolation gown, mask, gloves, goggles. He dressed very slowly, checking each piece twice, as meticulously as washing hands before surgery. What he’s going to see today is the most critical piece of the entire repair procedure hypothesis.

The door of the animal laboratory closed behind him, making the unique "hissing..." sound of an airtight lock.

Tang Shun was already inside, standing in front of the breeding rack, holding a record book and looking at the mice in the cages. Hearing the sound, he turned around, his eyes bending slightly above his mask.

"Professor, everything is ready."

Yang Ping walked over, looking down at the mice in the cage. An adult C57BL/6 mouse, black fur, bright eyes, was running around inside the cage, completely unaware that it carried the hope of the entire laboratory.

"Which group?" Yang Ping asked.

"Group seven, AAV-unknown factor group." Tang Shun opened the record book and read item by item, "AAV2/9 serotype, CBA promoter, whole-genome sequencing confirming specific integration site insertion. Titer 1.2×10^12 vg/ml, injection volume 1.5 microliters, injection site spinal cord T9 segment dorsal horn."

Yang Ping nodded. He had memorized these parameters, but he still let Tang Shun read them. In front of experimental data, memory is unreliable, but records are reliable.

"What about the injury model?"

"Clamping injury, force 15 grams, duration 30 seconds. Samples collected on the 1st, 3rd, 7th, 14th, and 28th day post-operation."

Yang Ping squatted down and pulled the cage closer, looking at the mouse through plexiglass. It was washing its face with its front paws, rapidly, like a precision instrument self-calibrating.

"Walking posture is normal," he said.

"Yes," Tang Shun said, "All the AAV-unknown factor group mice, starting from the 7th day post-operation, exhibited significantly better hind limb motor function compared to the control group. By the 14th day, the BBB score was close to 80% of normal value. The control group was only 35%."

Yang Ping stood up and walked towards the workbench. Today’s samples were placed on the table, five time points, four experimental groups, eight mice per group, one hundred sixty spinal cord tissue samples. Each one carefully embedded in OCT, frozen into small cubes, neatly arranged in the -80-degree freezer.

"Start with day 7." Yang Ping said.

Tang Shun took out the day 7 sample box from the freezer, using tweezers to pick out one. Number 7-AAV-03. He placed the sample on the head of the cryostat microtome, tightened it, and started sectioning.

The sound of the microtome was very low, a hum, like bees flying in the distance. Yang Ping stood by, watching Tang Shun slice one by one. With each slice, the head of the sample rolled up a transparent tissue section, thin as a cicada wing, almost invisible in the light.

"Thickness?" Yang Ping asked.

Tang Shun said, "12 micrometers, continuous sections, every section spaced 240 micrometers apart, taking 8 sections per spinal cord."

Sections were collected on anti-shedding slides, one after the other, like collecting stamps. After collecting all the samples from day 7, Tang Shun put the slides into a staining rack to begin immunofluorescence staining.

Primary antibody, secondary antibody, blocking solution, washing solution. Each step followed the standard operating procedure, time precise to the second, temperature controlled at 4 degrees. Yang Ping didn’t intervene, just stood by and watched. Tang Shun’s operation was standard; pipetting, sampling, incubating, washing, each move was clean and neat, no superfluous gestures, no hesitation.

"How long for primary antibody incubation?" Yang Ping asked.

"Overnight." Tang Shun checked his watch, "Add the secondary antibody at eight in the morning tomorrow."

"Okay, then let’s look at another."

Tang Shun placed the stained slides into the 4-degree refrigerator and took another set of samples from a different freezer. The samples for in situ hybridization, detecting mRNA expression of unknown factors.

"I’ll handle this one." Yang Ping said.

Tang Shun paused for a moment and then moved aside.

Yang Ping walked to the bench and donned new gloves. He used tweezers to pick up a slide with a transverse section of the spinal cord, tissue so thin it was transparent, appearing as a faint milky white under the light.

He picked up the probe, used a pipette to draw 20 microliters, and dripped it onto the tissue. Covered with a cover slip, placed in the hybridization oven, set temperature at 65 degrees, for 16 hours.

"We’ll review it together tomorrow morning." He said.

Tang Shun nodded beside him and wrote in the record book: "In situ hybridization, initiated."

An hour later, the two walked out of the animal room.

Removed isolation gown, mask, gloves, goggles, each item tossed into the biohazard waste bin. Yang Ping stood in front of the sink for several minutes, washed his hands with soap twice, then rubbed with alcohol gel.

Just coming out of the animal experiment center, his phone vibrated, he took it out to see it was Director He.

"Professor Yang, do you have time now? There’s a case I’d like to consult with you."

"What case?"

"Tracheal tumor, extending from the cervical section to the thoracic section, with a length exceeding 6 centimeters. Bronchoscopy biopsy, pathology indicates adenoid cystic carcinoma. The patient is a 52-year-old female, with no distant metastasis. I was thinking about whether to perform segmental tracheal resection with end-to-end anastomosis, but 6 centimeters is too much tension for direct anastomosis."

Yang Ping thought for a moment: "Did you do laryngeal release?"

"Yes, it added an extra 1.5 centimeters, but it’s still not enough."

"Then repair the anterior wall with a pericardial patch and use an autologous tissue flap for the posterior wall, or perform artificial trachea construction."

Director He responded on the other end of the line: "Artificial trachea’s long-term effectiveness isn’t ideal, with a high rate of anastomotic stenosis and infection."

"Then don’t do artificial trachea, use a pericardial patch plus a muscle flap. Send the imaging data to my email, I’ll come to inspect it at three in the afternoon."

"Okay, thank you, Professor Yang."

Yang Ping hung up the phone, checked the time, stood up, brushed off the dust from his pants, and walked towards the clinical department of the Institute.

Director He was already waiting at the doctor’s office in front of the viewing lamp, beside stood a woman in her fifties, wearing a dark coat with meticulously combed hair. Her expression was very calm, but her fingers trembled slightly, continuously clenching the small bag in her hand.

"Professor Yang, this is the patient’s spouse." Director He introduced.

Yang Ping nodded and turned his gaze to the viewing lamp. The CT scan had already been clipped in place, from the neck to the chest, consecutive thin-layer scans. In the middle-upper section of the trachea, there was a thickened pipe wall about 6.2 centimeters long, with significantly narrowed lumen, the narrowest portion with a diameter of only 4 millimeters. No enlarged lymph nodes and no distant metastasis.

"What about the bronchoscopy images?" Yang Ping asked.

Director He switched to bronchoscopy imaging. The camera entered through the glottis, passed through the normal subglottic area, saw the lesion about 4 centimeters above the carina. The tracheal mucosa’s surface was rough, nodular raised, the lumen slit-like, barely allowing the endoscope through.

"How many points for the biopsy?"

"Four points, pathology is all adenoid cystic carcinoma. Immunohistochemistry CK7 positive, S-100 partially positive, Ki67 about 15%."

Yang Ping reviewed the images from start to finish again. His gaze moved slowly, scrutinizing each layer.

"Surgery can be done, but not with end-to-end anastomosis."

Director He leaned forward: "You say..."

"Perform segmental tracheal resection, length 6 centimeters. After resection, repair the anterior wall using the right-sided pedicled sternocleidomastoid muscle periosteum flap, and the posterior wall with an autologous pericardial patch. Both anterior and posterior walls have vascular supply; healing is good with low tension."

Director He questioned: "Is the length of the muscle periosteum flap adequate? The span from neck to chest is quite large."

"It’s adequate! The muscle periosteum flap can extend up to the upper mediastinum. Intraoperatively, sever the lower end of the sternocleidomastoid muscle and flip it upward, with blood supply coming from branches of the superior thyroid artery, it won’t be ischemic."

Director He quickly processed the plan in his mind, changing his expression from puzzled to certain.

"This plan is feasible."