Rebirth of science and technology academic master

After Yan Ning was shocked, he hesitated!

After she joined the laboratory, she liked the pure scientific research environment here. She devoted most of her time to scientific research every year. The academic exchanges with her colleagues always made her eyes light up. She liked it here so much that she always She believes that her original choice was the wisest choice she has ever made.

Because of that choice, she won a national award, was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and successfully won the Nobel Prize in Biology or Medicine.

Now she is asked to leave the laboratory and become the dean of the School of Life Sciences, which makes her a little difficult to make a choice. After all, she knows the School of Life Sciences, and she will not be able to conduct scientific research with peace of mind.

After hesitating for a moment, Yan Ning chose to follow his heart, shook his head and said: "Principal, I think I prefer to engage in research and occasionally teach students. The position of dean of the School of Life Sciences is not suitable for me!"

Qin Yuanqing was not disappointed when he heard Yan Ning's answer.

"It's okay, it's right to do what you like!" Qin Yuanqing said with a smile.

It doesn't matter if Yan Ning is unwilling to take up the position. After all, there are many professors to choose from, and Qin Yuanqing doesn't like to force people to do things he doesn't like.

Qin Yuanqing learned about related research topics in the Life Laboratory. Now, there are as many as 600 researchers in the Life Laboratory alone, and there are dozens of related topics. Qin Yuanqing came to the leukemia project to learn about the relevant progress of the leukemia project.

"According to statistics from 16 cooperative hospitals, except for a small amount of childhood leukemia caused by viral infection and genetic defects, the vast majority are induced by chemical pollution!" said Song Hua, who is in charge of the project.

Nowadays, some diseases are showing a trend among younger people, and there have been cases of cancer among three- and four-year-old children. For children, the most troublesome thing nowadays is leukemia. A single leukemia will directly bankrupt a well-off family.

The main reason why children suffer from leukemia is decoration of building materials!

After all, the immune function of children is not as good as that of adults, not to mention that they are still in the period of rapid growth and development, so they are more sensitive to environmental pollution!

The most typical decoration carcinogens are formaldehyde, benzene and TVOC!

Although after these years of rectification, the regulatory requirements for building materials have been much higher than ten years ago, and some indicators are much stricter. However, the building materials for interior decoration are not the same. When there are too many building materials, carcinogens will have a cumulative effect.

What's more, it is unavoidable that some unscrupulous traders pass off substandard products, or some people buy low-quality ones in order to save money on materials for decoration. In addition, insufficient ventilation time, the leukemia situation in children has become more and more serious, and no matter how to control it, it is difficult to control it. Can't control it.

Qin Yuanqing paid no less attention to leukemia than cancer, AIDS, etc. According to the latest medical statistics, there are currently at least 4 million leukemia patients in my country, and about 40,000 new leukemia patients are added every year, 50% of whom are children.

The cost of treating leukemia is very expensive. Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia are divided into low-risk, intermediate-risk and high-risk. Children with low-risk or intermediate-risk will need at least 80,000 to 90,000 years of treatment in 2 to 2.5 years. If they are high-risk, bone marrow transplantation should be considered. The cost is 300,000 to 400,000 yuan! If other expenses are considered, then this cost will have to be at least doubled!

The huge expense often makes many children diagnosed with leukemia choose to give up because their families have no money. However, there is only one consequence of giving up - death!

This also makes leukemia consistently among the top ten killers of children in the past 20 to 30 years!

Leukemia is a disease that affects only one person and makes the whole family feel sad!

Of course, now, with the development of medical treatment and technology, leukemia is no longer an 'incurable disease', nor is it the 'death sentence' it was before the 1970s. In fact, leukemia has now improved to a five-year disease-free survival rate, and treatment methods are becoming increasingly mature. Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle is poverty. Poverty has caused many children with leukemia to stay away from hospital treatment and then die in pain!

Although there are some charity funds in society and charity fundraising on the Internet, some babies with leukemia can be treated and have an extra four or five years of life, but it is still a drop in the bucket.

Leukemia can be solved once and for all only by using scientific and technological means to develop specific drugs or vaccines that can cure leukemia.

Otherwise, leukemia alone would require nearly 10 billion yuan in annual charity funding, which no one would be able to bear!

Not even the country can do anything about it!

At present, it is difficult to completely cure leukemia. The main method is to take targeted drugs to relieve the disease and prolong life.

For example, chronic myelogenous leukemia mainly uses tyrosine kinase inhibitor TKI drugs. This type of drugs includes first-generation imatinib, second-generation dasatinib, nilotinib, and bosutinib, and third-generation drugs. Ponatinib, but taking this drug only maintains a long-term remission, not a cure. And because these drugs are controlled by overseas pharmaceutical companies, they are very expensive and the cost of treatment is very high.

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia mainly affects the elderly and is less malignant. It mainly uses nucleoside analogues, such as fludarabine, and targeted drugs such as BTK inhibitor ibrutinib and BCL-2 inhibitor Venetoclax. , this kind of medication can only provide relief and prolong the patient's survival, but it cannot cure it.

As for acute leukemia, although it can be cured with a certain probability through chemotherapy, chemotherapy can cause great damage to the body. Even if the leukemia may be cured, it may relapse or develop a new malignant disease before long.

Of course, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation can also be used. However, due to the magic of the human body, it is naturally repellent to the outside world. Therefore, even if it is a hematopoietic stem cell transplant from a close relative, the patient will more or less reject the hematopoietic stem cells from outside the body, which will affect the treatment effect. It's also unsatisfactory.

Some scientists once proposed that cloning technology could be used to clone the hematopoietic stem cells of patients with the disease, which would provide a perfect solution.

But you know, this is just theory. Although cloning technology is not a new technology, cloning technology has gone through three stages of development so far: The first stage is microbial cloning, which uses one bacterium to quickly copy thousands of identical bacteria. And become a bacterial group; the second period is biotechnology cloning, such as using genetic genes-DNA cloning; the third period is animal cloning, that is, cloning a cell into an animal. The cloned sheep "Dolly" was cloned from the somatic cells of a ewe using animal cloning technology.

On July 5, 1996, a lamb 'Dolly' with the same genetic structure as the donor was cloned, which caused a sensation all over the world. It represents that cloning technology has reached a new height. It has been more than 20 years now, but it has also No biologist dares to pat his chest and say that he has a complete understanding of a kind of life and a complete understanding of human beings!

The reason life is life is because of complexity!

Cloning technology is based on a very rational state, but once it is used in life, it is often very unsatisfactory. Otherwise, cloning technology would have been universalized in the world, especially in medical treatment. After all, for many diseases, just changing organs can be done. solved.

For example, how to make cells grow three-dimensionally to form organ structures and shapes? Although the development of biomaterials can now prepare simple organ scaffolds, they are still far from being usable. For example, how to make different cell types form close physiological structures and physiological connections? For example, how to solve the impact of exogenous substances, such as cell mutations, serum, culture media, and cytokines during the culture process!

Therefore, Qin Yuanqing abandoned cloning technology from the beginning and wanted to break through a series of difficulties in cloning technology. Qin Yuanqing doubted that even if it took another fifty years or even a hundred years, it would not be solved!

"Principal, we are currently trying to see if we can find some kind of factor that can alleviate leukemia, or if we can find some kind of factor that can stimulate hematopoietic stem cells to restore hematopoietic function!" Song Hua said.

Leukemia, also known as blood cancer, is defined from a medical perspective as a clonal malignant disease in which hematopoietic stem cells are abnormal. The leukemia cells in the clones lose the ability to further differentiate and mature and are stagnated at different stages of cell development. Leukemia cells proliferate and accumulate in large numbers in bone marrow and other hematopoietic tissues and infiltrate other organs and tissues. At the same time, normal hematopoiesis is inhibited. The clinical manifestations are anemia, bleeding, infection and infiltration of various organs.

Therefore, there are two research and development directions, one is to alleviate the disease through technical means, and the other is to stimulate the rejuvenation of hematopoietic stem cells through technical means!

Qin Yuanqing nodded slightly. Although the project has been ongoing for some time, there has not been much progress so far.

The research on this disease is always very slow. Maybe ten or twenty years of research may not make any progress. But we cannot give up, because perhaps at some point, research in this area will achieve a historic breakthrough.

The biggest achievements of the laboratory so far are research on myocarditis-related diseases and research on norovirus. These two aspects have made Shuimu the world's leading level in these two fields. Many relevant departments of major domestic hospitals will send experts to Shuimu for retreats to learn more theoretical knowledge in these two fields.

Biology and medicine are often closely linked.

This is why Qin Yuanqing's biological laboratory directly cooperates with sixteen major hospitals on research projects. This is because leaving the hospital and working hard on research in the biological laboratory is nothing more than working behind closed doors, achieving half the result with twice the effort.

"I will take a look at the relevant information to see if I can find any relevant clues!" Qin Yuanqing said.

Qin Yuanqing has the highest authority in the entire life laboratory! He can check the laboratory information at any time. Qin Yuanqing will sometimes look at the research on the topic, and then try to see if he can improve the progress of the research and development of the topic.

And he attaches great importance to leukemia. After all, solving this disease can save millions of children and prevent millions of children from leaving this world within a few years of their arrival!