1991 Starting from the core

If, with the explosion of technology, the field of materials has now become an area hardest hit by fraud, then the field of biomedicine... after entering the 21st century, has become an area hardest hit by fraud. And it is difficult to say whether it is the large amount of fraud that has caused the statement that "the 21st century is the century of biological science", or the other way around.

But Su Yuanshan knew one thing: myocardial stem cells were a fake project nailed to a pillar. When Piero Anversa's manuscript was completely retracted by Stone Hammer, its impact was far greater than that of Haruko Obokata, who had little foundation in the academic world. Even Su Yuanshan, a chip engineer, suffered the whole process. melon.

Perhaps it was seeing how prosperous Piero was that made Obokata Haruko and his like dare to take such a desperate risk and act so unscrupulously - at least, from Su Yuanshan's engineering perspective, in this situation that concerns the life and health of the entire human race Those who commit fraud in future scientific research will undoubtedly be nailed to the pillar of shame.

——In 2001, a team led by Piero claimed that they had discovered for the first time that injecting c-kit (cytokine receptor) from bone marrow into damaged myocardium of mice would produce new myocardial tissue.

Although in the past two years, multiple teams have raised questions because they could not reproduce it, Del Piero's reply was, you won't.

Two years later, this guy became more confident and continued to post on cell, claiming that myocardium can be repaired without bone marrow stem cells because there are adult cardiac stem cells that can repair damaged myocardium after being expanded in vitro and returned to the heart. organize.

Although doubts have always existed, they still cannot resist the innumerable scientific research institutions and scholars rushing into the field of cardiac stem cells - because it means that the heart can be regenerated. This temptation is in the field of condensed matter physics, and some people Claimed that he discovered room-temperature superconductors.

What's terrible is that in the past ten years, there have been laboratories that have achieved "similar results", and countless related papers and national-level projects have been produced.

You taste it.

(The above is the author’s subjective opinion.)

…

After giving Ye Rudai a brief introduction to the progress of myocardial stem cells, Ye Rudai was also a little surprised and subconsciously thought that this was a bit too subversive.

"Being able to solve heart disease once and for all. If it succeeds, it will be a great thing. But unfortunately...my scientific consciousness and literacy tell me that this matter is not that simple." Su Yuanshan pursed his lips and said softly: "I have read relevant papers, and there are many doubts in them, and almost all of them cannot be reproduced."

"Is there any reappearance?" Ye Rudai immediately asked the key.

"That's a good question...yes."

"Then have you recreated your laboratory?"

"That's why I went over to take a look." Su Yuanshan pointed to his eyes: "I believe in my eyes."

"... But you are not in this major... This is the biomedical major... You..." Ye Rudai frowned. She knew that her husband could not get rid of the sand in his eyes and was very smart, but this kind of inter-professional It's better to mix things up less.

Su Yuanshan smiled slightly: "You know, in addition to integrated circuits and condensed matter physics, I am also good at programming."

Ye Rudai: "..."

"If anyone really dares to question my doubts about my major, then I will major in biomedicine at my worst. I am only thirty years old and I still have a certain learning ability."

Ye Rudai: "...Are you real or fake?"

Su Yuanshan laughed: "Of course it's a lie, but you have to let go of your harsh words!"

…

Over the weekend, Su Yuanshan arrived at the Special Administrative Region as scheduled.

This time, his identity is more as a scholar than as the boss of Yuanxin, because he is also his own student.

In the first half of this year, Wenlaiton and Jiang Chao graduated at the same time, and then they both chose to enter the station at the same time. However, Wenlaiton entered Yuanxin Station, and Jiang Chao went to Columbia University.

Therefore, Su Yuanshan brought his new students this time, Liu Qin, who is in his second year of Ph.D. this year, and his founding apprentice Gan Xiaoyu. Gan Xiaoyu is now the deputy director of the Condensed Matter Laboratory. She and Su Yuanshan are certainly not here to do this. It is not a kind of inter-professional exchange, but a drop-in visit to the Special Administrative Region for academic exchange.

After a brief meeting, Gan Xiaoyu took Liu Qin to the University of Special Administrative Region, while Su Yuanshan chatted with several big guys from the Institute of Biology with great interest.

However, the boss he mainly wanted to see this time was said to have temporarily gone to the operating table. He is still in the provincial capital of Guangdong Province and will not be able to come over for a while.

Half an hour later, Su Yuanshan felt that he should first get a feel for the situation before talking about it. So he proposed to walk around first and talk about it in the evening. Naturally, no one objected to his proposal - he was the only physicist in the room, and everyone else was a medical scientist, so there was no way they could talk to each other.

…

Accompanied by Professor Wei Sihe, the head of the Institute of Biology, Su Yuanshan came to the cardiac surgery laboratory.

"Hello, Professor Su, my name is Cheng Mingcheng."

"Hello, isn't your mentor here?" Su Yuanshan smiled and shook hands, then sat down on the sofa and motioned for Cheng Mingcheng to sit down: "Cheng Mingcheng, is the honest Cheng behind you?"

"Yes." Cheng Mingcheng is tall and lanky. He looks about 28 or 29 years old and wears glasses. After sitting down in front of Su Yuanshan, he was inevitably a little restrained and just put on a smile.

"Haha, your accent sounds like you are from the province?"

"Yes, I'm from Dazhou."

"Oh, then we are still fellow villagers." Su Yuanshan laughed, glanced at Professor Wei, and joked: "Professor Wei, I met a fellow villager, so I will use the dialect."

Professor Wei laughed: "You can do whatever you want, I can understand it anyway."

"It's true that Sichuan dialect has almost become Mandarin..."

Now that Su Yuanshan had changed his accent, Cheng Mingcheng's nervousness was visibly reduced, and the smile on his face was no longer so dry. He smiled and nodded: "Professor Su, I actually studied in West China for my bachelor's and master's degrees."

"Oh, then why did you want to come here?"

"Well... Mainly because in comparison, Huaxi is not that outstanding in the cardiovascular field..."

"Well, it is true that it is impossible for a hospital to be comprehensive in all fields. In recent years, West China has actually developed quite well in the field of cranial nerves." Su Yuanshan looked back at Professor Wei and smiled: "Professor Wei, we have a plan We are building a neuroscience laboratory in the provincial capital, with the main focus on developing brain-computer interfaces. If you can help me out when you see it, it will be counted as part of the biology institute."

Professor Wei was startled, then nodded happily: "No problem, brain-computer interface... Is that like The Matrix?"

"Haha, you can understand that that is just one of the applications. In fact, the most important thing for us is to gradually realize the combination of cranial nerves and mechanical external force assistance to provide better quality of life for some special groups of patients."

"Well, that is also a matter of great merit." Professor Wei nodded and smiled.

"Haha, speaking of immeasurable merits, in fact, the current cardiac stem cells are the ones with immeasurable merits." Su Yuanshan turned around naturally as he spoke.

His gaze stayed on Cheng Mingcheng's face for two seconds without any trace.

Then he saw that the young man with "Sincerity" in his name shook hands involuntarily.

Su Yuanshan sighed slightly in his heart.

"In this way, it seems that your mentor may not be back for a while." Su Yuanshan glanced at his watch, and Cheng Mingcheng smiled slightly and said: "Please introduce your progress to me. If it is convenient, you can get the experimental records and reports. Show me."

As soon as he heard that Su Yuanshan wanted to see the experimental records, Cheng Mingcheng immediately became visibly nervous. He took a breath, not knowing how to respond.

Su Yuanshan was not in a hurry and looked at Cheng Mingcheng quietly.

A trace of surprise appeared on Professor Wei's face. He is in charge of the Institute of Biology, but he is engaged in neuroscience, so he does not have a deep understanding of cutting-edge technology such as stem cells. But he didn't understand it deeply... Can Su Yuanshan... understand the experimental report?

But everyone knows that Su Yuanshan is the big boss and the big benefactor.

So Professor Wei immediately raised his chin to Cheng Mingcheng: "Xiao Cheng, go and take a look. Didn't you just hand in a report?"

"Um...Okay." Cheng Mingcheng stood up and planned to get the report.

A few minutes later, Cheng Mingcheng brought a report.

Seeing Su Yuanshan holding it in his hand and looking at it seriously, neither Professor Wei nor Cheng Mingcheng could hide their surprise. Ordinary people looking at the charts, abbreviations, abbreviations, nouns on the experimental report... I am afraid it is not the same as reading the heavenly book - the so-called every other line is like a mountain, that is really not just a casual talk.

But Su Yuanshan seems to be really interested?

“…cardiomyocytes in adult white mice are in a stable state. After myocardial infarction, new cardiomyocytes can differentiate from non-cardiomyocyte (meaning without α-myosin heavy chain) progenitor cells…Isolated from human heart Cardiac chief cells expressing c-kit can cause an increase in cardiomyocytes in the body..."

Su Yuanshan read one part of it, then raised his head and looked at Cheng Mingcheng.

"Can I understand that you have reproduced the regeneration of cardiomyocytes by cardiac stem cells?"

Cheng Mingcheng immediately pursed his lips, and there were even some beads of sweat on his forehead...

If it were another person, he could have answered with certainty, or in a very vague way - but it was obvious that Su Yuanshan's performance did not seem to believe this.

Otherwise, Su Yuanshan believed in this.

Regardless of whether Su Yuanshan believed it or not, Cheng Mingcheng's intuition told him that as long as he dared to give an answer, he would be faced with endless questions from Su Yuanshan.

At this moment, it no longer mattered whether Su Yuanshan was a "layman" - because he directly asked the core of the subject. And Su Yuanshan, a Nobel Prize scholar, a genius, the big boss of Yuanxin...the momentum behind these many identities was enough to overwhelm Cheng Mingcheng.

He didn't dare to say a word.

This is no longer a matter of whether he should say it or not.

But... is it possible not to answer?

Su Yuanshan looked at Cheng Mingcheng calmly and said softly: "Classmate Cheng, I also obtained the results from the laboratory. I know what the experiment means - this is by far the most powerful weapon to verify science. It must be reliable and also Must be…honest.”

Cheng Mingcheng's body trembled slightly. Facing Su Yuanshan's encouraging gaze, he opened his mouth. Just when he was about to tell Su Yuanshan the real experimental results... he suddenly thought of his graduate tutor.

What if...the tutor doesn't like his answer?

Seeing that Cheng Mingcheng's courage seemed to have fallen again, Su Yuanshan turned around and smiled at Professor Wei: "Professor Wei, I don't know if you have received the invitation. The Academic Ethics Committee is about to be established."

"Oh? I haven't received it yet. Which department was established?"

"Chinese Academy of Sciences." Su Yuanshan smiled meaningfully: "But in my opinion, this is obviously a bit superficial... If we really want to put an end to fraud, we have to let us do it."

"Coming from Yuanxin?"

"Well, I'll do it." Su Yuanshan smiled: "Whether it's a good person or a bad person, I'll be the one."

Hearing this, no matter how slow Professor Wei was, he could tell that Su Yuanshan came this time to directly question the heart laboratory.

The few words Su Yuanshan asked Cheng Mingcheng were obviously close to saying directly, "I don't believe your experiments, please explain it clearly to me."

This... Although Professor Wei has respect for Su Yuanshan, he still believes that Su Yuanshan's behavior of "fighting counterfeiting" across industries is extremely prone to problems.

Especially Su Yuanshan's identity will give people the illusion of "forced oppression".

Therefore, Professor Wei blinked and wanted to smooth things over for Cheng Mingcheng.

After all, as the director, he knew that this young man was almost always in charge of the experiments here, and he was conscientious and never said he was lazy.

Even if there are no results, the efforts are real. (Hey, that’s the mentality)

"We...have not yet obtained the same type of data."

Just when Professor Wei was about to round things off, Cheng Mingcheng spoke.

He licked his lips, looked at Su Yuanshan, and said seriously: "We thought there might be something wrong with our data and samples, so we made a slight correction."

"This is not a question of correction." Su Yuanshan immediately looked at Cheng Mingcheng: "Moreover, this is not a question of data and samples, but a question of implementation. Is it the so-called stem cells or the original myocardium that promotes the growth of cardiomyocytes? You should be able to figure out the cell proliferation and dedifferentiation of the original cardiomyocytes."

"I don't believe you didn't do such an analysis."

Facing Su Yuanshan's doubts, Cheng Mingcheng broke out in sweat instantly.

After a while, he took a deep breath.

"Yes, we are also inclined to conclude that the dedifferentiation of existing cardiomyocytes promotes the return of the original cardiomyocytes to the cell cycle. This may be the reason why cardiac stem cells work. But what if? Su professor."

Cheng Mingcheng pursed his lips and looked at Su Yuanshan: "What if it is really myocardial stem cells?"

"There are so many eventualities..." Su Yuanshan put down the report and let out a long sigh.

"The responsibility of the laboratory of the Institute of Biology, and even all laboratories in the world, is always to pursue science and truth, not to publish papers." Su Yuanshan looked at Cheng Mingcheng and said seriously: "I can accept a person who is unwilling to correct the experimental results. And for students who cannot publish a paper, I, Yuan Xin, will cry out for such students."