godfather of surgery

Chapter 1225 Let's be a little conservative.
Yang Ping plans to focus his energy on cancer treatment for the time being. After he has mastered some key technologies of K therapy, he will then move on to research in other fields.

Because Yang Ping now has a strong research foundation, he does not need the funds allocated by the state, which saves the country a lot of money, which can be used for more other research projects.

Scientific and technological research should be multi-centered to ensure its vigorous development. Only when a hundred flowers bloom and each person studies their own topic can rapid progress be made. Innovation must be a multi-centered process.

Because the failure rate of original innovation is very high, only when each person's research is different can there be a possibility of success. If everyone's research is similar, once it fails, there is no possibility of turning back.

Yang Ping joined the afternoon lab discussion. The topic of this meeting was the next steps for escape K therapy, with the research focus shifting from further improving the efficacy and safety of K therapy to finding more K factors.

Of course, this is just the focus. It doesn't mean that shifting the research focus to finding more K factors would mean abandoning the efforts to improve the efficacy and safety of K therapy. It just means a different distribution of manpower. After all, the lab team is not large enough right now. When the lab has more than 10,000 people, many projects can be pursued simultaneously. For now, we must focus on one focus.

After several rounds of recruitment, the laboratory now has just over a hundred researchers. A hundred or so people sitting in the conference room still looks like a decent size.

Everyone was quite excited and had a lot of hope. The success of K therapy had boosted their confidence. Tang Shun, as the secretary of the Academy of Medical Sciences, spoke first: "This meeting is for everyone to discuss our next work priorities. Everyone can speak freely, regardless of whether their ideas are mature or not. Some things can only be discussed openly to determine right from wrong."

"The progress of K therapy from its inception to the present is evident to all. Although there have been some minor setbacks, the research process has generally been very smooth. There has never been any deviation from the general direction, let alone any mistakes. Such clarity of direction is very rare in major research projects. My next suggestion is that while continuing to improve the efficacy and safety of K therapy, we also need to develop more K factors to expand the scope of application of K therapy. At present, expanding the scope of application horizontally is more important than improving efficacy and safety vertically. The efficacy and safety of K therapy are already very good. Even if we want to improve it, it will be after the phase I, II and III clinical trials, after some of its problems are exposed."

“I don’t know what everyone is thinking. We only have a little over a hundred people in total, with about fifty people in each lab. The team is currently researching stem cell projects, so we can’t spare more energy for other things. We must focus, and we can only focus.”

Tang Shun shared his thoughts, believing that everyone shared the same idea: original innovation requires researchers to be passionate, and this passion for science is the driving force for continued success.

“I agree with Dr. Tang’s opinion. K therapy has already shown very good efficacy and safety in treating a few tumors such as osteosarcoma. We don’t need to invest a lot of energy in it. We can improve it based on the problems exposed in the clinical trials. A team of just over ten people is enough to handle it. Others can focus on finding new K factors.” Lu Xiaolu’s idea was similar to Tang Shun’s.

Yang Ping hated meetings. He never attended any of the hospital's meetings, big or small, except for case discussions. He would attend these routine meetings, but he wouldn't speak for the time being; he would usually speak at the very end, playing a key role.

Tang Shun and Lu Xiaolu knew his habits, so they let him rest for the time being. They wouldn't disturb him even if he just closed his eyes to rest. Everyone knew that when the professor closed his eyes to rest, he was thinking.

Yang Ping leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes to rest. In fact, he was thinking in the system space. Even a short moment in the system space is a long time. So, as long as no one disturbs him, he can think for a long time and do a lot of things in the meeting.

“I think there’s no doubt about shifting the focus of our work. Everyone thinks that way. The key question is how long the next research plan will take. Although no one can predict the future, this is scientific research, which must be highly planned. Even if the plan is wrong in the end and we have to start over, we still need to make a scientific plan,” one PhD student said.

Everyone agreed. Tang Shun and Lu Xiaolu glanced at Yang Ping, who was resting with his eyes closed. His silence meant he acquiesced. If he had a different opinion, he would have opened his eyes and spoken by now. Since Professor Yang was not speaking, they didn't want to disturb him.

In fact, almost no one objected to Tang Shun and Lu Xiaolu's opinions, because after the breakthrough progress of K therapy, everyone was determined to find new K factors and conduct in-depth research on the K factors themselves. Only in this way could the scope of application of K therapy be expanded.

If we can truly unlock the mysteries of the K factor itself, the effectiveness of K therapy will be further enhanced. Relying on various tinkering methods will make it difficult to improve the effect further; we have reached a bottleneck.

The focus of the debate is on the duration of the next project: five years? Ten years? Based on the experience of other top international laboratories, it is true that the search for new K factors must be a project spanning five to ten years. However, if K therapy were placed in any other world-class laboratory, even if it were successful by luck, it would probably take at least ten or twenty years. But at the Sanbo Institute, it was successful in just over a year. Therefore, no one dares to be certain about the project's duration.

If the timeframe is set too short, will we have the same luck again? After all, the path of scientific research is winding, and sometimes we often find ourselves in dead ends.

Tang Shun had also thought about this matter. If we disregard luck and follow normal experience, this kind of project might take ten years. Setting a five-year timeframe is rather aggressive. Professor Yang has always been quite aggressive, so to balance things out, the next step is to use a five-year timeframe. Although the entire research and development cycle of K therapy has only been a little over a year, it cannot be used as a reference. K therapy has been too smooth. Tang Shun has never seen such a smooth research project before, and it has not deviated from the direction at all.

He knew this was thanks to Professor Yang's strong sense of direction in scientific research, but Tang Shun also knew that the reasons were hard to explain. Sometimes it was luck, sometimes it was Professor Yang's intuition. Whatever the reason, it was impossible for the direction to be so accurate every time; that didn't make sense.

"Five years?" Lu Xiaolu said, "Wouldn't that be too radical?"

Tang Shun explained, "K therapy only took a little over a year, and it's not too radical to take five years to conduct in-depth research on the K factor and find new K factors."

Common sense dictates that such a project would not be completed in five years. In any country, such a project cannot be completed in a short time; it would require different genius-level researchers to spend more than ten years on it.

For example, in 1928, the Englishman Fleming discovered in a petri dish culturing Staphylococcus that no Staphylococcus grew around contaminated Penicillium mold, but instead formed a strange sterile zone.

Fleming believed this was due to a substance secreted by Penicillium that could kill or prevent the growth of Staphylococcus aureus, and he named this substance penicillin.

However, Fleming only discovered penicillin. Later, some researchers speculated that since penicillin could kill Staphylococcus aureus, it might also kill other bacteria that cause human disease; this was merely speculation.

It wasn't until 1940 that British pathologist Robert Frolley and German biochemist Ernst Chain proved through numerous experiments that penicillin could treat bacterial infections and had therapeutic effects. They also established a method for extracting penicillin from Penicillium cultures. Subsequently, doctors used penicillin for the first time to treat a critically ill patient with sepsis. Penicillin killed the bacteria in the patient's body, allowing the then untreatable sepsis patient to recover.

It took a full twelve years from the discovery of penicillin to its clinical application.

Industrial production of penicillin didn't begin until 1945, coinciding with the outbreak of World War II. The war resulted in a large number of wounded soldiers, creating an urgent need for penicillin. This unique situation spurred British and American scientists to conduct extensive and arduous research into penicillin production. Finally, in 1945, industrial production of penicillin was achieved.

However, the discovery of factor K is actually very similar to the discovery of penicillin. It was also discovered by Yang Ping by accident. However, it took more than a year from the discovery of factor K to its clinical application, which is an astonishing efficiency.

In other words, Professor Yang accomplished a process involving countless others. He needed to make countless precise judgments, without making a single mistake or delay, in order to achieve in just over ten years what would normally take more than ten years.

Tang Shun felt a chill run down his spine just thinking about it. What kind of ability was this? He usually didn't think anything of it when he was with Yang Ping, but now, thinking about it carefully, he couldn't help but feel a deep respect. This was a genius among geniuses. His ability to judge the direction of scientific research and to execute scientific research practices was terrifying. Tang Shun believed that he had met many of the world's top scientists, but none of them could compare to Professor Yang. Compared to Professor Yang, these scholars were like fireflies compared to the bright moon.

"Perhaps it won't take five years!" Tang Shun added, because he dared not use the research experience of K therapy as a reference for the five-year calculation, he really dared not use it as a reference.

"Not even five years?" Lu Xiaolu was quite surprised, feeling that Tang Shun's words were a bit unpredictable today.

Lu Xiaolu had only been in Yang Ping's team for a short time, so it was natural that he didn't fully grasp Yang Ping's terrifying abilities as Tang Shunshen did, because when Lu Xiaolu arrived, K-therapy had already moved beyond the initial stage and entered the application stage.

"Should we ask the professor instead?" Tang Shun suddenly felt that discussion was no longer important; the professor's opinion was the most crucial, and other people's opinions could only be used as a reference.

Sometimes, Tang Shun believed in the power of teamwork, but more often he believed in the power of genius, especially in the history of scientific development, where the main force driving scientific progress has always been geniuses of all kinds, rather than teams composed of ordinary people.

In mathematics, the contribution of one Gauss can surpass that of countless ordinary mathematical researchers; this is true in every discipline.

The numerous PhD students began to discuss the matter heatedly. Some thought it was too naive to complete such a project in five years, while others believed that it would take less than five years based on the progress of K therapy. Still others thought that K therapy was highly dependent on luck and could not be used as a regular reference. The discussion was very intense, with differing opinions and each person having their own reasons.

Tang Shun glanced at Yang Ping, who was still resting with his eyes closed. Tang Shun was used to Professor Yang's habit and didn't dare to disturb him. He looked at Lu Xiaolu, who understood what Tang Shun meant.

They tacitly agreed: "Let's wait a bit." They waited for Professor Yang to open his eyes on his own.

Anyway, let these PhDs continue their discussion. Once Professor Yang opens his eyes, we'll ask him how much time he needs to book. This way, Tang Shun can make a plan, including funding, personnel, and so on, all of which need to be planned.

About ten minutes later, Yang Ping finally opened his eyes, and Tang Shun immediately seized the opportunity: "Professor Yang, how long do you think our next research plan will take?"

How long? Yang Ping thought for a moment and said, "Let's be conservative and not be too hasty. Let's take it a year."

A year? Or should we be more conservative? Tang Shun thought he must have misheard.

"The professor said a year?" Tang Shun asked Lu Xiaolu beside him for confirmation.

Lu Xiaolu nodded: "That seems to be the case." He wasn't sure either; a year was just too unexpected.

As expected, the professor didn't follow the usual path. Tang Shun originally wanted to ask him more questions, but looking at the strong confidence on Yang Ping's face, and recalling how the professor could always make extremely accurate judgments whenever he encountered difficulties in his research, he realized that the professor was not the only one who could do so.

For example, when Sisi developed cerebral edema, Professor Yang decisively proposed craniotomy to prevent brain herniation. Everyone had doubts at the time, thinking that Professor Yang was too radical. However, later facts proved that Professor Yang was right. If he had not made a decisive decision, Sisi would have died from brain herniation.

The more Tang Shun thought about it, the more he felt that Yang Ping was a genius. Every time he faced a series of complex difficulties, he was always able to see through the fog, grasp the essence of things, and make extremely accurate judgments.

Tang Shun felt he shouldn't question a genius's judgment, so he said, "Okay, we'll set it for one year, and all arrangements will be made according to the one-year plan."

In Yang Ping's view, any longer than that would be a waste of time. He absolutely couldn't make a five-year plan; it was just too tedious. Who would spend that much time on a research project? If it weren't for the various objective limitations in reality, he would have done it even faster.

However, there's no way around it; in reality, no matter how fast you go, you're still limited by objective conditions. For example, you can't fast-forward through animal experiments and clinical trials.