godfather of surgery

Chapter 1248 Starting anew
In the evening, Yang Ping sat in a large, comfortable chair in his study, with wisps of steam rising from the rim of a teacup on the table.

He knew perfectly well that these "makeshift methods" were merely a stopgap measure and could never become the norm. Scientific research could not forever rely on manual labor.

The real solution is to establish a truly independent R&D system—from basic equipment to technological pathways, everything must be firmly in our own hands.

Relying on others' tools and standards may seem convenient when things are peaceful; however, once core interests are threatened, the other party will not hesitate to cut off the supply. The so-called "spirit of contract" is as thin as paper in the face of self-interest.

A faint smile played at the corners of his lips. It wasn't contempt, but rather the composure of someone surveying the chessboard.

The logic of these capital giants is straightforward: controlling scientific research "infrastructure" will strangle innovation. This is an open and obvious strategy. Now, Yang Ping intends to use his own strategy to counter theirs.

"Our predecessors were able to use abacuses to develop the 'Two Bombs, One Satellite' in the Gobi Desert, building their own platform from scratch and allowing core technologies to iterate in their own soil. Now we have domestically produced equipment, a nascent artificial intelligence system, and our theoretical foundation has been verified—the conditions are more than a hundred times better. Are we going to stop because of a few bottles of enzymes or a few instruments?"

This belief was deeply rooted in his heart like a cornerstone.

If it weren't for this "soft blockade," he might not have been so eager to push for building his own system. Now, the crisis has become a catalyst. His goal is no longer just to develop new immune adjuvants—a grander blueprint is unfolding in his mind: he wants to use this opportunity to fundamentally restructure the entire drug development platform and system, creating an independent R&D ecosystem that does not rely on any single external supply chain.

This means that the entire process, from target discovery, molecular design, activity screening, process development to preliminary evaluation, must be re-examined, deconstructed, and re-integrated. He must use existing, perhaps imperfect, domestically produced equipment, reagents, and computing power, combined with the emerging artificial intelligence at the Nandu Medical University Digital Medicine Center, to forge an unprecedented path.

This is undoubtedly a formidable challenge, involving massive amounts of trial and error, optimization, and system integration. In reality, it requires immeasurable time and resources, and the risk of failure is ever-present.

But Yang Ping possesses a trump card that others lack—the System Space. There, time flows at a speed far exceeding reality. There are no resource limitations, no equipment bottlenecks, only the freedom of pure logical deduction, simulation construction, and unlimited trial and error.

With a slight thought, Yang Ping entered the system's space laboratory.

Domestic equipment is much cheaper, so Yang Ping used his savings to buy high-end domestic microscopes, spectrometers, chromatography systems and other equipment for simulation experiments. Their accuracy and stability may be slightly inferior, and the data noise is more obvious, but it works.

The system panel itself is a supercomputer with immense computing power waiting to be deployed, but Yang Ping limited its computing power to be comparable to that of the Digital Medicine Center of Nandu Medical University, which is closer to reality.

"The first step is to reconstruct the molecular design."

In reality, the commercial protein simulation software that He Zijian relied on has been blocked. Here, Yang Ping directly calls upon the underlying algorithms of supercomputers, deeply integrating spatial orientation theory with a novel immune activation model to build a dedicated AI-driven protein design module. He abandons the constraints of existing software frameworks, encoding physical laws, chemical constraints, and biological structural principles into objective functions that AI can understand and optimize.

Countless protein backbones, side chain conformations, charge distributions, and hydrophilic/hydrophobic patterns are rapidly generated, folded, evaluated, eliminated, and optimized in virtual space… With the support of the system's spatial computing power, AI learns with astonishing efficiency how to design “protein enhancers” that meet Yang Ping's stringent requirements. This is no longer a simple imitation of nature, but a creative “design from scratch” under precise guidance.

"Once the design is complete, how do we verify and screen it?"

In reality, Wang Chao's urgently needed equipment for detecting trace protein interactions has been stalled. Here, Yang Ping begins to explore alternative solutions.

He simulated the self-developed enzymatic reaction system that Liu Yang was working on, and substituted the designed virtual protein sequence into the cloning and expression process optimized by domestically produced universal enzymes. He precisely controlled the buffer composition, temperature, ionic strength, reaction time... Within the system space, he could instantly complete the condition exploration that would take several days or even weeks in reality.

The expressed virtual protein was then fed into a high-throughput characterization platform based on domestically produced spectroscopic and chromatographic equipment. Yang Ping did not simply use the default functions of the equipment, but rather "deeply modified" it in the simulation—optimizing the optical path, developing new signal processing algorithms to suppress background noise, and purchasing microfluidic chips to improve parallel processing capabilities. He assembled a series of custom-made "tools" in the system space. Although the performance of a single component may not be as good as that of top-of-the-line imported ones, it is still enough to complete the experiment.

For protein interaction detection, he abandoned the restricted dedicated equipment and instead simulated the ultimate version of the "self-made device" that Wang Chao was trying to build—using a domestically produced laser, photomultiplier tube, and a self-made microcavity, combined with the principle of surface plasmon resonance, to create an ultrasensitive micro biosensor. In countless simulations, he optimized the probe immobilization method, sample flow rate, signal acquisition strategy, and noise reduction core, managing to elevate this "piecemeal" creation to an astonishing sensitivity capable of detecting interactions at the picomolar level in system space.

How can we break through the current limitations in activity screening and risk assessment?

Chu Xiaoxiao's dilemma regarding flow cytometry panels was addressed with a novel approach within the system space. Yang Ping shifted his focus from complex, multi-color panels to developing an intelligent screening system based on key biomarkers and AI image recognition.

He simulated using the most basic antibody-labeled cells, capturing cell images with a domestically produced high-speed imaging system enhanced by algorithms. Then, AI was trained through deep learning to accurately identify cell subpopulations with target immune-activating properties from relatively simplified fluorescence signal patterns and cell morphology. This method bypasses the dependence on high-end flow cytometry equipment and complex panels, transforming the challenge into a data and algorithm problem. Furthermore, Yang Ping began experimenting with using experimental subjects to evaluate the activity and potential toxicity of designed molecules, reducing complete reliance on later animal experiments and accelerating the screening process.

Time flies within the system space.

Yang Ping is like a tireless chief architect, constantly building, testing, overturning, and reconstructing. He places seemingly fantastical "wild" ideas here for extreme simulation and optimization, selects the most feasible technical paths, and seamlessly weaves them into a unified, intelligent, and independently developed platform.

The platform uses AI-driven design as its core engine, domestically produced equipment enhanced by algorithms and creatively modified as its execution arm, and intelligent image recognition and microphysiological systems as novel screening tools, forming a complete closed loop from "concept" to "candidate molecule".

The process was far from smooth. Simulation failures were commonplace, and difficulties arose one after another, including the performance limitations of domestically produced equipment, deviations in AI models, and interface conflicts between modules. However, with the near-infinite time resources in the system space and Yang Ping's extraordinary insight, each obstacle was meticulously analyzed and dismantled, ultimately leading to a solution.

Within the system space, Yang Ping has completed intensive research and development and system construction that would take several months or even longer outside.

As dawn broke, Yang Ping slowly opened his eyes. The weariness of his physical body washed over him, but his eyes were clear as water, sparkling with the composure of someone in complete control.

He walked to his desk, turned on his computer, and began to quickly compile the verified and currently feasible optimization solutions and new technology paths in the system space into a document. These were not mere ideas, but concrete technical guidelines that had undergone extensive simulation and verification and were highly feasible.

He prepared a new set of AI protein design parameters and the core points of optimization algorithms for He Zijian, cleverly bypassing the blocked commercial software.

He drew up a detailed blueprint for the improvement of miniaturized biosensors and the core signal processing direction for Wang Chao.

He wrote a detailed process and model training data specification for Chu Xiaoxiao's streaming alternative based on AI image recognition.

He refined the key control points and activity enhancement strategies for Liu Yang's self-developed enzyme expression and purification process.

He even drafted a priority list of domestic alternative reagent equipment and performance evaluation standards based on practical experience for Jiang Jitong. These standards stemmed from his profound understanding of the characteristics of domestically produced materials in the system space.

These documents, the culmination of his countless trials and errors and wisdom in the system space, are like precise navigation maps, pointing the way for the five-person team as they explored and moved forward in reality, greatly reducing the cost of trial and error and accelerating their progress.

After sending the email, Yang Ping picked up his thermos again and took a sip of the now-cold tea.

His gaze fell upon the city gradually awakening outside the window, his eyes filled with unwavering strength and quiet anticipation.

"When the platform we rely on collapses, our own platform is the only way out. This is not only a battle to overcome technical challenges, but also a decisive battle concerning our autonomy in scientific research."

He firmly believes that, with the unique advantages of the system space, the inspiration of the team's creativity, the increasingly powerful computing resources of Nandu Medical University, and the support of the gradually improving domestic industrial chain, he will surely succeed in building this platform for independent innovation, crossing the chasm of blockade, and reaching the other side of success.

This research and development system, which has been reborn from adversity, may have a far greater value than the new adjuvant itself, becoming the cornerstone for more groundbreaking research in the future.

Once a platform is established, its impact on scientific research is lasting, lasting for decades or even centuries.

With this preliminary plan, summarized through countless trials and errors, the remaining task was implementation. He entrusted Ruixing Medical with building the supply chain for the hardware; the software system was designed by the now-modern Nandu Medical University Digital Medicine Center.

Of course, this plan may still have many shortcomings, but that doesn't matter. As long as we take the first step, we will achieve our goal sooner or later.

Regardless, this time he decided to go for something even bigger!