top student at medical school

Chapter 101 Delicate Thoughts (Please Subscribe)
While running the experimental procedure, Luo Tingzhu's mind was slightly distracted, but she felt it was only a tiny bit.

However, Luo Tingzhu quickly suppressed her thoughts and continued with the process.

Once the experiment had finally reached a stage where we could wait, Luo Tingzhu temporarily left the lab, carefully adding a label: "Please don't touch this, senior students! ~LTZ"

This is a polite way of avoiding the impression that no one is operating the equipment here, or that it was left on, and that someone might accidentally lose something.

Such incidents have occurred in the laboratory, hence this warning.

As Luo Tingzhu walked out of the lab toward her small table and stool, she overheard Fang Ziye's junior brother, Jie Han, nagging him, "Senior brother, why do we need to add this reagent in this step?"

"That's called dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), an important permeable cell protectant."

"To preserve cells in deep cryogenic liquid nitrogen, in order to prevent damage caused by intracellular ice crystal formation, changes in osmotic pressure, and disruption of cell structure during cryopreservation, it is necessary to use a cryoprotectant containing DMSO. DMSO can quickly penetrate the cell membrane and enter the cell, lowering the freezing point, slowing down the cryopreservation process, and at the same time increasing the intracellular ion concentration, reducing the formation of intracellular ice crystals, thereby reducing cell damage," Fang Ziye answered patiently.

"What if we don't add it? What will happen? Or what if we add other reagents?" Jie Han asked, sounding like a curious child.

Fang Ziye hadn't considered this issue: "I don't know either. At present, our country has not made any original progress or breakthroughs in cell cryopreservation technology. In current medical cell experiments, the cryopreservation step always involves adding DMSO."

"Jie Han, were you always like this before, asking questions without even reading a book?" Fang Ziye asked, noting that Jie Han had been asking a lot of questions since arriving at the lab.

"No, I asked all the questions after reading the book. For example, DMSO, with the molecular formula C2H6OS, is a colorless, odorless, and transparent liquid at room temperature. It is a hygroscopic and flammable liquid. It has the characteristics of high polarity, high boiling point, good thermal stability, aprotic properties, and miscibility with water. It can dissolve in most organic compounds such as ethanol, propanol, benzene, and chloroform, and is known as a 'universal solvent'..." Jie Han immediately began reciting the book.

"But I didn't find any cell-protective effects from its biochemical functions. On the contrary, I know it's a component of pesticides. Tell me, senior, how come a pesticide component doesn't harm cells?"

"According to the literature, DMSO is also a permeability protectant that can lower the freezing point of cells, reduce the formation of ice crystals, mitigate free radical damage to cells, and change the permeability of biological membranes to electrolytes, drugs, toxins, and metabolites."

"So tell me, can something like this be used in clinical practice?" Jie Han was always full of questions, and every one of them was tricky.

"Did you often ask questions like this when you were an undergraduate?" Fang Ziye asked.

Jie Han thought for a moment and replied, "Well, many of our teachers got impatient with my questions, so they would occasionally give me some assignments to do, thinking that I had a little bit of talent."

Jie Han answered seriously, not feeling ashamed at all.

You only ask if you don't understand. If you understood, why would I be asking you?

However, the questions raised by Jie Han are mostly ones that ordinary people wouldn't understand, and they are all very valuable for research. Moreover, his scope of knowledge is quite broad, considering problems from both biochemical and traditional chemical perspectives.

"Senior brother, over here..."

Fang Ziye was speechless. He never expected that Jie Han, who had only conducted a cell experiment and copied down the cell experiment procedure, would suddenly have a million questions.

In the distance, Luo Tingzhu, who had secretly glanced at Fang Ziye, couldn't help but slightly prostrate herself, pursing her lips to suppress her laughter, making sure she didn't show her teeth as she marked each step of her experiment with a checkmark, just to indicate which step she had done and which step she hadn't done.

Immediately afterward, Luo Tingzhu's thoughts drifted a little further away, mainly because she was seriously considering the words Jie Han had said in the cell culture room, which made her mind slightly uneasy.

To be honest, in the five years since Luo Tingzhu entered university, she has become somewhat numb to the senior brothers who have been kind to her, and some of the relatively outstanding senior brothers.

Countless senior female students, male students, teachers, and classmates praised her for being beautiful and pretty.

Luo Tingzhu chose orthopedics because she felt the senior students there were good and she felt safe there. In addition, during her previous internship, she found that although orthopedics had the highest rate of medical disputes among surgical departments, it had the lowest rate of medical disputes involving limbs.

In addition, some unpleasant incidents occurred during her internship in internal medicine, which led her to resolutely choose surgery, since most surgical departments would not choose to settle things quietly.

When Luo Tingzhu first arrived, she was looking for a good teacher. Among the five subspecialties, she found that trauma surgery had the least competition, so she came to find Professor Deng Yong.

Students in the eight-year program can directly choose their supervisors. As long as the supervisor agrees, there is no problem with admission. It does not take up any quota, and the choice is entirely free. Generally speaking, no doctoral supervisor would disagree with accepting students in the eight-year program.

Even though Professor Deng Yong's group was short of funds, he still took Luo Tingzhu as his student. After arriving here, Luo Tingzhu felt a long-lost sense of security.

Whether it was her senior classmates who were willing to stand up for her and stop the "rich and powerful" people who bothered her, or her senior classmates in orthopedics who were willing to give her more opportunities, Luo Tingzhu was quite moved.

Of course, this kind of touching feeling is not limited to the orthopedics department, nor is it limited to Fang Ziye.

If we're talking about people who are good to her, even among the senior students in orthopedics, Fang Ziye can't compare to senior student Sun Shaoqing, let alone senior student Gu Yi, who is in his second year of doctoral studies and takes good care of her.

However, Fang Ziye has one unique trait: he is the only person Luo Tingzhu has met so far, whether among her peers or senior brothers, who has better talent and progresses faster than her.

It's not just about experimental talent, but also about professional clinical skills.

As a result, at the beginning, Luo Tingzhu often addressed Fang Ziye in the training room as a senior sister, but she spoke as a junior sister and tirelessly pointed out some things to him.

Although she called Fang Ziye her senior brother.

But this period of time did not last long. Fang Ziye suddenly caught up with them and then suddenly ran ahead.

On another level, Luo Tingzhu also knew that when she first joined Professor Deng Yong's group, she certainly didn't have enough experimental funding and relied on the help of her senior classmates.

For example, senior students Gu Yi, Wang Yuanqi, and even Yan Zhiming, who was admitted to Professor Deng Yong ahead of schedule, would help Luo Tingzhu with reagents, operating equipment, and so on.

At this time, Fang Ziye did not say anything. In the end, she begged Professor Deng Yong to tell Professor Yuan Weihong that Professor Yuan Weihong's research group had some spare money.

She thought she could do an experiment with Fang Ziye, a senior student who was good at the operation and had a high success rate in basic cell experiments, so as to familiarize herself with the process of basic cell experiments.

Having secured some research funding for herself, Luo Tingzhu has now succeeded. She feels that she's actually quite capable.

Although Fang Ziye conducted some crucial experiments for her, he was willing to help.

But actually, the other senior brothers could also do these things, but their success rate was not as high as Fang Ziye's.

People naturally improve themselves by associating with virtuous people. Given the right opportunity, no one would mind learning alongside more outstanding individuals, finding better teachers, or securing a higher-paying job.

To save money and avoid waste from failures that could lead to insufficient preliminary experiments and a lower success rate when applying for research grants, she asked Fang Ziye for help several times. She also took the opportunity to learn some of Fang Ziye's experimental procedures to accumulate experience. As a result, she can now operate all the procedures of basic cell experiments quite well in just a few months.

Professor Yuan Weihong did not express any intention to use his research funds for experiments, and Luo Tingzhu did not mention it at all!

For her, even parents are hard to come by, let alone others?

Let's take it one step at a time. Basic cell experiments are never something that can be accomplished overnight.

For a long time, Luo Tingzhu thought that she might be ahead of Fang Ziye in terms of obtaining research projects, after all, her supervisor was a full professor, so she could maintain a slight advantage.

This time, although Luo Tingzhu won the school-level project, she failed to win the bid for the city-level project. Instead, Fang Ziye won the bid, which left Luo Tingzhu completely puzzled.

Around November, Luo Tingzhu felt that she might have met a 'master' of the same level as herself. Senior Brother Fang Ziye had been unknown before, but he was just missing a 'trigger point'. Once it was triggered, all his potential would be unleashed.

At that time, Luo Tingzhu still occasionally maintained the desire to fight Fang Ziye.

Healthy competition and the mutual striving to improve one's abilities is a good mindset. At the beginning of December, when Luo Tingzhu learned that Fang Ziye's cutting technique had reached the breakthrough requirements of the training room even further than her own, her first reaction was disbelief. Her second reaction was that her talent was actually not on the same level as Fang Ziye's; Fang Ziye was too outstanding.

From then on, Luo Tingzhu did something that many people didn't notice: she gradually paid attention to Fang Ziye's work and experimental status, including sometimes secretly watching what Fang Ziye was doing in the practice room.

Everything she does is just like her—conventional and unremarkable.

But it was this attention that horrified her, and she finally realized the difference between the nicknames the old professors had given Fang Ziye and the real nicknames.

Step by step, there is no need for this name.

For example, regarding the recent hemostasis technique, Luo Tingzhu watched as Fang Ziye went from being able to stop bleeding forty-three times, forty-four times, forty-seven times, and even fifty-one times per minute, occasionally fifty-five times.

This has only taken a month; she herself will need at least two months, or even longer...

Such prolonged attention caused Luo Tingzhu to occasionally feel flustered, and even when she saw Fang Ziye, she was not so calm.

Then, a few days earlier, when Luo Tingzhu had worked hard for a long time and finally felt that she could rival Fang Ziye in the art of incision and had broken through the barrier, she planned to perform quietly.

Fang Ziye had called someone over in advance. Her performance had really become silent, but in the end, Fang Ziye discovered that there was something wrong with the materials she used for practicing incision techniques. He had someone call her back so that Professor Deng Yong could see her progress.

To get along with outstanding people, you need to adopt the same approach you would use to get along with them.

At first, Luo Tingzhu regarded Fang Ziye as a junior brother and thus offered him guidance. Later, they became classmates and "kindred spirits," so Luo Tingzhu would send Fang Ziye her proposals and other documents for revision, which was a form of mutual exchange.

In private, Luo Tingzhu also conducted a lot of literature research on cutting-edge research on giant cell tumor of bone and corresponding pathways, including some literature reserves on the upstream and downstream pathways of HK2 that Fang Ziye is currently working on.

Her plan was that if Fang Ziye asked, she could give him a gift in return at any time.

However, Fang Ziye did not send the proposal over the time she asked, so she assumed that Fang Ziye was not eligible to apply for the research project himself, which was why he did not have such an idea or preparation.

That's alright, come again next year.

Next year, Fang Ziye will be able to apply for research projects on his own.

With this in mind, Luo Tingzhu suddenly realized that Fang Ziye had never intended to ask her for help. After learning from Professor Deng Yong that the municipal-level research project had been taken by Yuan Weihong, Professor Deng Yong was completely indifferent because he didn't care. However, Luo Tingzhu was once again slightly on the defensive.

She wondered if Fang Ziye looked down on her abilities.
However, Luo Tingzhu gradually abandoned this one-sided idea. Fang Ziye's attitude wasn't one of approval or disapproval, but rather that he didn't need to help because he had already done a great job in the preliminary research...

Any mishandling could lead to the collapse of his entire research integrity.

Of course, research integrity here doesn't mean falsifying data, but rather asking for money.

You're almost finished with your project, yet you still ask for money to do this kind of research. Isn't that another form of breach of trust?

Naturally, Luo Tingzhu would never report such a thing. What's wrong with Fang Ziye using the money he saved from his previous research grants to do his own experiments?

No problem. Everyone in the lab knows the principle: save where you can, and don't save where you can't. But Fang Ziye's stinginess and frugality are even greater than hers.

This made Luo Tingzhu, who was always meticulous in her calculations, even more curious...

After an unknown amount of time, Fang Ziye suddenly said, "Xiao Jie, how about we stop our Q&A session here? Your thinking is too unpredictable; your senior brother can't keep up."

Fang Ziye backed down and raised his voice slightly.

Jie Han remained completely normal, the mole on the corner of his right eye flashing again: "Oh, okay, senior brother."

This answer was rather regrettable, leaving me wanting more.

Fang Ziye then asked, "Do you usually ask Lan Tianluo questions like this?"

“Yeah, Tianluo has a lot of questions too. He even asked why the white blood cell count is a sixth power instead of a fifth power.” Jie Han nodded.

Fang Ziye could only give a thumbs up.

Then he quickly activated his escape technique: "Tingzhu, is your experiment almost over? Let's go take a look together?"

Upon hearing Fang Ziye's question, Luo Tingzhu regained her senses.

He nodded and checked the time: "Senior brother, it will take another hour."

"Oh." Fang Ziye felt very regretful. He checked the time again, then looked at his junior brother Jie Han, and moved a step away. He was really afraid of being questioned by Jie Han.

Based on this, Fang Ziye couldn't help but suspect that the reason why Jie Han hadn't yet had a second outpatient visit with Yuan Weihong might be this.

Once, in August, when Jie Han had just enrolled, Fang Ziye felt that since his junior brother had just arrived, he gave Jie Han a chance to work in the outpatient clinic and asked Yuan Weihong to take Jie Han along, which was considered a courtesy.

Yuan Weihong agreed, feeling that he should treat his new apprentice better, and as a result, he never mentioned the matter again after that.

Fang Ziye then opened his laptop and started drawing again.

Moreover, Fang Ziye currently has a lot of images that need to be categorized, organized, and folders created, including original images, original data, and so on.

A large folder contains a dozen or so smaller folders, and each smaller folder contains seven or eight smaller folders before the data storage stage begins.

This is equivalent to the result of hundreds of studies. However, basically, except for HK2 and giant cell tumor of bone, which have become a closed loop from the perspective of cell experiments, the others are still open loops.

Fang Ziye was afraid that sometimes he would act impulsively and put all the results on the proposal. The reviewers would see that he had already done all the work and wonder what kind of research grant he was applying for.
Meanwhile, Luo Tingzhu, sitting some distance away, was quietly refining the data presentation section of her newly written meta-analysis.

I typed very slowly, thinking to myself that every time Senior Brother Fang invited me to do or participate in experiments, he was very sincere, so he probably didn't mean to belittle my abilities.

Perhaps it was out of enthusiasm, after all, Senior Brother Fang was very willing to participate in all the senior brothers' projects. Whenever he had free time and a senior brother was doing an experiment, he was happy to join in.

Don't overthink, do more, think more, and think less—or rather, stop overthinking altogether.

Luo Tingzhu started daydreaming again.

An hour later, Fang Ziye, like a timed alarm clock, took the initiative to invite Luo Tingzhu to participate in the subsequent experiments.

Luo Tingzhu panicked slightly and accidentally deleted a line of text. She quickly used the undo button to retract the sentence and said, "Senior brother, wait a moment, let me finish writing this sentence."

After Luo Tingzhu finished speaking, he wrote the words "in the hip replacement," looked around, and then clicked the save button on the file.

He got up and started tearing off a new pair of lab gloves, then walked into the lab alongside Fang Ziye.

(End of this chapter)