top student at medical school

Chapter 39: Intense Content (Please add to your favorites and read on!)
"What's wrong with Senior Brother Wang today? He seems a little unhappy?" It was 11 p.m.

Fang Ziye finally had time to come to the lab to check on his cells and asked Luo Tingzhu.

But the laboratory was still brightly lit, and there were quite a few people inside. Professor Deng Yong's group of academic master's and doctoral students were all busy with their own tasks.

Even specialized PhD students, like senior student Wang Yuanqi, only come to the lab to conduct some cell experiments after leaving the practice room.

"I just arrived a little while ago, but I heard from Senior Brother Yan Zhiming that Senior Brother Wang's flow cytometry experiment failed, which is why he's in a bad mood." Luo Tingzhu was copying down the experimental procedure at the moment.

When first encountering a new experiment, even after watching the instructional videos multiple times, it's still necessary to copy down the entire experimental procedure to avoid forgetting it.

"Failed?" Fang Ziye really wanted to see, but he didn't dare to risk bad luck for the sake of knowledge.

"Actually, failure is normal, but Senior Brother Wang's method has failed three or four times, wasting a lot of money," Luo Tingzhu said.

"How much does it cost to do one flow cytometry test?" Fang Ziye asked.

Since entering the laboratory, Fang Ziye has paid close attention to the price. As a result, a bottle of fetal bovine serum costs four or five thousand yuan for only five hundred milliliters. Even after being diluted into culture medium, the price is still one yuan per milliliter!

Can this stand up to scrutiny?

"I don't know either?" Luo Tingzhu flipped her hand.

Oh, Fang Ziye forgot, Luo Tingzhu is also a newbie in the lab, just not as cute as himself.

"Have your cells grown yet?" Fang Ziye changed the subject. Luo Tingzhu had only been revived yesterday, but his own revived cells were growing quite well, with almost one-fifth adhering to the cell wall.

In another two or three days, we can harvest a portion and freeze it, then pass it through generations to begin the next stage of the experiment.

"It's alright. I had osteosarcoma, and about a third of it is attached to the tumor wall. It's growing quite fast." Luo Tingzhu breathed a sigh of relief.

Fang Ziye was very envious: "No wonder it's osteosarcoma, a miracle worker for orthopedic tumor cells. It grows much faster than the giant cell tumor of bone that I cultivate."

Different cells have different growth and division cycles, and there's no feed to give them. Fang Ziye could only watch with envy.

"It's okay, it will grow slowly."

"Could I borrow your notebook so I can copy down the experimental steps for the scratch test?" Fang Ziye asked.

The scratch assay is an experiment to record cell metastasis function. It is essentially to make tumor cells from different treatment groups migrate to a blank area from day one.

Whoever runs faster has a stronger ability to move around.

As expected, the overexpression of HK2 should be greater than that in the normal group and greater than that in the silent group.

Overexpression is like an athlete taking performance-enhancing drugs, the normal group is like normal rest, and the silent group is like an athlete who stays up for ten sleepless nights before a 100-meter race and then goes on a two-day barrage of hundreds of shots, resulting in the slowest runner.

It is an experimental method for detecting the migration ability of cells in different treatment groups. It is also a relatively simple method that is easy to operate and learn. It is often used by beginners who are new to the laboratory and it is one of the first demonstration operations they come into contact with.

“Sure, I’ll give it to you after I finish copying it down.” Luo Tingzhu nodded and continued to copy down the steps of the cell invasion experiment word by word.

There are other experimental methods to verify the invasive ability of tumor cells.

……

While Fang Ziye was waiting for Luo Tingzhu's lab notes, Wang Yuanqi, his senior, unexpectedly walked over curiously and asked, "Ziye, when did you come to the lab?"

Fang Ziye is currently reviewing the specific steps of the scratch test and the preparations for staining and photographing.

Hearing this, he quickly put down his phone: "I just came in, Senior Brother Wang."

Wang Yuanqi laughed and said, "I was wondering why I didn't see you in the training room today. So you came here after you ascended to immortality?"

"Isn't this just following in your footsteps, Senior Brother Wang? You started flying earlier." Fang Ziye quickly pulled up a stool for Wang Yuanqi to sit down.

The head of this lab is Professor Deng Yong, who also applied for the lab from the hospital. So, both Yuan Weihong and Fang Ziye are currently working under Professor Deng Yong. Wang Yuanqi, a second-year doctoral student, is currently a bit more skilled than Fang Ziye in terms of practical skills, though not by much. He's still more capable, and at least he's aiming to meet the requirements of a doctoral student's "training room" after completing their studies.

Fang Ziye wouldn't dare to covet something that far away right now.

"Are you going to do Wei Ge's experiment? How's the progress?" Wang Yuanqi probably didn't care about anything else at the moment, so he came over to chat with Fang Ziye.

"The cells were only revived yesterday and haven't been frozen yet. It's still a long way off, Senior Brother Wang."

"It's alright. Everything is difficult at the beginning. Once you take the first step, you'll get used to it. If you need any help, I'll send you a message when I have time. Don't be too formal." Wang Yuanqi was quite friendly.

Perhaps knowing that Fang Ziye would eventually become Professor Deng Yong's junior, this was a way of building rapport beforehand.

"Thank you, Senior Brother Wang."

Wang Yuanqi didn't sit for long before he dejectedly went to tidy up again. Even if the experiment failed, he still had to clean up. Experiments are full of uncertainties, and most of them involve new directions. Other people's experimental methods can only be used as a reference.

After Luo Tingzhu finished copying the experimental steps, she said, "Senior Brother Fang, why don't you take it back and copy it? It's getting late. I have to go back now."

“Okay, I’ll go back too, shall we go together?” Fang Ziye invited.

Luo Tingzhu nodded.

The two walked out of the lab together without attracting any attention. They were just senior and junior students in the same lab, so what was wrong with them walking together?

Besides, it's already quite late. Those of us still in the lab, preoccupied with our precious cells, are hardly concerned about who's walking with whom.

Fang Ziye was a little disappointed that he didn't get any knowledge points when he entered the lab today, but while waiting for the elevator, he didn't let the atmosphere become awkward: "Junior Sister Luo, you're not far from meeting the requirements for completing your doctoral training in the practice room, are you?"

Luo Tingzhu did not refute: "But if you stay in the hospital, you will be missing out on some research experience. Right now, the number of inpatient slots in our hospital's orthopedics department is extremely limited. Basically, you can't even think about it without one or two top-tier research papers."

"Senior Brother Sun Shaoqing is just one article short of being in the top tier of academic publications, because a senior in the field of joint surgery has three. And he's not far from meeting the requirements for leaving the doctoral training camp."

Fang Ziye was startled upon hearing this.

What a guy.

In my teacher Yuan Weihong's class, being able to stay in the hospital after leaving the meditation room was a good start. Now, even leaving the meditation room and publishing a paper of the first-level academic type might not meet the criteria for staying in the hospital.

"I believe you have great talent, Junior Sister Luo, and you'll definitely find a good job," Fang Ziye encouraged Luo Tingzhu.

Luo Tingzhu shook her head again: "Senior Brother Fang, you're mistaken again. Professor Deng here?"

"I don't have enough research projects, so I have to find a way myself. If I can get funding for experiments next year by writing a grant proposal, then I'll have the funds to do experiments. Otherwise?"

"Actually, I envy you, Senior Brother Fang, you have money to do experiments right away..."

"Huh?" Fang Ziye was taken aback.

"Senior, not every PhD student has the money to do experiments. I live in the dormitory, but you probably don't live in the dormitory, right?" Luo Tingzhu asked after getting off the elevator.

“I rented a place outside,” Fang Ziye explained.

The two then parted ways.

However, after chatting with Luo Tingzhu, Fang Ziye suddenly realized that the advantages and disadvantages of following a young mentor were not so obvious, as long as he could overcome the major hurdle of pursuing a doctorate.

After all, even though he had earned a doctorate, he was still a student of his mentor, Yuan Weihong. Fang Ziye could still use the money from Yuan Weihong's research project to conduct experiments, and the research output would still belong to Yuan Weihong. It was just that he had borrowed Professor Deng Yong's status as his doctoral supervisor.

Instead of directly severing ties with Yuan Weihong.

Yuan Weihong is a young mentor. The prerequisite for him to take on students is securing a general research project or a National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant for young researchers. He has plenty of money, time, and extra publications to offer...

In that case, fellow senior brothers, I won't hold back either.
(End of this chapter)