Chapter 229: Rosaline (4) |
“Wait, so you’re saying that the reason you split with the pathogen that infected Kim Hyun-Taek was because of the hepatitis medication I was taking at the time?” Young-Joon asked.
—I’m talking about a possibility. Even I don’t know what happened then.
Young-Joon thought for a moment.
“You’ve grown a lot since then, right? If we go back to Kim Hyun-Taek, do you think we’ll be able to learn more about the pathogen?”
—Maybe.
Young-Joon paused, then said, “Now that I think of it… Rosaline, you once told me that Kim Hyun-Taek was so badly damaged that there was no way to recover him, right?”
—Yes.
“Do you think it’s possible now?”
—Hm.
—I’ll have to see.
Click.
Young-Joon opened the door and walked out.
“Huh?”
Ryu Ji-Won, who was hugging Yang Dong-Wook, pulled away in surprise.
“I-I thought you were sleeping.”
“I have something to do. I’ll be back soon.”
Young-Joon put on his jacket and ran out the front door.
*
“What did you just say?” Park Dong-Hyun asked in disbelief.
All the other members of the Life Creation Department looked baffled.
“Maybe we can bring Director Kim Hyun-Taek back to life?” Song Ji-Hyun asked.
Cellijenner regularly visited Lab Seven to conduct follow-up research after the development of the running microdust reduction device. Today, Song Ji-Hyun suddenly requested a meeting with the members of the Life Creation Department and made this outrageous statement.
“I’ve seen the reports on the artificial organs you’ve transplanted into the Chinese officials: heart, liver, lungs, pancreas, and the small intestine. You’ve made a lot of progress, right?”
“... So you’re suggesting we put them in Kim Hyun-Taek’s body and try to save him?” Bae Sun-Mi asked.
“Doctor Song, the human body is not a doll…” Koh Soon-Yeol said, bewildered.
“No, I’m not saying this as a joke,” Song Ji-Hyun said, blushing.
“But why do you want to save Kim Hyun-Taek?” Cheon Ji-Myung asked. “I thought you really hated him, Doctor Song. He’s the one who destroyed Cellicure.”
“I don’t like him,” Song Ji-Hyun said, frowning. “He’s certainly guilty of many things: developing an anthrax bioweapon and deliberately destroying Cellicure. But it should be the law that punishes Director Kim Hyun-Taek, not some unknown pathogen.”
“...”
“I believe that only humans have the right to punish human wrongdoing. Some people believe that Kim Hyun-Taek has been punished by God, but a scientist shouldn’t accept a punishment like that. Kim Hyun-Taek is bedridden because he contracted an unknown disease, and we have an obligation to explore it and try to cure him.”
“But Doctor Song, realistically, it’s too difficult. Kim Hyun-Taek is brain-dead,” Cheon Ji-Myung said.
“That’s right.”
“It’s a bit difficult to revive a brain-dead person whose brain stem is dead, even with artificial organs.”
Park Dong-Hyun scratched his head.
“To put it another way, all we need to do is revive the dead brainstem. The rest… Well, it feels a little wrong to put it this way, but…” Song Ji-Hyun said. “We can get the rest of the parts from A-GenBio since you can make artificial organs.”
The Life Creation Team thought for a moment. It was possible to do this if they removed somatic cells from Kim Hyun-Taek’s body, dedifferentiated them into stem cells and then differentiated them into individual organs. The problem was the brain.
“We haven’t developed an artificial brain yet,” Park Dong-Hyun said.
“That’s right, Doctor Song. Brain death is one of the conditions that people use to pronounce someone dead in modern medicine because there is no way to reverse the complete loss of brain function,” Bae Sun-Mi added.
There were two criteria for pronouncing someone dead: it was the irreversible loss of cardiopulmonary function and the irreversible loss of function of the entire brain. If either of these two things happened, doctors declared patients dead.
While few people questioned the first criterion, the second was still often debated.
Those who viewed brain death as true death believed that the loss of the brain function, including the brainstem, was irreversible. There were some stories about people coming back to life after brain death, but they believed that they were never brain dead in the first place. Diagnosing brain death was a difficult task, and they just suspected that cases of brain death survival were due to misdiagnosis, where temporary abnormalities in functioning were mistakenly diagnosed as brain death.
Conversely, those who did not consider brain death to be true death argued that brain death was a social consensus rather than the result of scientific evidence. Patients who were brain dead and on life support to maintain their cardiopulmonary function were costly for society to maintain. They argued that brain death was agreed upon as the criterion for death because they needed a reasonable definition of death for organ harvesting.
This long-standing issue in medicine sparked a long and tedious war between many doctors and scientists; however, there were two things that both sides could agree on with certainty. The first was that a brain-dead patient was not dead if the damage could be reversed, and the second was that technology to reverse brain death currently did not exist.
“I have an idea for that part,” Song Ji-Hyun said.
“You have an idea?”
“To recover the brainstem.”
“H… How?”
“Neural stem cells exist in two locations in the human brain: the subventricular zone (SVZ) and the subgranular layer of the senate gyrus. We’re going to focus on the SVZ,” Song Ji-Hyun said. “The subventricular zone has a few characteristics: it is responsible for the sharing of nutrients and signaling substances in the cerebrospinal fluid within the ventricles, and it is almost always hypoperfused. Why is that?”
“Wait, when did you become an expert in neuroscience… Switching your expertise like our CEO…” said Park Dong-Hyun, surprised.
Song Ji-Hyun blushed slightly.
“... The reason hypoperfusion is maintained is to prevent the neural stem cells there from differentiating, a property called quiescence in stem cells,” Song Ji-Hyun said. “But as soon as there’s a slight damage to the brainstem, the blood flow there immediately increases. The neural stem cells differentiate and regenerate the brainstem. People become brain-dead because there’s nothing that can be done about major damage, but the body can repair minor damage.”
“I get the point,” Cheon Ji-Myung said. “We inject our induced pluripotent stem cells into the subventricular zone and cause neural differentiation?”
“Our target is the subventricular zone below the fourth ventricle. It’s a very small location, so it’s going to be an incredibly delicate and difficult surgery,” Song Ji-Hyun said.
“And we’re going to use some vasodilators to increase the blood flow, and we’re going to inject a large dose of dopamine,” Song Ji-Hyun said.
“Dopamine?”
“It’s the main neurotransmitter that works in the brain. It stimulates the neurons,” Song Ji-Hyun said.
“How did you figure this out? I thought you worked on liver cancer,” Park Dong-Hyun said.
“Um…”
Song Ji-Hyun shrugged, slightly embarrassed, and ran her hand through her hair.
“Actually, my brother has schizophrenia,” she said. “Because of that, I’ve actually been more interested in neuroscience and cancer drugs. I’ve been active in the Neurological Society for a long time, and I’ve read most of the clinical papers related to the brain. I’ve even done some research in that direction myself, although my brother ended up being treated by Doctor Ryu.”
“I see.”
“With this strategy, Doctor Song, I don’t think you had to ask us for help,” Cheon Ji-Myung said. “Cellijenner could have done this from the preclinical stage. Our artificial organ production is already close to being commercialized, and your idea for regenerating the brainstem makes a lot of sense. Why would you bring such an important idea to A-GenBio? Is it to repay us for the microdust reduction device?”
“Haha, of course not.”
Song Ji-Hyun shook her hand. “This research won’t happen without a giant company like A-GenBio and Mr. Ryu’s name on it.”
“Why?” Jung Hae-Rim asked.
“Oh! I think I know.”
Koh Soon-Yeol nodded.
“What is it?” Park Dong-Hyun asked.
“This won’t start if it’s not for the power of our CEO…”
Song Ji-Hyun smiled bitterly at Koh Soon-Yeol’s comment.
“That’s right. We can get it to the preclinical stage, but it won’t be a clinical trial when it comes to Kim Hyun-Taek.”
“What?” Park Dong-Hyun asked, frowning.
“Legally, clinical trials are for living people, but a brain-dead person is not a living person under current law. It’s been over six months already, so the doctors must have declared him dead.”
“... No, then…”
“This is illegal research. This project can only be started after completely changing the law,”
“This is crazy…”
“This is why people haven’t been able to do clinical trials on brain-dead patients for a long time. Companies like BioCork in Philadelphia have jumped into this challenging field a few times, but it didn’t go well. Most of the clinical research on brain death has been focused on restoring consciousness in brain-dead people.”
“If Doctor Song’s idea works, it would really shock the world. It’s literally bringing the dead back to life, right?” Bae Sun-Mi said.
Song Ji-Hyun nodded.
In a sense, this could be equivalent to conquering cancer. A recovery from an extreme condition that had previously been declared as death: all five people knew what that meant.
“How many brain-dead people in South Korea are still on life support?” Park Dong-Hyun asked Song Ji-Hyun.
“I don’t think there’s anyone who’s been alive for more than six months other than Kim Hyun-Taek, and that’s why we want to do it on Kim Hyun-Taek.”
“By the way, why is Kim Hyun-Taek still on a respirator? Don’t people usually hold a funeral after doctors declare someone dead?” Park Dong-Hyun asked.
“I think his family is against it,” Song Ji-Hyun said.
“They’re against it?”
“They think Doctor Ryu will save him.”
“...”
Park Dong-Hyun scratched his head.
“Those people… Wasn’t that before artificial organs and stuff? But they just trusted our CEO and waited for him? They kept him on life support for half a year? No matter how good our CEO is, it’s not like he’s God… Besides, how could they be so shameless when they know about their relationship…”
“It’s not like that. Director Kim Hyun-Taek’s family are good people,” Song Ji-Hyun said.
“You’ve met them?”
“Yes. When the Cellicure incident was revealed, Director Kim’s wife came to our office and apologized, saying her husband had caused trouble.”
“I can’t believe it. Director Kim has a wife like that?” Park Dong-Hyun said in shock.
“I know Kim Hyun-Taek did a lot of bad things, but he must have been a family man at home.”
*
Young-Joon arrived at the intensive care unit at Yonsei University Hospital. After requesting to see Kim Hyun-Taek at the reception desk, a nurse escorted him to his room.
“Oh, Doctor Ryu, please convince his wife when you go inside… I can’t stand seeing her in pain. We need to let him go,” the nurse said to Young-Joon.
Click.
Then, the nurse opened the door.
“Hello.”
The nurse greeted Kim Hyun-Taek’s wife.
“M-Mr. Ryu?”
Kim Hyun-Taek’s wife looked at Young-Joon in surprise. But Young-Joon was looking past her at Kim Hyun-Taek, who was lying in bed behind her.
[Synchronization Mode Activated: Brain Death]
A message window popped.