Chapter 235: Rosaline (10) |
“What…”
Song Ji-Hyun’s eyes widened.
“What are you doing!”
She rushed to the beagles, screaming.
“What are you injecting them with? ATP?”
It was best to avoid adding new variables to a failed experiment because it made it difficult to trace causality later.
“We were going to sacrifice those beagles. If we open its brain and find something unusual, we won’t know if it’s because of the original treatment or the massive injection of ATP…”
Song Ji-Hyun paused. It was because a very weak signal showed up on the electroencephalogram.
“Your strategy was almost right, Doctor Song,” Young-Joon said. “However, the stem cells need a lot of energy to divide in large enough numbers to repair the tissue as they differentiate into new tissue. ATP is a molecular energy source, a typical chemical used in cell biology. If we put glucose along with dopamine, they would have automatically and safely produced ATP through pyruvic acid. But the timing was late this time, so I injected ATP directly.”
“The method I used right now isn’t the best option because the residual ATP that is not absorbed into the cells may remain in the blood and tissue, creating an oxidative environment. Next time, we should add glucose at a concentration of one percent when injecting dopamine,” Young-Joon said.
“No way…”
The amplitude of the delta waves began to build up in cycles on the EEG monitor[1]. The pattern was similar to brain waves seen during deep sleep. The waves were still low in frequency and number, but they quickly stabilized.
“The reason it’s less than a normal delta wave is because of the rate of cell division. By tomorrow afternoon, we should be able to remove the life support from the beagle’s body. He’ll go into s PVS, and he’ll need a few follow-ups to restore cognitive function.”
“...”
Song Ji-Hyun had just witnessed the miracle of the dead beagle’s brain stem beginning to regenerate. But she was even more amazed at what Young-Joon had done.
‘How is this possible? How can this person see through everything with just one look?’
The amount of knowledge he had was incredible, but the speed at which he understood the problem was insane. He took one look at the beagle and listened to one explanation of the experimental method, which was enough for him to be so confident in the experiment that he stabbed a syringe into the back of the beagle’s head.
“... Doctor Ryu.”
Song Ji-Hyun could barely speak from the shock.
“You are incredible… How could you think of this…” she said.
“Well, I did a lot of research on cellular-level differentiation and stem cells in the Life Creation Department, too.”
Young-Joon smiled.
“... I was told that a scientist’s success doesn’t depend on being good at something but on tolerating something you’re bad at.”
“Because it’s like searching for the exit in a dark room,” Young-Joon said.
“Yeah… But sometimes, Doctor Ryu, you don’t seem to fit into the context of traditional science at all.”
She chuckled, but it felt dejected.
“To be honest, I feel inferior, and I’m jealous.”
“...”
Song Ji-Hyun shrugged.
“I’ve been studying and researching this for a long time, so I thought I’d be the one doing most of the problem-solving.”
—What are you going to do? You killed her spirit.
Rosaline sent him a message.
‘I didn’t know this would happen.’
Young-Joon scratched his head.
“Well, so what. It worked out in the end, and it’s okay if ordinary people who live in the same era as geniuses are disappointed,” said Song Ji-Hyun. “It would have taken me weeks to find the cause if I had done it myself. Thank you, Doctor Ryu.”
“N-No, you did all the work, Doctor Song.”
Song Ji-Hyun chuckled and playfully patted Young-Joon on the shoulder.
“Of course. I came up with the main idea and the base experiment, so I did do most of the work. First authorship is mine,” she said. “I’ll put you as an author since you helped me with the ATP part.”
“Wow, thank you so much,” Young-Joon said sarcastically. “Oh, Doctor Song, do you mind if I use this experimental data in the public hearing?”
“A public hearing?”
“I think there’s going to be one at the National Assembly.”
* * *
“What the hell happened last night?”
It was six o’clock in the morning. Koh Soon-Yeol, who came to work three hours early because he was so curious about the beagle’s condition, looked shocked.
The beagles that they thought had failed had come back to life.
They showed no movement, but the brain waves from the brainstem were almost identical to those of a living beagle. Cerebral blood flow imaging with an fMRI[2] also confirmed that the brain had recovered. The brainstem and the subventricular zone had blood flow, and the neurons had neurological activity. From the perspective of modern medicine, these beagles had literally come back from the dead.
“Oh, you’re here already.”
Song Ji-Hyun entered the lab with a toothbrush and toothpaste.
“Uh… What? Did you sleep here…?” Koh Soon-Yeol asked in surprise.
“I stayed up all night to watch our beagles recover.”
Song Ji-Hyun smiled as she looked at the electroencephalogram, which showed normal waves. Koh Soon-Yeol’s jaw dropped.
“Oh my god… Did we really succeed?”
“Mr. Ryu came in late last night and helped me out a bit.”
Click.
The door to the lab opened, and Jung Hae-Rim walked in.
“Huh? Why are there two people already at this hour?” she asked, surprised.
“Come take a look at this.”
Koh Soon-Yeol pointed to the EEG monitor. Jung Hae-Rim looked just as shocked as him.
“What happened? I thought things weren’t going well yesterday. If I knew this was going to happen, I would’ve stayed.”
“After we got off work, Doctor Ryu came and played around with it,” Koh Soon-Yeol said.
“Wow. I didn’t know he came to the company that late. I’m getting goosebumps. Did he stay overnight at the company, too?”
“No, he didn’t. He left after that. I stayed up all night by myself,” Song Ji-Hyun.
“You really worked hard.”
“It’s okay, I took my time collecting the data on brainwave recovery.”
“You didn’t have to. You even organized the data,” Jung Hae-Rim said, looking at the stacks of files on her computer.
“Mr. Ryu wants to use it for the public hearing.”
“Public hearing?”
* * *
The public hearing for the National Assembly took place about two weeks after the successful experiment.
So far, A-GenBio hadn't announced any specific experimental strategy for the brainstem function recovery project in brain-dead patients.
However, things started getting noisy with Young-Joon’s appearance in the National Assembly. The name of the bill, the Ryu Young-Joon Special Act, was interesting in itself, but it was unusual that the type of bill was about the Clinical Trial Act, and they were even holding a public hearing at the National Assembly.
This situation itself drew the attention of the media, so people wondered what it was for.
[Ryu Young-Joon, now tackling bringing people back from the dead.]
Sensational and provocative articles popped up everywhere, though they were in a slightly different direction from the actual experiment. In the midst of this, an unusual public hearing began, with many experts in biology and medicine participating.
Ordinary citizens and reporters had the right to participate in National Assembly legislative public hearings. Only political reporters attended public hearings since people usually didn’t care, but this time, it was filled with ordinary citizens. Among them were representatives from A-GenBio and Cellijenner.
“I’m a little nervous,” Park Dong-Hyun said to Cheon Ji-Myung.
“He’ll do well.”
Cheon Ji-Myung pulled out a bag of potato chips from his bag.
“It’s instead of popcorn. You want some?”
“... Are you here for a show or something?”
“It’s kind of like the UFC.”
“Do you have some Coke?” Park Dong-Hyun asked.
Due to the nature of the issue, the hearing was organized as a debate among experts on the issues.
“We will now hear from the opposition,” the speaker said.
There were three experts on the opposing side of the debate: a neuroscientist and two ethicists who were concerned about the brain death recovery project.
Doctor Hong Jung-Ho, a scientist well-versed in neuroscience and a professor of cardiothoracic surgery, took the microphone.
“The loss of brainstem function is synonymous with death,” he said. “You say that someone appears to be alive if you put them on life support and maintain their cardiopulmonary function, but that’s not medically true. Even if you put them on life support, they die within two weeks in most cases. There were rare cases where you succeeded in keeping them alive for a long period of time, like in the case of Kim Hyun-Taek, the subject that A-GenBio chose, but none of them came back to life.”
Hong Jung-Ho glanced at Young-Joon, who was sitting across from him. He looked relaxed and not the least bit nervous or worried.
“Let’s talk about Giuliano Pinto, the man who did the first kick of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. He was completely paralyzed from the waist down, but how did he do the first kick?” Hong Jung-Ho asked. “He wore a brainwave detector on his head and an exoskeleton on his lower body that was connected to it, and he used his brainwaves to move his legs. Then, he received electrical impulses back to his brain that told him he kicked the ball, so he was able to recognize that.”
Hong Jung-Ho went on.
“But no one said that the motor nerves in his lower body had been recovered. The legs were still biologically paralyzed, and it was just a machine called an exoskeleton that moved them. This is exactly the same thing.
“A brain-dead person is biologically dead even though they are on life support. It’s just a machine that keeps their blood pumping, injecting glucose and sodium to maintain their osmolarity. They’re doing this to sort of embalm the patient so their cells don’t become damaged anymore.
“The stomach cannot digest food even if it is administered through a feeding tube, and they cannot breathe on their own. Over time, the cardiopulmonary function that is being maintained by the machine will eventually become paralyzed, and their body temperature will drop. That is painful to watch for both the doctors and the caregivers.
“That's why we don’t look at brain-dead individuals as requiring treatment or put them on life support. Unlike patients in a persistent vegetative state, brain-dead patients are clearly dead,” Hong Jung-Ho said.
“Attempting to revive someone who has passed is a clear violation of the Medical Service Act, and a deception of the dead. Additionally, granting exclusive permission to conduct this research to a certain individual for that purpose is a violation of the fairness of research. This special act should not be passed.”
Camera flashes went off one after another.
Yang Hye-Sook smiled softly, then nodded to Young-Joon.
Young-Joon picked up the microphone.
“First of all, this bill does not grant A-GenBio exclusive rights, but limits the clinical scope of A-GenBio’s original research on the restoration of brainstem function in brain-dead individuals to a specific period of time and person,” Young-Joon said.
“Thank you for your opinion, Doctor Hong. It was known in conventional medicine that brain death is death and there is no way to reverse it. But humanity has never defined death in absolute terms because it is the most mysterious event at the root of life. We believe that there is still life in the brain-dead, though it is very faint.”
“How can you prove that?” Hong Jung-Ho asked.
“Let’s start from a point where death is much more obvious,” Young-Joon said. “This experiment was conducted last year by a team led by Nenad Sestan, a brain scientist at Yale University. They isolated the brains of slaughtered pigs and then recovered some of their neurons.”
“Oh, that paper.”
Song Ji-Hyun, who was sitting among Cellijenner’s employees, was surprised. It was the paper she was reading the night of Young-Joon and her first successful beagle experiment.
“They took one hundred to three hundred brains from pigs that had been slaughtered at the slaughterhouse for less than four hours, and they used an amazing technology to keep the blood circulating in the brain to partially protect the cells from dying,” Young-Joon said.
The scientists used a system called BrainEx, which consisted of a looped tube, a pump, and a small reservoir of red liquid. The tube was connected to the pump, which then pumped blood into the freshly extracted pig brains at a computer-calculated speed and pressure that mimicked the rhythm of the heart.
“As a result, they found healthy neural activity in billions of individual cells,” Young-Joon said. “An additional mysterious phenomenon was discovered here: some cells that were already thought to be dead managed to recover. And the brain cells barely died for a long time afterward.”
“...”
“The brain dies much more slowly than we think, especially if we manage it with life support machines.”
Yang Hye-Sook’s secretary turned on the screen to present evidence.
“Now, I’m going to show you the preclinical results of A-Genbio and Cellijenner’s work on how to restore brainstem function.”
1. electroencephalogram ☜
2. functional MRI ☜