Cancerous Evolution

Cancerous Evolution

Huang Ji's top priority was undoubtedly improving his medical skills and extending Grandpa's life.

For the time being, he decided to devote himself wholeheartedly to medicine and biochemistry, striving to find a way to save Grandpa as soon as possible.

His learning targets were the finest medical professors in all of Magic City.

Vice President Lü Qinggong was a pathology professor at Fudan University and the most formidable surgical authority at its affiliated hospital.

Half the hospital's master's and doctoral students had been trained by him. He was Fudan's most enthusiastic doctoral supervisor, with several graduate students attached to his name every year.

His overall medical expertise ranked within the top three thousand worldwide. He studied the latest academic papers every day and constantly improved surgical procedures. It could be said that he was at the peak of his career.

That morning, he would be taking part in a seminar with several chief physicians to discuss treatment plans for a Lymphatic Cancer patient.

When most of the attendees had arrived, Huang Ji, dressed appropriately, strolled into the conference room and casually shut the door behind him.

Holding twenty sets of printed documents, he quietly moved behind each person's seat and placed a file in front of everyone at the table.

No one questioned him. One of them even nodded at him.

After handing out the documents, Huang Ji silently took a seat beside the projector.

Lü Qinggong sat at the head of the table. He stared at Huang Ji for a moment, then asked curiously, "Who are you?"

Huang Ji hurriedly stood, gave a slight bow, and smiled. "Vice President Lü, I'm Hua Xu, Professor Yang Qizhong's student. Sister Xiaoqian had an emergency at home, and her phone ran out of battery, so she could only ask me to fill in temporarily. She already transferred the patient's information to me. She said the patient's treatment records from Zhongshan Hospital had been organized and were after page twenty-seven."

With a rustle, everyone flipped to page twenty-seven. Sure enough, the pages after it contained the patient's previous treatment records from another hospital.

"Professor Zhang from Zhongshan Hospital's medical recommendations have also arrived. Sister Xiaoqian said she put them in the second attachment."

Lü Qinggong looked through the documents, nodding as he waved a hand. "Mm... all right, I understand. Have a seat."

"Oh, right. You understand the meeting procedure, don't you?"

"I do," Huang Ji said. "I've worked as my advisor's meeting assistant before."

"Mm..." Lü Qinggong said no more. After letting everyone review the materials, he began the discussion.

When they reached the details of the patient's Lymphatic Cancer spread, he was just about to remind Huang Ji to turn on the projector when Huang Ji had already snapped it on. Not only that, the image displayed was precisely the localized scan he was discussing with everyone.

Lü Qinggong was very satisfied and said nothing, continuing his analysis.

As the seminar gradually deepened, Lü Qinggong became accustomed to Huang Ji's presence. He almost forgot there was even an assistant beside him.

Whenever he needed something, Huang Ji would thoughtfully have it ready for him.

The entire meeting proceeded with extraordinary smoothness, without the slightest interruption or flaw to break anyone's train of thought.

When the plan had been finalized and the meeting was about to end, Lü Qinggong suddenly realized that Huang Ji was a better assistant than any graduate student he had ever seen!

He had blended in completely, as though he had participated in the seminar himself. Only by knowing at every moment what everyone was discussing could he so seamlessly provide the materials they needed.

"You're quite good. What was your name again?" After the meeting, Lü Qinggong beckoned Huang Ji over with a smile.

"Hua Xu."

"Mm, Yang Qizhong's graduate student, right? I saw that you understood the patient's condition very well just now. Are you also researching cancer?" Lü Qinggong asked with a smile.

"Yes," Huang Ji said. "I'm designing a drug to co-stimulate immune T cells and block binding to PD-L1 on the surface of cancer cells."

"What? You're researching that?" Lü Qinggong was startled.

He had assumed Huang Ji was merely working on some minor project. He had not expected him to be studying how to block immune cells' recognition of cancer cells.

One key difficulty with cancer cells was that they could imitate a protein-recognition pathway found in normal cells, causing immune cells to identify them as normal. If a drug could be found to block this false recognition, the body's immune system would naturally attack and kill the cancer cells.

"That topic is far too ambitious for you," Lü Qinggong said. "Even I haven't been able to figure it out. I only learned from the latest papers that RB is conducting research in this area. Domestic pharmaceutical capabilities are still a little lacking, so I only think about this problem from time to time."

"Using the human immune system to kill cancer cells is universally acknowledged as the best approach to conquering cancer."

"If that kind of drug is developed, even if it can't cure every form of cancer, it would definitely win a Nobel Prize!"

Huang Ji smiled. "I don't think that's the best approach."

"Oh?" Lü Qinggong was stunned.

Huang Ji said seriously, "Cancer is fundamentally a genetic mutation. During cellular replication and division, mismatches occur, breaking the Hayflick Limit. Too many things can cause such genetic mutations—viruses, fungi, chemical substances, ionizing radiation, even ultraviolet rays, as well as hereditary cancerous mutations. Even harder to guard against is the fact that cancer can result from mental stress or the pressures of life."

"Isn't this a form of biological adaptation to the external environment? A certain change occurring in the form of genetic mutation, one that may even be written into hereditary material."

"At its root, it is indeed a disease, because the unlimited proliferation of cancerous cells damages normal organs and tissues. But from the broader perspective of species evolution, it could also be called an evolutionary process."

"The reason immune cells identify cancer cells as normal cells may not be because cancer cells are 'cunning' and learned this disguise for their own survival. It may be because this is itself a normal biological evolution—a natural transformation!"

Lü Qinggong froze. He had never heard such bizarre theories.

Cancer was evolution? The immune system was supposed to let it be?

He said heatedly, "What kind of nonsense is that? Do you know how high the mortality rate is once cancer cells spread? Cancer cells are devastatingly destructive. What kind of evolution is that? Evolving people straight into their graves?"

"The mortality rate of cancer is indeed very high, but it also has the rare phenomenon of 'spontaneous recovery,'" Huang Ji said.

Lü Qinggong frowned. It was true—throughout history, there had been quite a few cases of cancer healing on its own.

There were often cancer patients whose symptoms naturally subsided, whose cancer cells vanished for no apparent reason. Moreover, such patients who recovered spontaneously often did not relapse.

"Survival of the fittest!"

Huang Ji said, "Both animals and humans can develop cancer. It is not a disease unique to humanity. Evolutionary theory advocates neutral mutation and natural selection. That is correct, but incomplete; it cannot explain every phenomenon. There should be a third kind... Cancerous Evolution!"

"This is a malignant mutation. In the short term, for an individual organism, it truly is a disease with an extremely high mortality rate. But human civilization has only existed for a few thousand years. Humanity itself has only existed for several hundred thousand years. Looking at the vast river of evolution for the entire species, the significance of this malignant mutation may be positive."

"Of course, humans possess civilization and intelligence, so we can actively make unnatural changes. Modern medical methods all rely on various drugs to suppress cancer cells, surgery to remove tumors that have not spread, and even attempts to block immune cells' 'friendly recognition' of cancer cells."

"Those methods can certainly save people and allow individuals to survive. But from the perspective of humanity's evolution as a species, the world's current approach to conquering cancer may be stifling humanity's evolutionary potential."

Lü Qinggong said angrily, "You even studied biology as an elective? It's not as if I've never trained double-major PhDs, but you're the first one I've seen who's this wildly unorthodox."

Huang Ji smiled. "Ahem... I know medicine exists to save lives. I just can't help saying that suppressing, removing, and eliminating cancer cells isn't the best method. Better to guide than to block... Assist, promote, and positively guide cancer so that it completes a beneficial mutation of the human genome. Let it vanish on its own after it achieves 'great success'—perhaps that is the best treatment approach."

"Not only would cancer be cured, humanity would also take another small step forward on the road of adaptation and evolution."

P.S. Sorry.