Experiment Concluded

Time flew by like a fleeting steed. Whether one was idle or busy, it could pass in the blink of an eye.

In the blink of an eye, the New Year had passed, and the time had arrived at 2021 in the Earth Federation.

Although the semester had not yet begun, many postgraduate exam candidates had already returned to campus early.

The once-deserted campus grew lively again with the students' return.

Yet for the past month, Chen Chen's group of three had worked themselves to the bone, spending more than ten hours in the laboratory every day.

They ate breakfast at eight each morning and entered the lab at nine. Other than leaving for lunch at noon, they would not emerge again until after nine at night.

Whenever they were too exhausted, Chen Chen and Wang Wei would not return to school, instead making do for the night directly in the break room.

Xia Yin's work, meanwhile, leaned more toward logistics—buying meals, delivering water, and caring for the lab animals—making things far easier for her than for the other two.

Until, with three days remaining before the semester began, the final batch of mice implanted with egg cells finally gave birth to cloned pups, marking the successful completion of the experiment's preliminary work.

Chen Chen then divided the cloned mice into three groups.

The first group was the brain injury model group, itself divided into Teams A and B.

Team A would be treated with artificially cultured Autologous Stem Cells, while Team B would be treated with cloned Autologous Stem Cells. Each team had four mice.

The second group was the spinal cord injury model group. As above, Team A would receive artificially cultured Autologous Stem Cells, while Team B would receive cloned Autologous Stem Cells. Each team also had four mice.

The third group had the greatest number, twenty in total. They were all specially selected elderly SD rats, intended for the Immune System reconstruction experiment.

Every rat in this group had been cloned and had corresponding cloned stem cells.

They would undergo radiotherapy and chemotherapy to kill most of the Hematopoietic Stem Cells and Mesenchymal Stem Cells in their bodies, after which they would be injected with cloned stem cells to test whether they could regain their youth.

In other words, it was a bone marrow transplant.

Why were there so many subjects in the third group?

Because the radiotherapy and chemotherapy process alone could kill or injure more than half of these mice.

Radiotherapy and chemotherapy were treatment methods that used radiation and chemical drugs to kill clusters of cancer cells at specific locations within a patient's body.

Yet these treatments had always been a case of hurting the enemy for a thousand while suffering eight hundred oneself. After all, while killing cancer cells, they also placed the patient's normal cells under unbearable strain.

That was why patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy lost their hair.

In fact, many late-stage cancer patients did not die from the spread of cancer cells, but from the chemotherapy process that destroyed their bodies. It was undeniably a tragedy.

Since cancer had been formally identified in 1911, humanity's war against it had continued for more than a century.

Throughout this long war, humanity had gone from being helpless against cancer, to the emergence of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, to today's various targeted drugs, gradually reclaiming the ground lost to death.

The advent of bone marrow transplantation marked humanity's first victory in its war against cancer.

That victory would continue to spread until, one day in the future, humanity completely defeated the scourge of cancer and made it vanish from humankind.

Just like smallpox in the past.

Of course, not every bone marrow transplant succeeded.

Even the bone marrow transplant method clinically recognized by the medical community for treating leukemia had a success rate of only sixty percent.

And among that sixty percent, half of the patients would relapse six months later.

Thus, bone marrow transplantation remained a thorn-filled journey in humanity's struggle against disease.

If any step in the process was mishandled and caused all these mice to die, then the manpower and resources invested over the past month would have gone entirely to waste.

After all, if the original subjects were gone, what use were their corresponding cloned stem cells?

Therefore, in order to gain experience with radiotherapy and chemotherapy on mice, Chen Chen had deliberately used other mice as test subjects.

Still, rodents were ultimately different from humans. These chemotherapy methods were far too harsh for mice, and Chen Chen could only guarantee a forty percent survival rate.

However, with the birth of the final batch of cloned mouse pups, the preliminary preparations for Chen Chen's three experiments were finally complete.

Next came the official experimental phase.

Another five days passed, and the semester officially began.

The three submitted applications to delay their return to school and continued working day and night in the laboratory.

At the same time, as the stem cell treatments were administered, the first and second groups began showing signs of recovery.

The third group, however, was in dire condition. Of the twenty SD rats, five had already died. Though the rest were still alive, they were barely hanging on and had even stopped eating.

Two days later, the chemotherapy was completely over. Some rats that had already been at death's door could no longer bear the strain and died one after another, eight or nine in total, leaving only six alive.

But six were enough.

Chen Chen now only hoped that two or three of those six could hold on until the experiment ended.

Amid this tense atmosphere, another month and a half passed.

The experimental period, originally planned for three months, finally entered its final stage.

At this moment, the three stood gathered around a group of mice, excitement evident on every face.

"Verifying the final results..."

Chen Chen said into the recorder, "Group One, brain injury model group, Team A: 3 subjects, 3 survivors. Degree of recovery: Subject 1 has improved considerably, Subject 2 has improved markedly, Subject 3 has improved slightly..."

"The first brain injury model, Team B: 3 subjects, 3 survived. Recovery level: Subject No. 1 showed significant improvement, No. 2 showed significant improvement, and No. 3 showed significant improvement."

"Conclusion: The therapeutic effects of the Team A subjects cultivated with artificial stem cells were clearly inferior to those of Team B, which used cloned Autologous Stem Cells."

"The second spinal injury model, Team A: 4 subjects... Team B: 4 subjects. Same as above; in both recovery speed and effectiveness, Team A was inferior to Team B."

"The third experiment: 3 subjects ultimately survived. CT scans showed that the bodily functions of the experimental subjects, which had previously displayed signs of aging, were significantly enhanced in every respect..."

"I never expected all three experiments to really succeed!"

Wang Wei excitedly slapped Chen Chen hard on the shoulder. "So cloned young stem cells are far more effective than artificially cultivated Autologous Stem Cells?"

"And the third experiment also proves that replacing bone marrow can really restore a person's youth?"

Xia Yin murmured softly as well, her face full of disbelief. "Chen Chen, we're going to be famous..."

Although Chen Chen wore a smile, his gaze remained very calm. "Next, I'll write two papers. Just as we discussed before, Xia Yin will be first author, Brother Wei second author, and I'll be the corresponding author. Any objections?"

"None. I'm benefiting from the two of you. If it weren't for you, Chen Zi, the experiments could never have gone this smoothly."

Wang Wei looked completely at ease, then suddenly asked in confusion, "Right, why two papers? Weren't there three groups and three experiments?"

"One paper will concern the difference in effects on the human body between artificially cultivated stem cells and cloned Autologous Stem Cells. That paper will naturally cover both the first and second experiments."

Chen Chen explained, "The other will be on the bone marrow transplant experiment."

"That makes sense. Putting the first and second groups together will be more convincing."

Xia Yin smiled and nodded. "What about submission? We're definitely submitting to a Q1 journal, right?"

"Of course. The first of these two research findings might be a bit of a long shot, but the second will definitely be no problem for a Q1 journal."

At that, Xia Yin and Wang Wei cheered again.

"Then which journal are you planning to submit to?" Xia Yin pressed.

"There are only a few top Q1 journals in biology. Of course we're submitting to Cell!"

Wang Wei answered first. "Didn't your supervisor teach you? The shorter the journal's name, the more badass it is!"

Cell, or Cell, was a journal covering the latest discoveries in life sciences. It was undoubtedly the top of the top in biology. Its impact factor had never fallen out of the top three since its founding, making it practically the faith of everyone working in the life sciences.

Researchers often spoke of "CNS papers." Here, CNS referred to the three premier journals: Cell, Nature, and Science. No one would fail to take pride in publishing a paper in one of those three journals.

Watching the two of them grow wildly excited, Chen Chen laughed. "Brother Wei is right. We're definitely submitting to Cell. After all, it's our faith."