Chapter 235: Vampire Gene Therapy

"Nicolas Flamel is an alchemist. Your project shouldn't involve alchemy." Murphy said.

Saying this, Murphy glanced at Ron. Speaking of which, you collected so many Dumbledore wizard cards, didn't you find Nicolas Flamel's name on them?

Harry had seen it once and had some impression, but you just ate chocolate frogs, right?

But thinking about it, it's normal. Wizard cards can't be used for playing cards, so it's not surprising that no one looks at the text on them.

After dismissing the few little wizards, Murphy was just about to go eat some dinner when suddenly, his vision blurred, and then a wave of nausea surged up.

He pressed his chest, shocked and bewildered for a few seconds, until he took a few deep breaths, and his vision returned to normal.

"What's going on? The last check-up shouldn't have shown any stomach or nervous system lesions..."

He had no appetite to eat anything, so Murphy prepared to return to his room first, perhaps to do some checks on himself.

He had an *Undetectable Extension Charm* box, in which he had built several medical laboratories to the specifications of the Magic Research Institute. Although he couldn't use high-end equipment due to the influence of Hogwarts' magic, it was no problem to do some tests with simple means.

It was only a few minutes' walk from the classroom to his office. At first, that wave of discomfort seemed to have passed, and he walked through most of the front part safely. Just as he stepped onto the fifth-floor stairs, another wave of painful sea surged over, almost knocking him down.

As soon as he entered the door, he leaned weakly against the door. The tearing pain was rising from his chest and abdomen, accompanied by a familiar sense of fatigue, dragging him down, making him unable to even stand for a moment.

He was very familiar with this feeling; it was almost exactly the same as half a year ago!

With trembling hands, he took out a syringe from his space ring and injected it into his neck.

After a while, that terrible sense of weakness gradually subsided. Murphy let out a long breath, sat in the chair, and wiped his forehead.

Just a moment ago, it had made him break out in a cold sweat.

"Why so fast..."

Originally, he thought the recurrence of various symptoms should be a few months away. Now it seems the situation is even more critical than he imagined.

The transformation and extreme magic resonance in the battle with the shaman brought a burden to his body that exceeded original estimates.

This body, which was already precarious, might have approached the edge of collapse.

No, he must do something.

He must first stabilize the body's condition.

At least, let it hold on until he gets the real solution.

After resting for a while, Murphy took out the *Undetectable Extension Charm* box from the corner, but just as he opened the box, he thought about it and gave up.

It's useless. Without solving the fundamental aging and gene disorder problems, treating the head when the head hurts and the foot when the foot hurts will only waste time.

Thinking of this, Murphy connected to Andrew Tooke of the Transformation Path group through a crow.

The *Philosopher's Stone* route still lacks many puzzle pieces. Now he can only rely on the scientific side.

"Andrew, how is the research on vampire true blood going? Is there any way to apply its cell repair ability to ordinary humans?"

Previously, the transformation research group discovered that the repair ability of vampire somatic cells is far stronger than that of ordinary humans, and their maximum division count is more than ten times that of ordinary humans. (Volume 4, Chapter 3, Basic Principles of the *Seed of Soul*).

This ability undoubtedly has a great effect on alleviating Murphy's symptoms at this moment. Therefore, in September, Murphy invested a lot of manpower in this direction.

At this moment, his physical condition worsened, and he urgently needed results in this area.

"Director," Andrew faced a crow, unable to see Murphy, his expression somewhat strange. "We have preliminarily identified several genes that may be related to the vampire's super-strong DNA repair ability. After grafting them into mouse cells through the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology you provided, we observed that the lifespan of mouse cells increased by about 30%, and the division count reached about 15 to 16 times from an average of about 12 times."

"However, because there is still a huge gap with the vampire's ability, we suspect that we haven't found that most critical gene yet."

Increasing the cell division count by about 30%?

To be honest, this result was much better than Murphy expected. "Is there any way to apply it to the human body?"

"Inserting foreign genes directly into human cells is still too dangerous," Andrew said. "Therefore, we plan to achieve the therapeutic effect through harmless virus infection."

Murphy nodded slightly. His situation in the Magic Research Institute was semi-public. Basically, researchers who could be useful in improving his condition knew about Murphy's illness.

He didn't worry that someone would use this point to do anything unfavorable to himself.

The *Seed of Soul* magic agreement had cut off this possibility.

"What about the molecular biological mechanism of anti-aging?" Murphy asked.

Gene-level anti-aging is difficult to operate, but if he could figure out which molecules and which channels are used to achieve this function, perhaps he could perform lower-invasive treatment directly through drug methods.

Andrew shook his head. "Sorry, Director, we don't have many clues about the mechanism in this area yet."

This was also within reason.

Humans have wanted immortality for a year or two, and research on the internal mechanism of aging has never stopped. But until the era before Murphy's rebirth, Muggle science hadn't made any huge breakthroughs in this area.

The "immortal species" in the biological world that Muggle scientists can refer to are not few, such as various jellyfish, bacteria, naked mole-rats, etc., but few mechanisms that can truly be used on humans have been discovered.

The advantage of vampires as a research object over the above-mentioned organisms is that they are transformed from humans, and most of their genetic information and cellular mechanisms haven't changed much.

But even so, wanting to find a perfect anti-aging path in a short time is also somewhat unrealistic.

"Then let's use the method you mentioned first. Do you have any specific ideas?"

"The magic-affinity of the werewolf virus is relatively ideal," Andrew said. "It can be regulated by controlling the magic power level in the body, but its toxicity is too strong, and it has the characteristic of forced transformation, which is very unfavorable for your treatment."

"However, we have found that adenovirus as a transgenic vector has precedents in technology. Adenovirus has good capacity and can accommodate more foreign genes, and the immune response is relatively mild. We are currently modifying the adenovirus and expect to carry out animal experiments within this month."

"By the way, Director, Funes Bachmann and Omid Abbott want to talk to you." Andrew said, as if thinking of something.

Those two mad scientists?

Murphy agreed. Before long, the two scientists came to the crow. "Director, we heard about Andrew's transgenic experiment. We have an idea."

"Tell me." Murphy said through the Goblin gold coin.

"Do you still remember what we said about controlling the behavior of viruses and bacteria through the *Seed of Soul*?"

Murphy frowned. "I remember."

"Simple transgenic therapy with viral vectors is spontaneous, and the controllability is too low." Funes said.

"For your treatment, if you use non-replicating viral vectors, it is difficult to perform systemic treatment, and if you use replicating viral vectors, the side effects are unpredictable."

"Therefore, we think, perhaps, we can use the *Seed of Soul* to screen and control the viruses. After transforming the virus into a vector with cell repair ability through transgenic technology, we can then endow it with goals or behavioral logic through the *Seed of Soul*, so that it can work completely according to our wishes."

Murphy pondered for a while.

Controlling viruses with the *Seed of Soul*?

A Soul Seed control virus?

When they first began researching the Soul Seed, the two of them had proposed similar ideas; at this moment, it was merely limiting the virus's function to repairing cells.

In fact, Murphy had already done things where the Soul Seed and a virus worked in tandem.

The transformation mechanism of the werewolf mercenaries was constructed by combining the werewolf virus and the Soul Seed. Murphy could control the werewolves' transformation state through the Soul Seed.

It was just that the Soul Seed was planted in every Moga werewolf, rather than in the virus itself.

He had always been wary of using the Soul Seed on such tiny things as viruses and bacteria, but this time, he was somewhat shaken.

What if one really needed to use this thing to save a life?

Even if it truly turned into a T-virus, one would have to use it when forced by circumstances.

"Once the viral vector is prepared, I will make a trip back," Murphy said.

Only he himself knew how to use the Soul Seed now; this experiment could only be done by him.

(End of chapter)