Chapter 130: Articles Submitted and Technical Barriers (Requesting Subscriptions)

Blood sausage, also called blood cake, is made by cleaning pig intestines and removing some of the fat, then mixing glutinous rice and pig blood with seasonings such as Sichuan pepper and salt, steaming it in a steamer to set it, and it can be frozen for long-term storage in a refrigerator.

Afterwards, whether fried or steamed, the taste is very delicious.

Crispy meat lumps are made by chopping lean meat, mixing it with flour, also seasoned with Sichuan pepper and so on, and the custom of Fang Ziye's hometown is to fry them together with Sichuan pepper leaves, making them spicy, numbing, and crispy.

Actually, the taste preference of Hubei Province leans toward sauce aroma and spiciness, not purely spicy and numbing, but the reason Fang Ziye's crispy meat and blood sausage can suit Luo Tingzhu's Chongqing spicy taste is that Fang Ziye specifically instructed his mother to add locally produced Sichuan pepper.

Fang Ziye did not deep-fry, but cut the crispy meat into small pieces, boiled them, and ate them together with the broth, which was also very tasty.

Moreover, Fang Ziye also blanched some Chinese cabbage leaves on the side, and when he served them all together, Luo Tingzhu's face turned slightly red with embarrassment.

After all, this was already the third time that, despite having free time to cook, she had not returned to her own home to stir-fry dishes and cook meals, but instead came to Fang Ziye's place to mooch off him.

When Fang Ziye served it, it was steaming hot, with a porcelain soup spoon resting across the ceramic bowl.

He said: "Tingzhu, you eat first, don't stand on ceremony, I'll go in and bring out the blood sausage, it's a bit hot."

Fang Ziye had long since taken out the small bowls for eating, but there were no other dishes, nor any staple food.

Luo Tingzhu said okay, but only helped ladle a small bowl each into Fang Ziye's bowl and her own bowl, then first walked over to the sink.

About three minutes later, Fang Ziye also casually rinsed his hands and came out, and Luo Tingzhu handed Fang Ziye a piece of paper, then said: "Senior Brother, I won't wait for you."

It could be seen that she had little resistance to such spicy and numbing food.

Fang Ziye nodded and smiled, sitting down: "Junior Sister, your experiment is basically half finished by now, right?"

"At your current pace, before you go abroad, you can directly take the results out to write a paper."

Luo Tingzhu's learning progress in basic experiments could not be called slow.

From when she entered the laboratory until now, it had been only half a year at most, but her proficiency was already very good, already at a proficiency level of more than 2 approaching level 3; if it were Fang Ziye himself not relying on adding points, by now he estimated at most he had just reached level 2 proficiency.

Luo Tingzhu pursed her lips, chewed slowly, and said nothing.

After she swallowed, she slightly enjoyed squinting her eyes: "It should be about the same. It's just that compared to your experiment speed, Senior Brother, there is still too big a gap."

All of Luo Tingzhu's things added together could at most be counted as two and a half workloads.

One workload, Luo Tingzhu needed about two weeks to complete, but Fang Ziye's workload efficiency was several times hers.

Luo Tingzhu just didn't deliberately show it, just felt that sometimes the gap in talent was a kind of absolute helplessness, just like some of her classmates, when facing her, also had a sense of powerlessness.

"Oh, right, Senior Brother, a few days ago, Senior Brother Qian Qiaofeng asked me for your email address."

"Probably wants to publish a paper with you, leaving contact information when submitting; you can pay attention to the information in your email recently."

"Although most journals will only contact the corresponding author, some journals will send result reminders to all authors." Luo Tingzhu suddenly said this.

Fang Ziye took a big bite and finished the first soft and glutinous crispy meat lump, just about to take a piece of blood cake when...

Hearing Luo Tingzhu say this, he was slightly stunned: "When did this happen? How come I haven't heard Senior Brother Qian mention it?"

Fang Ziye completely didn't know about this matter.

"Probably not first author, but second author; Senior Brother, you also have experimental supervision participation, so they brought you along to publish."

"Although being second author doesn't have much gold content or assigned points when job hunting, having second author can still add points."

"I just can't ask Senior Brother Qian about it." Luo Tingzhu slightly restrained her eating manner, holding a spoon, blew on a lump of crispy meat, then dumped it into her mouth, sliding into her oral cavity...

After finishing the meal, Fang Ziye first washed the bowls, and let Luo Tingzhu go from home to the laboratory first, then around seven in the evening, he headed toward the laboratory to find Qian Qiaofeng.

Because recently Qian Qiaofeng seemed to be doing a set of experiments related to gene sequencing of pulmonary adenoma, Fang Ziye had to push the experimental plan with him in advance.

Since he had previously promised to cooperate with them on experiments, and Qian Qiaofeng and the others were quite generous to Fang Ziye, Fang Ziye naturally couldn't just hang a hollow name.

But gene sequencing related experiments, before the equipment in the laboratory arrived, definitely could not be done, and could only go to an outside company to operate themselves.

The reason they had to operate themselves was because Associate Professor Hong Zili wanted to find a unique original target belonging to himself from the cell gene bank, rather than the currently mature corresponding targets.

This difficulty was really too high, and the height of the field it faced was at the world's innovation level, even many times harder than creating a new cell line.

Therefore, for the next several days, Fang Ziye was discussing the subsequent experimental progress with Qian Qiaofeng...

Mid-February.

One afternoon.

Fang Ziye and Qian Qiaofeng came out of a large biotechnology company somewhat disappointed, with a manager accompanying them, his face showing apology: "Teacher Fang, Teacher Qian, we're really sorry, today it's definitely not that our company's instruments are not good, but that your experimental goals are too high."

"This kind of pioneering research on sequencing genes and precisely naming new effective targets for tumor cells has a success rate no different from finding a needle in a haystack."

Inside biotechnology companies, there are generally doctors sitting in charge, but most are master's students or undergraduates.

But doctors are also rare; generally one large region has only one or two company doctors, impossible to accompany at any time, so the staff here are addressed as Teacher out of respect for medical experimental personnel.

Qian Qiaofeng himself knew the difficulty of this experiment; this was just Associate Professor Hong Zili's "whimsical" idea, attempting to do one or two small probe sequencings under sufficient funding; how could it be done overnight.

If it were really that simple, then all countries in the world could successfully land on the moon.

"It's fine, Manager Zhou; we also know the difficulty of this experiment."

"Thank you Manager Zhou for giving us a discount." Qian Qiaofeng replied without being discouraged.

Manager Zhou then said: "Teacher Qian, the discount thing is a small matter. Our company can operate thanks to the support of teachers like you; it's just that, Teacher Qian, you said you'll have to come again in the future."

"Actually even with a discount, hope is slim; it's just wasting money."

"We feel bad about it."

Taking money without accomplishing the matter made Manager Zhou feel especially guilty.

"Manager Zhou, isn't this whimsical? People always have dreams; stumbling and falling for dreams is very normal. As for funding, my Master has his own arrangements and won't shortchange your expenses; you can rest assured."

"Junior Fang and I are leaving first; see you next time." Qian Qiaofeng waved his hand and left nonchalantly.

"Or let me send off the two teachers." Manager Zhou still felt uneasy.

After all, Associate Professor Hong Zili was already a major client of their company; annual periodic orders were at least several hundred thousand, up to possibly a million, they were his parents providing food and clothing.

"No need, Manager Zhou. Junior Fang and I will take a taxi and chat along the way." Qian Qiaofeng said.

Manager Zhou didn't follow up anymore; etiquette was complete; now Qian Qiaofeng himself found it inconvenient to be followed, and he wouldn't be tactless.

Fang Ziye had only walked two steps when he asked: "Senior Brother Qian, this kind of gene sequencing project absolutely counts as a major project; can the funding on Professor Hong's side really support it?"

This gene probe sequencing isn't cheap; just this one sequencing, Fang Ziye felt he could almost complete 0.4 workloads, several thousand yuan.

And this sequencing was merely groping a single corner in the vast ocean.

The length of genes is almost incalculable; there are numerous target sites, and a shift of a single position changes everything completely — even the most awesome computer running for ten thousand years could not finish calculating one thousandth of it.

Humans have approximately 20,000 to 25,000 genes, containing about 3.16 billion DNA base pairs. And which of these base pairs correspond to what kind of genes is all full of uncertainty, and this is only what humanity knows — there still exist a vast number of positions...

"This doesn't matter; we just want to try a preliminary experiment, which is equivalent to chasing a dream."

"Currently, in basic cell experiments, naming new gene targets or discovering new RNA belongs to the absolute technical barrier level, equivalent in difficulty to completing a certain gene knockout in animal experiments."

"If it were really this easy, then it would be impossible that after so many years, under the efforts of so many teams worldwide, the number of verified gene targets is only in the tens of thousands."

"I believe Master has his own considerations."

Qian Qiaofeng first smiled helplessly, then said: "Oh, right, Junior Fang, our group's Qin Hang and Zhao Yanlin, the two of them are like senior leading junior, they submitted a paper, the two of them share first authorship, my Master is corresponding author, so what's given to you, Junior, is only second authorship."

"It should be published soon; this paper they had already finished writing most of the manuscript before the data results came out."

Qian Qiaofeng reported this to Fang Ziye as if pledging allegiance.

Fang Ziye heard this, and his heart secretly trembled: "Senior Brother Qian, this is actually unnecessary."

How much capability does Fang Ziye currently have, how much influence — does he still need someone else to bring him along to publish papers?

Don't look down on SCI second and third authorship; if the quality is high, SCI second and third authorship won't be lower in value than first authorship.

If placed in a prefecture-level city hospital, a second-author named paper can also serve as good material for promotion, the bonus proportion is also very high, it counts as a research achievement.

What visiting doctors at prefecture-level city hospitals want to buy is precisely this thing.

"Hey, Junior, you said it yourself, this is actually unnecessary, then there's no need to change it either; anyway Junior you don't lack this one paper."

"A paper doesn't weigh you down; a lot of the data in here was done under your guidance, and the results you yourself should also be familiar with, it doesn't matter. Team collaboration in the lab is normal to begin with."

"Right, this gene sequencing side." At this moment, Qian Qiaofeng's straight-man cancer acted up again.

"I can't understand my Master, what kind of thinking he has. Money isn't given away like this."

"Chasing a dream?"

"I don't even want to think about this kind of scam called chasing a dream anymore." Qian Qiaofeng complained.

Fang Ziye then looked at Qian Qiaofeng, and his heart was also helpless.

Things others can't buy, he gets force-fed and 'offered up' yet cannot refuse — from where do you even reason about this?

But Fang Ziye knew that the reason he could easily access this was still because of his own ability, not his money.

The gene sequencing Qian Qiaofeng spoke of, rather than chasing a dream, might as well be called gambling, and gambling on something with odds even lower than winning the lottery.

Genes are a sequence composed of four nucleotides: A, T, C, G. Each nucleotide carries a different base. Generally it's said genes are a sequence composed of four bases. Each gene is composed of many bases; small genes have a few hundred bases, large genes are composed of a few million bases.

Cannot determine where to start, cannot determine where to end, cannot know how long the length is, then search from among several billion gene base pairs.

The probability of winning the lottery might be higher than this by who knows how many hundreds of millions of times.

Similarly, gene knockout in animal models is the same; if you want to knock out all corresponding genes and guarantee no gene mutation occurs, this is not easy at all.

No one can unlock the gate of genes right now; once a certain gene segment is knocked out, what will happen?

Therefore, existing knockouts are merely silencing a segment of genes.

But silencing genes inside cells already has a certain operational difficulty, let alone operating on a whole organism? The difficulty coefficient is still extremely, extremely high.

"Senior Brother, then thank you; in a few days when I'm free on this end, I'll treat you and Senior Brother Duan and Qin Hang, Zhao Yanlin and the others to a meal."

"I didn't do anything and ran into such a good thing."

Qian Qiaofeng then said: "Eating is fine, but it has to be AA, everyone has it hard. Where would we need you to treat; if anyone treats it should be me and Senior Brother Duan, after all the subsidies we get are higher than you Juniors."

"It's not early either; I have to go back to the department first, this afternoon there's still a cystoscopy small surgery, it's something my teacher fought hard to get for me, I have to go to the operating room."

"Then let's hurry back; I also need to make a trip to the lab, and send some cell lines needed for animal experiments to the animal experiment center." Fang Ziye replied, incidentally wanting to hitch a ride.

After all, one person taking a taxi is taking a taxi, two people taking a taxi is also taking a taxi.

After parting with Qian Qiaofeng, watching Qian Qiaofeng's hasty back view, Fang Ziye also saw Qian Qiaofeng's helplessness.

Clearly knowing gene sequencing is unreliable, but Associate Professor Hong Zili's orders and dream-chasing require Qian Qiaofeng to spend time and energy operating on such matters — this is actually a certain exploitation.

After all, labor without return is exploitation.

But from another angle, Associate Professor Hong Zili has a dream, has a desire to make a voice for the world's basic research field, to send out his Hong Zili, Zhongnan Hospital Orthopedics, Han City University, and even the entire Eastern Han research community's voice — is such an idea wrong?

Reasonably speaking, Eastern Han and Han City University both need such a voice.

It's just the probability is too small, too small, truly unrealistic.

But if there isn't even a dream, then isn't living just being repetitive walking corpses?

This is a problem belonging to the philosophical category.

When Fang Ziye arrived at the lab, he discovered that Luo Tingzhu and Jie Han, Lan Tianluo duo, seemed to have very tacitly formed a time-difference coordination.

That is to say, when Luo Tingzhu was doing experiments in the lab, Jie Han and Lan Tianluo could always avoid her just right, and vice versa.

This kind of subtle balance, Fang Ziye has seen more than once.

Because many times, Fang Ziye just happened to run into Lan Tianluo coming downstairs at the doorway, and then in the lab would run into Luo Tingzhu who had just entered the lab not long ago and was about to heat cell experiment reagents.

As a Senior Brother, Fang Ziye really couldn't intervene in the matters between Luo Tingzhu and Lan Tianluo, after all this is family matters.

Fang Ziye hadn't spoken yet.

Luo Tingzhu asked with slight anticipation: "Senior Brother, how is it?"

Fang Ziye replied: "Same as expected; if a probability of less than one in a hundred million could be hit by us, that would be stepping in dog shit luck."

Gene probe technology is actually designing a relatively unfamiliar but regular mRNA through various cognitions and theories on one's own, then entering the gene library to search for matching genes, then after finding the corresponding sequence, testing the possible function of this segment of mRNA.

Luo Tingzhu also didn't find it unexpected, but instead learned from Fang Ziye's manner, raising the culture bottle in her hand toward Fang Ziye — clearly also as many as six or seven.

"You're also doing parallel experiments?" Fang Ziye was slightly startled.

Parallel experiments means two lines of experimental operations conducted simultaneously.

"Senior Brother, one must lay groundwork for the next project's preliminary research anyway; the surface grant application is about to be written, each of us Senior Brothers and I will submit a paper." Luo Tingzhu said while placing the culture bottles onto the cell operation bench.

Then after Fang Ziye also entered the cell experiment room and brought the reagents to the constant temperature water bath, Luo Tingzhu only then said mysteriously: "Senior Brother, do you know? Hong Lab's data was stolen by someone, and even published as a paper."

As Fang Ziye turned, hearing those words, his body stiffened at once.

His expression froze in an instant.

Holy crap?

Wouldn't that mean I'll be summoned by Associate Professor Hong Zili for questioning, or have to prove my innocence?

(Chapter End)