Chapter 95: Cellicure (6)

Chapter 95: Cellicure (6)

Young-Joon stood in front of Lee Yoon-Ah and hit Synchronization mode.

Whoosh.

Young-Joon felt like he was standing alone in the middle of the beach as the wave was rushing in. The biological processes that were occurring in Lee Yoon-Ahs liver were being reconstructed in his head.

The liver was the organ that had the most cells as a single structure in the body. All those cells processed enormous amounts of metabolism. It was enough to call it the chemical lab within the body.

In order for the liver to do its job, it had to constantly receive numerous substances equivalent to raw materials from other organs. For this, the liver had two arteries; it received blood loaded with fresh oxygen from the hepatic artery connected to the heart, and it received blood containing absorbed nutrients from the portal vein connected to the intestine. About two thousand liters of blood were supplied a day from the two arteries, and 1.4 liters of blood passed through the liver per minute. As it was an organ with an active blood flow, it also had the property that blood vessels were easily produced. That also applied to cancer cells.

Angiogenesis.

It was the biological process for cancer cells to pave a new way for blood to flow through; the new blood vessels would become entangled in a disorderly way, forming a turbulent flow.

The goal for that was to supply glucose. The main source of food for rapidly multiplying cancer cells was glucose as it was the easiest material to change into energy. Cancer cells would absorb a huge amount of glucose from the newly formed blood vessels and grow.

The multiplying cancer cells also conducted this process in Lee Yoon-Ahs young and weak liver. They didnt stop there, but moved to the blood vessels and loaded themselves onto the flow of blood. This was similar to a carrier of a virus leaving the area of the epidemic. The immune cells, which acted like police, tracked them and eliminated a lot of them, but there were ones they had missed.

Lee Yoon-Ahs liver cancer cell traveled through the blood and

Ack!

Rosaline suddenly screamed.The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.

[Synchronization Mode over.]

A message popped up in Young-Joons head. At the same time, he stumbled while holding his temple after feeling a piercing pain in his head.

Song Ji-Hyun, who was standing beside him, was surprised.

Are you alright?

... Im fine. Doctor Song, Im sorry, but lets talk later. Professor Kim, I will visit your office later. I have to think for a little bit, Young-Joon said.

Song Ji-Hyun looked worried, but she did not follow him out. For some reason, she felt like she shouldnt bother him.

Young-Joon, who walked to the end of the hall, went halfway down the emergency stairs and stood in a place where no one was around.

What happened?

Young-Joon asked Rosaline.

... I cannot analyze this.

Rosaline replied.

What?

Tracking the spread of cancer is difficult, even for me. You have to use a large amount of fitness to see it.

But you said the fitness consumption was 5.3? I had that much.

Now it is at zero.

Rosaline replied.

It was true when Young-Joon looked at the status window. He had completely run out of fitness.

Do you know?

What?

The liver cancer metastasized in Ryu Sae-Yi before she died as well. Your fitness decreased significantly because of that trauma.

I dont remember.

Young-Joon said.

You erased it from your memory because the pain was too strong. But I went into your amygdala and saw your trauma that was black and entangled. There was definitely a memory about the metastasis of liver cancer among the stored fragmented memories. You heard it directly from Ryu Sae-Yis doctor at the time.

I heard it myself?

Yes. The memory of you hearing that her liver cancer had spread is in your unconscious mind.

All of a sudden, Young-Joons legs gave out and he stumbled. He was surprised. Tears were also rolling down his cheeks. He felt like an alternate self hiding in his body shed tears; he didnt feel any sadness, but his eyes were crying.

You have to pull yourself together. From the beginning, this wasnt just treating a child to me, but fighting with your trauma.

Rosaline said.

He went to see Professor Kim Chun-Jung.

Can I see Patient Lee Yoon-Ahs CT scans again? Young-Joon asked. Kim Chun-Jung pulled up the scan file on her computer and showed him.

Young-Joon said, I think the cancer has crossed over to the portal vein.

Its near the boundary.

Then isnt there a risk of metastasis?

There is.

Cellicure can track the metastasized cancer cells and destroy them. It is effective in killing cancer cells. However, if we dont check where and how much it spread beforehand and poke around recklessly, there might be severe side effects.

Phew Kim Chun-Jung let out a long, worrisome sigh.

You are right, Doctor Ryu. But even if the cancer spread, there is no way to find out in the early stages.

...

Young-Joon thought about it for a moment, then said, I will find a way.

What way?

A way to diagnose the metastatic tumor early on. Please confirm the location when I find a way. Lets hold off on administering Cellicure until then.

Wait, what are you talking about? You are going to find the trace amount of metastasized cancer?

Of course, Young-Joon was the person who invented a technology that diagnosed cancer from one drop of blood. However, that was just diagnosing whether cancer existed in the body or not; finding out where it had spread to was a completely different matter. From the outside, cancer cells were no different than normal cells, and it was indistinguishable from regular tissue until it swelled and became a tumor. But how was Young-Joon going to find cancer cells that had just metastasized?

Patient Lee Yoon-Ah doesnt have that much time, Doctor Ryu. How long will it take to develop that technolog

I will bring it next week.

... Next week?

Yes. I do not want even a little bit of uncertainty in treating that patient. I will cure her no matter what I do. Give me a week.

Young-Joon rose from his seat. He went downstairs to find Song Ji-Hyun.

Lets go, Young-Joon said.

What? What about Cellicure?

We have decided to hold off on it for a little bit. Before that, I think I need to make a more thorough diagnosis of the patient.

* * *

Whats up with our CEO recently? Park Dong-Hyun asked Jung Hae-Rim.

After returning from Sunyoo Hospital, Young-Joon lived in the lab for five days. He canceled all his meetings as well. As Rosaline was pouring all her strength into stopping the trauma, he had to do everything by himself.

Young-Joon went back to his old ways; he let go of the convenience of being able to select all the right answers from Rosalines perspective and returned to the fundamental attitude of a scientist.

However, everything changed after he met Rosaline. Although he couldnt use Synchronization Mode, which allowed him to vividly observe microscopic phenomena at the cell level, he had Rosalines insight.

Young-Joon read seventy papers about the characteristics of liver cancer, cancer cells, the metastasis mechanism of cancer cells, and the diagnostic methods of cancer in five days. Yoo Song-Mi was shocked every time she came into Young-Joons office when she saw the pile of sugar supplement wrappers in the garbage can.

It was true that the CEO was acting weird nowadays. Everyone wondered what was driving someone like him insane. Although, everyone thought that it maybe had something to do with Cellicures clinical trial since he was acting that way after visiting Sunyoo Hospital.

Click.

Young-Joon opened his office door and came in. His complexion was pale.

Yoo Song-Mi, who happened to be in his office, said, Sir, you are going to get diabetes. Why do you keep taking sugar supplements?

I had quite a bit, but not all of them.

Pardon?

They are for experiments, Young-Joon said.

He took another supplement that was on his desk, put it in his mouth and chewed it.

Cancer cells ate about twenty times more glucose than regular cells, so the concentration of glucose in cancer tissue was very high.

Cancer cells like glucose. They like it so much that they relocate blood vessels for it, Young-Joon said. We will track glucose. That will tell us where the cancer cell is.

1. Oppa means older brother, and is used by younger women to refer to older men.