Chapter 131: The American Cancer Conference (7)

Chapter 131: The American Cancer Conference (7)

This was biology that was beyond art. The glass incubator that was on one side of the lecture room was like an installation. APD, the immune checkpoint inhibitor, went into the tumor on the organoid. The APD rushed to the surface of the cancer cell and attached to PTLA-L1, the immune cell shutdown factor.

Young-Joon turned on the live cell imager and connected it to the incubator. A magnified version of the tumor showed up on one side of the monitor. It still seemed like a static mass of tumor. However, there was a lot of work going on in the microscopic world. Changes began to occur inside the cancer cells as a large amount of PTLA-L1 was neutralized.

Its going crazy.

Rosaline sent a message. She was outside of Young-Joons body and observing that phenomenon.

By nature, organisms wanted to maintain a certain base level; this was called homeostasis. As such, if something was activated in the organism, there was bound to be a reaction.

In the case of cancer cells, the response to PCLA inactivation was the expression of EGFR. However, this EGFR was mutated, unlike regular cells. It malfunctioned by continuously producing growth factors inside the cell.

Replication was promoted inside the cancer cell nucleus. DNA polymerases began moving and replicating the chromosomes. The cell cycle changed as numerous additional biomaterials were produced. The cancer cells now entered mitosis and multiplied like an amoeba undergoing binary fission. The cancer cells, which had exactly half of the DNA, still had a large amount of EGFR. The cell division promoting signal was still active.

The cancer cells began preparing for their second division. It would take about two hours to completely copy the DNA and create enough biomass to divide. The initial single cell quadrupled in just four hours.

Hyperprogression has already begun.

The conference ended in eight hours. By then, this tumor, which was the size of a bean, was going to be bigger than the organoid.

Lets observe this slowly, and while the reaction is happening, I am going to present something else.

Young-Joon put up a new slide on the screen. It was information about a huge number of DNA sequences.This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

What we have here is data on targeted mutations.

Targeted mutations?

The audience gasped.

From now on, the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory will use gene surgery in the body to manipulate immune cells, and we will use this to cure various kinds of cancer. This is information about our first experimental candidate.

The scientists were still confused. They didnt understand why Young-Joon was presenting a candidate at the conference. It was a drug candidate, but the CEO of a pharmaceutical company was just openly revealing that at a conference?

They didnt possibly think he would do this, but Young-Joon made an announcement that shocked all of them.

We have decided not to patent this information.

* * *

This was when Young-Joon and the Life Creation Team were in a meeting with James, the director of the Office and Science and Technology Policy, and Collins, the director of the National Health Institute, at the White House before the conference began.

The base technology is dendritic cell bypass, so it will be patented by A-Bio and Professor Kakeguni, Young-Joon said. The problem would be the patent rights to the treatment method tailored to the type of cancer patient, or the selection of genes to operate on.

The base technology of manipulating the genes of immune cells in the body was developed by Young-Joon. But which genes were they going to manipulate, and in which patients? This was a huge portion of ignorance that science hadnt touched yet. If someone discovered that manipulating a certain gene was effective for lung cancer, they could patent that gene. It was a kind of intellectual property. It wasnt that the technology became an invention, like what Young-Joon made; every gene mutation pattern that could use that became intellectual property.

Humans had about twenty thousand genes. They had to figure out what gene mutation patterns in what were associated with cancer, and how that varied by race, gender, and age. And if there were multiple genes at play simultaneously? The combinations were almost infinite, and there were countless variables.

Doctor Ryu has opened a gold mine, and now, countless scientists will go on a gold rush.

Collins made an appropriate metaphor.

To conquer cancer quicker? Collins asked.

The faster the better.

... Phew

James let out a deep breath while covering his head with his hands.

Im sorry. All I can give you is honor, Young-Joon said.

Ha Im shocked. This is not something I can decide on my own.

Please discuss it with the President.

Alright. Whatever conclusion we come to, it will be better to announce it on the last day of the conference if possible. Everyone will be wondering how things will proceed at the cancer lab.

... Alright.

* * *

There was the full support of the U.S. government behind this bold decision, Young-Joon said. The scientists, who were shocked, were already sending messages to all the cancer researchers they knew. The reporters hands were trembling as they filmed Young-Joons announcement. The reporters who specialized in science already deeply investigated the establishment of the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory and James. They knew that the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory was going to take most of the gold in the gold mine Young-Joon opened.

But they are going to release all that gold for free? What are they talking about?

Are they crazy?

This huge achievement isnt just a bag of money; they could buy a building with this in cash. But distributing it freely

This was charity like no other.

Did you say that the U.S. government supported this? one of the reporters asked.

Yes, thats right.

Did the White House choose to do that?

The U.S. government had decided to honor all the support they previously promised to the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory. And they have completely relinquished any intellectual property rights to the target genes that will be discovered there. I am relinquishing them as well. The A-Bio Cancer Laboratory promises to share all of this knowledge, which will save mankind, for free.

...

The disturbance that was in the hall had now subsided. There was only the silence of shock and confusion.

Thud.

Dozens of scientists poured in as the doors to the lecture hall opened. They were the ones who had attended Jamie Andersons class. There were more people now than when Young-Joon first took out the incubator. Everyone had come here in curiosity because it was getting so loud here.

H-hey, look at that.

One of the scientists who had been here since the beginning pointed to the incubator.

It looks like the tumor has gotten bigger.

The tumor, which was the size of a bean, had doubled in size.