Chapter 109 - 108: Wasn’t This Whole Preliminary Review Meeting All for This Moment?
Chapter 109: Chapter 108: Wasn’t This Whole Preliminary Review Meeting All for This Moment?
Southern Medical University Clinical College Administrative Building, Conference Room 3.
Professor Sun Changming’s team and the university leaders were already present.
Hearing the door open, Sun Changming looked up and smiled. "Old Yang, you’re cutting it close."
Yang Xu walked over and nodded. "As long as I’m not late. You’re quite early, huh."
Jiang He followed Yang Xu and sat down on his left.
The moment he sat down, a gaze from across the table shot in his direction.
It was Xu Chen.
Judging by his intense stare, Jiang He had a sharp feeling something was about to happen.
Sure enough, that fool Xu Chen gave a sly chuckle, stood up, and said, "Professor Yang, Jiang He, before the pre-screening meeting begins, there’s something I’d like to say."
All eyes in the room turned to him.
Only Jiang He sighed silently, already guessing what Xu Chen was about to say.
And he was right.
Xu Chen shoved his hands into the pockets of his white lab coat and said in a nonchalant tone:
"As far as I’m concerned, all that matters is that this early screening technology gets developed. It’s not important whether my team does it or yours. If your team truly can achieve it before mine, I will thank you from the bottom of my heart."
The room fell silent.
Then, Sun Changming turned his head and asked someone else, "Are the materials ready?"
Brother Liu replied, "They’re ready, Professor."
On the other side, Yang Xu also asked Jiang He, "Is your foot okay?"
Jiang He nodded. "It’s fine."
No one paid any attention to Xu Chen.
Xu Chen: "..."
’Damn it, so saying that line really is this awkward?’ He had truly seen the light this time.
’Blindly copying others really is a terrible idea!’
At that moment, the head of the Research Department tapped the microphone. "Testing, testing. Okay, everyone’s here, so let’s get started. Today, we’re mainly here to review the overlapping projects from the General Surgery Department and the Oncology Research Institute to conduct a preliminary feasibility assessment. This is to avoid redundant waste of hospital resources. Professor Sun, would your team like to go first?"
Sun Changming nodded. "Alright. Xiaoliu, you can present for us."
Everyone instantly switched into meeting mode, opening their notebooks to take notes.
Brother Liu began his report.
"Leaders, Director Yang, the project our team is proposing is titled ’Screening of Early Diagnostic Markers for Gastrointestinal Tumors Based on Serum MicroRNA.’"
Brother Liu switched to the next slide, and a complex gene expression map appeared on the screen.
"As we all know, traditional tissue biopsies not only have a time lag but are also highly invasive. Our team’s research approach is to extract cell-free nucleic acids from the patient’s peripheral blood serum. We have preliminarily identified miRNA-21 and miRNA-155 as two highly expressed targets in gastrointestinal tumors."
Jiang He listened, nodding slightly.
’The approach is sound, and the targets are well-chosen.’
’Professor Sun Changming’s academic acumen is truly among the best in the country right now.’
Brother Liu continued, "In terms of specific procedures..."
The presentation lasted for about twenty minutes.
It was logical, well-argued, supported by theory, and backed by a concrete case database.
After listening, the leaders from the Research Department all nodded in satisfaction.
This was indeed a standard and feasible project proposal.
"A good presentation," the head of the Research Department said, looking toward Yang Xu’s side. "Director Yang, what about your team? Will you be presenting?"
Yang Xu turned to look at Jiang He.
Jiang He stood up. "I’ll do it."
He walked along the table, distributing materials to the Research Department leaders, Sun Changming, and the core members of the opposing team.
After handing out the documents, Jiang He began:
"My senior’s presentation just now was very solid."
"However, when it comes to the specific extraction and amplification methods, I have a few different ideas."
"My senior just mentioned compensating for the lack of RNA abundance by increasing the initial serum sample size. While this approach is theoretically viable, it would face significant obstacles in actual clinical testing."
"Serum is not only rich in ribonucleases, but it also contains a large number of protein inhibitors. Blindly increasing the sample size means the concentration of inhibitors in the extraction solution will also multiply. Traditional tissue extraction kits are simply incapable of effectively isolating tiny RNA fragments in such a high-protein environment. The final result would not only be an extremely low extraction rate, but the purity would also fail to meet the standards for subsequent PCR amplification."
The conference room grew quiet.
Brother Liu frowned, seemingly pondering the problem Jiang He had raised.
Jiang He continued, "Our team’s solution is to abandon traditional kits and perform a complete, fundamental optimization of the upstream extraction process."
"First, we switch to a specific lysis buffer designed for liquids and manually intervene during the lysis stage to lower the pH, making it slightly acidic."
"Second, during the isopropanol precipitation stage, we add an appropriate amount of glycogen as a co-precipitant."
"Third, we forgo linear primers and instead use specific stem-loop RT primers for reverse transcription. This effectively avoids interference from precursor RNA, allowing us to exclusively amplify mature miRNA and increase specificity by several orders of magnitude."
"Based on this improved extraction and amplification protocol, we only need 200 microliters of peripheral blood serum to obtain a Ct value with significant clinical reference value. This is what truly non-invasive early screening should be."
The conference room was dead silent.
Sun Changming leaned forward, his hands clasped on the table, his eyes fixed on the document.
This was the same approach he had seen a few days ago on Jiang He’s examination paper.
Now, with Jiang He breaking it down himself, the logic was even more rigorous.
After a brief silence, an associate professor in his thirties sitting next to Sun Changming broke the quiet.
He was a key member of the Oncology Research Institute and the person in charge of the project’s practical implementation.
"You must be Jiang He, correct?"
The associate professor pushed up his glasses and said politely,
"The theory you just proposed is very novel, and the idea for optimizing the upstream extraction process is quite clever. I admit, it sounds good."
"However, this is a massive undertaking. And you are currently just a third-year undergraduate student majoring in clinical medicine."
"You haven’t undergone systematic research training at the master’s or doctoral level, and on your academic record, you have no published papers."
"The hospital’s research funding and lab resources are limited. We have no way to assess whether your team truly possesses the ability to translate these theories into actual results."
His words were reasonable and well-founded.
This was the unspoken rule of academia: credentials and a proven track record.
It was like that classic conundrum: you need work experience to get an internship, but how the hell are you supposed to get experience if no one will give you an internship?
Hearing the associate professor’s words, Xu Chen finally felt a sense of relief.
’Yes! That’s exactly right!’
’So what if your theory is brilliant? So what if your methods are great? You’ve never published a paper!’
Xu Chen felt he was back in the game.
’After all, I’m an expert who’s published in a core journal.’
Faced with the associate professor’s doubts, Jiang He remained calm.
He glanced at Yang Xu, who just chuckled slyly.
’Isn’t this the whole reason we went through the trouble of having this pre-screening meeting?’
"Heh."
Yang Xu unhurriedly turned and reached for his briefcase.
As he unzipped it, he said slowly, "Everyone’s right. Research requires rigor and a demonstrated ability to produce results. Empty words are hard to sell, and without a track record, you can’t prove your capabilities."
"However, as for whether or not Jiang He has the ability to produce results..."
The smile on Yang Xu’s face widened as he pulled his hand out of the bag.
"I have something here that I’d like to just casually pass around for everyone to see."