Chapter 342 - 231: KRAS Mutation

Chapter 342: Chapter 231: KRAS Mutation

Minister Lin suddenly burst out laughing. "A friend? You mean your girlfriend, don’t you?"

Jiang He scratched his head. "Yeah."

Minister Lin nodded readily. "Of course. Give me her phone number and personal information, and I’ll have the foreign affairs office help coordinate everything. We’ll get her visa and plane ticket through an expedited channel to save you the trouble of going to the consulate and waiting in line."

Jiang He: "That would be a huge help."

"It’s no trouble at all."

Minister Lin then said, "Jiang He, this trip will be a tough battle. Don’t think that just because you left those old professors speechless, it’ll be easy. Once you get to Baltimore, the situation will only be more intense than it was today."

Jiang He nodded. "I know."

"I hope you perform well. Remember, you have the provincial ministry and the entire country behind you. Don’t hold back. Show them the strength of China’s young medical talent."

"I won’t let you down."

"Good. Go back and get some rest."

Minister Lin stood up with a smile and led Jiang He out.

When he opened the office door, a young woman was standing in the hallway.

Hearing the noise, the woman immediately turned around.

She wore a professional suit with light makeup. Her features were well-defined; she was pretty and looked capable.

Minister Lin introduced her to Jiang He. "Jiang He, let me introduce you. This is Su Zhi, a key member from the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office, specially assigned to support us. For this trip to Baltimore, she’ll be your dedicated personal assistant, responsible for your itinerary, foreign-related communications, and general support over there. Su Zhi is a top graduate from Beijing Foreign Studies University and spent two years at the embassy in the United States. She’s fluent in English and well-versed in local American laws and regulations. With her around, you can focus solely on academics and not worry about anything else."

Su Zhi took a step forward. "Mr. Jiang, I’ve heard so much about you. For the next two weeks, I’ll be fully responsible for your itinerary. I will ensure all subsequent matters are handled properly."

Jiang He nodded. "Then I’ll be counting on you."

Su Zhi said, "It’s my duty, Dr. Jiang. At eight tomorrow morning, I will send the preliminary itinerary to your email. Please check for it. If you have any special requests, feel free to contact me at any time."

Jiang He thanked her again, then said goodbye to Minister Lin and left the provincial ministry building.

Su Zhi watched Jiang He’s retreating back, a thoughtful expression on her face.

Minister Lin asked, "What is it? Didn’t expect him to be so young?"

Su Zhi nodded. "Yes."

Minister Lin said with a laugh, "A pity he already has a girlfriend. Otherwise, I’d say you two would make a great pair."

Su Zhi lowered her head. "You’re joking, sir."

...

...

Jiang He returned to the university laboratory.

It was empty today.

After yesterday’s great victory, he had given everyone the day off.

They were all out having fun right now.

Only he remained, changing into his white lab coat and standing once more before the workbench.

Rest? Not an option.

’I just can’t stop.’

As Li Jiaqi once said: Sometimes you have to look at yourself and ask, after all these years, has your salary gone up? Have you developed a targeted therapy drug for pancreatic cancer? Have you been working seriously?

Jiang He: ’Yes, yes, I am! I’m working my ass off!’

In the lab.

First, he reran the data.

While the centrifuge was spinning, Jiang He pulled over a chair, sat down, and began to think about the development of the targeted drug.

Pancreatic cancer is known as the "King of Cancers" because it possesses a driver gene that is nearly impossible to counter.

—The KRAS mutation.

_This is a key term, so get your little notebooks out. This will definitely be on the test—worth a full five points. Take it or leave it._

Over ninety percent of pancreatic cancer patients have a KRAS gene mutation.

The most common of these are G12D and G12V.

It wasn’t until 2021 that the first targeted drug for the KRAS G12C mutation barely made it to market.

But that only covered a small fraction of mutations found in lung cancer.

Moreover, the G12C targeted drug cleverly utilized the properties of cysteine to form a covalent bond.

But pancreatic cancer lacks a highly active reactive group, so the covalent bonding shortcut was not an option.

In his past life, Jiang He’s research had focused on targeting the extremely small crevice (the Switch-II pocket) at the G12D mutation site by designing a high-affinity, non-covalent inhibitor to wedge directly into it...

However, having an idea and putting it into practice are two completely different things.

Jiang He picked up a pen and sketched the rough three-dimensional conformation of the KRAS protein on a blank sheet of paper. Then, next to the structure, he drew a large question mark.

To synthesize this kind of targeted drug, the first step was high-throughput drug screening.

Without mature, AI-assisted protein structure prediction tools from the future like AlphaFold, he could only rely on the most primitive methods:

Protein recombination and expression, crystallization, and then using X-ray diffraction to analyze its structure when bound to different compounds.

In this era, that was a herculean task.

Sometimes, just to grow a single high-quality crystal, it could take several months or even half a year of constantly adjusting the solution’s pH, temperature, and precipitant concentration.

And that was just the first step.

The subsequent nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis, mass spectrometry tests, molecular docking calculations for hundreds of thousands of small molecules...

Jiang He filled a sheet of paper.

’The equipment is too slow, the computing power too weak.’

If he were to push this project forward in ’08, with the current level of hardware, just running through the initial molecular docking library could take three years or even longer.

"Hooo—"

He let out a long, heavy breath.

’If the existing equipment can’t meet the requirements, I might even have to raise capital, build the equipment, and set up a supercomputing platform myself.’

A path already lined with thorns suddenly had several more great mountains blocking the way.

The difficulties were immense, but he had no intention of giving up.

He folded the paper in half and put it in his pocket.

Recalling Shen Yu’s radiant smile as she put on the ring at West Mountain Restaurant, Jiang He’s gaze gradually grew resolute.

’I’ll take it one challenge at a time. And if things get too tough, I can always ask Master Guan for help...’

’There has to be a way. There has to be.’

After the new batch of data finished running and he confirmed there were no errors, Jiang He decided to head to the library.

Since he had decided to make a breakthrough on the hardware front, he first needed to figure out the current state of biopharmaceutical equipment and supercomputer architecture in 2008.

The Southern Medical University library.

The usual spot.

Cheng Xiyao had spawned there again.

Jiang He walked over and sat down. "No day off today?"

Cheng Xiyao froze for a moment. When she looked up and saw it was Jiang He, she immediately straightened her posture and said, "Boss, good morning!"

Jiang He glanced at the completely dark sky outside and said wryly, "It’s not exactly morning anymore, is it? It’s already dark."

Cheng Xiyao stuck out her tongue, a little embarrassed.

Then, she pushed the documents on her desk toward Jiang He and began to share enthusiastically:

"Boss, the epidemiological survey project on the overtreatment of cervical erosion made huge progress today! Before, when I went to a few primary care hospitals to distribute questionnaires, those senior department heads and doctors at private hospitals completely ignored me. They even threw me out, saying ’what does a student like you know?’"

"But! Ever since Elder Zhi published that long rebuttal on Dingxiang Garden, the situation has completely changed!"

"I printed out Elder Zhi’s post and attached it to the back of the survey. Now when I go talk to people, it’s much more convincing. A few young OB-GYN doctors even contacted me on their own, willing to provide patient data from their departments!"

Jiang He nodded in approval. "That’s good. As long as you’re making progress, it’s a good thing. You’ve worked hard."

Hearing Jiang He’s praise, Cheng Xiyao felt that all her running around these past few days had been worth it.

She then asked curiously, "Boss, didn’t the project already succeed? Everyone’s taking a break. What are you doing here in the library today?"

"I’m here to look into some equipment."

"Equipment?"

"Mhm. For example, the resolution of the most advanced X-ray diffractometers, and the model specifications for the instruments currently used by a few multinational pharmaceutical companies."

Although Cheng Xiyao didn’t understand why Jiang He had suddenly branched out into researching things related to equipment and pharmaceuticals, she didn’t ask any more questions.

"I’m just about finished up here. Let me help you, Boss."

Jiang He thought for a moment and didn’t refuse.

There was indeed too much to look up, and having someone help would save a lot of time.

"Okay."

Jiang He wrote down a few keywords on a piece of paper.

"Search for reviews on protein crystallization efficiency in these three journals from ’06 to ’08. Also, help me look into the civilian rental policies for some of the supercomputing centers in the country."

"No problem!" Cheng Xiyao immediately stood up and got to work.

At that moment, at a nearby table, sat a male and a female sophomore from the clinical medicine department.

They had actually noticed the pair for a while now.

The guy secretly nudged the girl with his elbow and whispered, "Look over there, isn’t that River God?"

The girl snuck a peek and immediately covered her mouth in excitement. "It really is River God! And sitting across from him, that’s Xiyao, right?"

"Duh, who else would it be? River God and the department beauty... You know, seeing them sitting and working together, they really look like a good match."

The girl nodded along. "Yeah, yeah, a talented man and a beautiful woman. We shouldn’t get in their way. Let’s give the big shots a quiet place for their date."

The two exchanged a smile and, with a silent understanding, packed up their textbooks and moved to a more remote corner, afraid of disturbing the divine couple over there.

In reality, it wasn’t just these two onlookers.

Throughout Southern Medical University, too many people didn’t know Jiang He, nor did they know Cheng Xiyao.

Everyone naturally assumed that because they were young and spent so much time together, there must be something going on between them.

But in truth, Jiang He was staring at a paper on the limitations of molecular docking algorithms, racing against death itself.

And Cheng Xiyao’s mind was completely filled with how to quickly perfect the report exposing medical overtreatment to save those innocent women who were being cheated out of their money.

A relationship between a man and a woman doesn’t have to be romantic.

Two people having their own different goals and striving to achieve them—that’s a wonderful thing, too.

Cheng Xiyao said, "Boss, I found them. These two articles detail the latest crystallization and purification techniques."

"Good, leave them here. Also, find me the third issue of this year’s *Nature Methods*. I need to check a parameter."

"You got it."

As Jiang He read through the materials, he discovered something.

’In ’08, the largest supercomputing center in China is right here in Hushang.’

’It looks like a trip to Ruijin is unavoidable after all.’