Chapter 2280 - 1475: Facing the World of the Future (2)

Chapter 2280: Chapter 1475: Facing the World of the Future (2)

Low murmurs of discussion arose from the audience. Yang Ping could hear keywords leaking from the simultaneous translation headset: "development," "repair," "mirroring," "reflection." The core of his theory had already been captured and was rapidly spreading to every corner of the venue.

Standing on the podium, facing the gaze of more than two thousand people, he paused for a moment. Then he said the next sentence, his voice lower than before but no less clear. That sentence would be repeatedly quoted, appearing in countless commentaries and news headlines.

"I once thought we were creating new therapies. Now I realize that everything we do is actually a discovery. We didn’t invent the repair program; we merely found it. It’s always been there, in the nucleus of every living cell, written in three billion base pairs, undergoing over three billion years of evolutionary trial and error. It took us decades to comprehend the tip of the iceberg exposed to the outside. We thought we were healers, but in fact, we are translators, translating the source code of life into human-understandable language."

He stopped, and some people in the audience started clapping. Then the applause spread, from the first row to the last, from one end of the venue to the other, from the stage to the floor. Yang Ping didn’t wait for the applause to end before speaking again; he waited a few seconds and then said, "Thank you all. I am now accepting questions."

Many people raised their hands. Yang Ping randomly chose one, a middle-aged scholar with round-framed glasses, whose badge read "Stanford University." He stood up, without pleasantries, directly posed a sharp question. The venue fell silent, the voice of the simultaneous translation in the headphones was precise and steady.

"Professor Yang, your theory is very grand, but I want to ask a specific question. If development and repair are mirror operations of the same program, then where does the tumor stand within your framework? Tumor is both excessive growth and repair failure. How do you explain this contradiction?"

Yang Ping did not hesitate, nor did he pause. This question had been put to him countless times over the past three years, in the laboratory, during project group meetings, and in late-night discussions. He was prepared with an answer for this question.

"Tumors are neither excessive growth nor repair failure. Tumors are the program getting stuck. Normally, the development program enters a dormant state after the fetal period, only reactivating after specific local damage, completing the task and then returning to dormancy. Tumors are the result of this dormancy-activation-dormancy cycle malfunctioning. Either the dormant period is abnormally activated, or it cannot stop after activation. It’s not the program itself that has changed, but the switch of the program that is broken. Therefore, the key to treating tumors is not to kill tumor cells, nor to fix the program but to repair that switch, allowing the program to regain the ability to enter dormancy."

The middle-aged scholar sat down, contemplating for a moment, the fog in his mind cleared away.

Following this, a young Asian face stood up, introducing himself as "Tokyo University Department of Medicine Researcher." His question was brief: "What is the most important evidence for the clinical verification of the unified theory?"

"Lin Xiaoyu." Yang Ping said.

The audience became silent for a second. He continued, "A twelve-year-old girl, brainstem glioma, DIPG, standard radiotherapy and chemotherapy ineffective. We used a new type of K Therapy, designing a treatment plan according to the framework of the unified theory. Nine months after treatment, her tumor significantly shrank, necrotic focus increased from 3.2 millimeters to 11.2 millimeters, clinical symptoms completely disappeared, and she recovered to the level of being able to walk and learn normally. We didn’t cure her with a miraculous drug; we used a combination plan based on the unified theory, simultaneously acting on the proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, and migration four modules."

The third question came from near the left corridor, an elderly gentleman with white hair, his badge read "Cambridge University." His voice was slow, yet each word clear and powerful: "Professor Yang, in your opinion, what will be the next important breakthrough direction of the unified theory?"

Yang Ping was silent for a moment. Then he answered, not in a speculative tone, but in a declarative manner, as if he was stating something with known results.

"Aging! Within the framework of the unified theory, aging is not the inevitability of time, nor the accumulation of wear, but a programmable process that can be intervened. It is the process of gradually shutting down the repair program. It’s not that the body can no longer repair itself; rather, the body gradually stops issuing maintenance instructions, letting nature take its course."

He wanted to ask: is it because the body can no longer repair itself or because it gave up on repairing? But he didn’t voice this question because new applause had already started in the audience. The questioning session had overrun its time, the host stood up to announce a lunch break. Yang Ping stood on the podium, watching the crowd of over two thousand people begin to leave one after another, some discussing as they walked, some looking down at their phones, others writing in their notebooks.

Weber stood up from the front row, walked over to him. Manstein followed behind, holding a tablet in his hand, the screen displaying the online page of an article. "Comments have exceeded ten thousand," Weber handed him the tablet to look, "The New England Journal of Medicine’s website server was temporarily overloaded, they expanded capacity to restore normalcy."

Yang Ping glanced at the screen, the webpage densely packed with comments from researchers, clinical doctors, medical students, science writers from all over the world, and even some ordinary readers attracted solely by the headline who know nothing about medicine. Among these comments were praise, skepticism, questions, extensions, criticisms, opposition. Naturally, there was also quite a bit of heated arguments in the comments section. Some believed this is the key to opening a new era, others felt it was just another overly grand hypothesis without sufficient data backing.

But regardless of the voices, none ignored it. After all, Yang Ping’s previous major theories had all been confirmed one by one.

Yang Ping returned the tablet to Weber and walked out of the venue. The corridor was empty, most people had gone to the restaurant or rest area. He stood against the wall for a while, took out his phone from his pocket, and saw a message from Xiao Su: "Dabao asked if you could come back earlier, he wants to hear about the new theory." Along with it was a picture drawn by Dabao, depicting a person in a White Gown standing on a stage facing a group of small people and a bunch of question marks. Above the head of the person in the White Gown was a dialogue box with big, wobbly words, seeming to be Dabao’s own handwriting: "I know it all."

Yang Ping looked at the drawing for a long time. Then he put his phone away, walked along the corridor towards the exit. When he reached the building’s entrance, he stopped and looked at the sky. The weather was good today, clouds were high, and the wind was gentle. In the distance, the city skyline revealed a light gray outline under the sunlight, like an unfinished ink painting.

"Daddy will come back once the conference is over."

Yang Ping replied with a voice message.

He knew that to fully prove his theory it would not be achievable within a generation, perhaps two, three, or even more.

He had already opened this world facing the future and pointed out the direction, believing that eventual confirmation and completion were merely a matter of time.

Just as Newton proposed several fundamental physical laws, physics developed through generations into what it is today, the same will happen with medicine.

PS: This book is nearing its end, already over five million words, writing continuously for almost six years. After discarding many drafts, the following plots are pieced together from remaining drafts, appearing somewhat fragmented and stiff, compared to the earlier parts of this book, reading is not as natural and smooth. Thank you all for your continued support, a new book is in preparation; it is also medical-themed. With the experience from this one, I believe the new book can be written well. Bow, salute!