Surgery Godfather-Chapter 1731 - 1241: Five Hundred Million
Yang Ping’s arrangement was clear and concise, closely coupling the background knowledge and skills of the five people with the two core modules of the project, ensuring that everyone knew their specific position and responsibility within this grand blueprint, thus avoiding initial confusion and internal friction.
"The next one to two months will be our concept validation and preliminary exploration phase, also the most critical foundational stage." Yang Ping returned to his seat, opened his laptop, and sent a more detailed preliminary experimental plan and timeline through the internal system to the project group’s chat, "This is the preliminary plan, you can take a look first. I’ll often be in the office, and if you have any questions, whether it’s technical bottlenecks or conceptual confusion, feel free to come to me for discussion. Our group will have a brief meeting every day and a summary meeting every week. The specific schedule will be sent to the group by Dr. Jiang. The purpose of the meetings is mainly to report progress, discuss encountered problems, and share the latest literature. I dislike formalism; I want to see tangible data and thinking. We must abandon all formalism and be real and grounded in our approach to this project."
He paused, his tone turning extraordinarily serious, and his gaze swept across the room once again: "I must emphasize again, there is no ready-made path for this project. I hope everyone can completely abandon student-thinking, bring forth the courage of a pioneer and two hundred percent focus, dare to hypothesize, dare to design, and even more dare to use rigorous experiments to verify and overturn. I am not afraid of you making mistakes here; experimental failure is normal, and negative data is also a result. But what I cannot tolerate is rigid thinking, fear of thinking and trying, or falsifying data to pursue appealing results. Our target is to produce something truly usable, understood? Remember, any experiment has the possibility of failure, and failure is also a result."
"Understood!" The five responded in unison, their voices louder than before, carrying a passion that had been thoroughly ignited.
"Moreover, the artificial intelligence of Nandu Medical University is fully open to you five. You can use the AI or Digital Human technology support without reservation, directly utilizing it. The supercomputing center of Nandu Institute of Technology is the same. You do not need reservations or to queue, having absolute priority for its use, with unlimited time and frequency."
Is that so? Everyone was invigorated, especially Chu Xiaoxiao, whose large eyes behind her black-framed glasses were shining brightly.
At this moment, the newcomers were filled with thoughts, their notebooks densely packed with notes, and their chests brimming with fighting spirit.
Yang Ping leaned back slightly, his gaze calmly fixed on Jiang Jitong: "Director Tang should have briefed you, right?"
Jiang Jitong nodded: "Professor, Director Tang instructed me to undertake more coordination work."
Yang Ping nodded, his tone calm yet carrying undeniable weight: "Among this group, you are the most experienced, having dealt with many issues. I don’t want the daily management chores of the Laboratory to overly distract your energy, so you need to put in more effort, helping to guide the team smoothly, streamline the workflow, and quickly enable these newcomers to grow and become independent. When you encounter experimental or technical difficulties that your group cannot resolve internally or require coordination with resources outside the Institute or even the university, come directly to me. You are now the daily manager of the project group."
Jiang Jitong understood and immediately assured, with sincere tone: "Rest assured, Professor. I know what to do. I will coordinate, serve, and support internally, ensuring smooth communication and efficient use of resources, and quickly get the whole team operating like a precision instrument, without letting mundane matters bother you."
"Hmm," Yang Ping was noncommittal to his statement, then asked, "Putting aside the management issues, regarding the project itself, do you have any more concrete, preliminary technical ideas on these two modules, particularly on the connecting bridge part you are responsible for?"
Today was just the first day, the first meeting; how could Senior Brother Jiang have an answer? Everyone couldn’t help but worry for Jiang Jitong.
They thought the first meeting would be a motivational meeting, chanting slogans, then preparing for one or two months before slowly unfolding the project—who knew the first day would be spent on real discussions?
Jiang Jitong was well-prepared in advance. He took a deep breath and said:
"Professor, your modular approach determines that the connecting technology must be highly versatile and flexible. My preliminary analysis suggests that while gene fusion expression seems like a one-time solution, it may affect the structure and function of enhancers and antigens respectively, and lacks flexibility; the biotin-avidin system is highly specific and the bond is strong, but its cost is high, and exogenous avidin may introduce unnecessary immunogenicity; traditional chemical coupling methods like the NHS/EDC approach have relatively harsh reaction conditions, easily leading to protein inactivation, with random connection sites that are difficult to control."
He paused slightly, observing Yang Ping’s reaction, then continued seeing he was quietly listening:
"Therefore, I personally leaned more towards exploring the possibility of enzyme-mediated connection. For example, by genetically engineering existing efficient ligase systems to optimize their catalytic efficiency, substrate specificity, and mild reaction conditions. Or we can even attempt to design from scratch a minimal peptide or protein module with linkage functionality, achieving coupling that is site-specific, rapid, and nearly under physiological conditions. This path is more challenging, but once successful, its innovation and applicability will be groundbreaking. We can start by modifying existing systems while simultaneously exploring cutting-edge directions in the novel design."
After listening, Yang Ping lightly tapped his fingers on the desktop twice, his face expressionless, but an extremely faint shadow of appreciation seemed to pass through his eyes. To answer so thoroughly and deeply, from being assigned the task to answering, within just one day, indicated not only a solid foundation but also that he had made the most comprehensive preparations as soon as he received the task.
"The approach is viable, not conservative. In research, you have to dare to think. Now that there’s a direction, go ahead and boldly design experiments to validate it. If you need specific enzymes, mutant libraries, or collaborations, there’s no need to write a report, just contact me directly via WeChat or phone, and I’ll handle it."
"Yes! Thank you, Professor!" Jiang Jitong was quite excited.
"Everyone, remember, for future issues, whether they’re funding, technology, or require special relationship support, there is no need for written reports. That’s too slow. Just mention it directly in the WeChat group." Yang Ping added.
He now has to adopt an internet mindset for the project; traditional procedures are too slow, too tedious.
"Does anyone want to say anything? Technically, managerially, feel free to speak, there should be no psychological pressure," Yang Ping looked at the other four people.
Senior Brother Jiang was fully prepared, but they weren’t. They never thought such a high-level project would task them with such significant responsibilities; they assumed joining the project group was to play a minor role.
"That’s okay, it’s normal not to have anything to say now. After you go back, take some time to read the papers and monographs I listed for you. After reading them, you’ll understand a lot, and any questions can be discussed anytime in the WeChat group." Yang Ping wasn’t blaming them for having nothing to say.
Seeing Professor Yang’s leniency, everyone’s worries and tension were greatly reduced.
"Professor, I have a question?"
Chu Xiaoxiao raised her hand.
"Go ahead!"
"I’d like to ask, how much research funding do we have?"
Yang Ping thought for a moment: "Oh, I haven’t told you about our research funding, have I? I didn’t pay too much attention. Let me look at our initial funding budget."
Yang Ping took out some documents from his document bag, looking through them one by one, as if the funding amount was on one of the papers.
After a while, he found the number, pulling out that sheet, with his finger pointing at the figure: "Initial funding — five hundred million."
Five hundred million!
Jiang Jitong was okay with it, being an experienced researcher at the Institute, he had seen such grand situations before.
The other four doctors almost had their eyes pop out.
"This is initial; later it will be supplemented according to progress, and five hundred million certainly won’t be enough." Yang Ping put away the paper.
Chu Xiaoxiao counted on her fingers—apart from Professor Yang, there were exactly five of them, which meant, on average, each one had a hundred million.
Oh my God!
