Surgery Godfather
Chapter 757 - 676: Skin Ex-Vivo Proliferation Technology

Chapter 757: Chapter 676: Skin Ex-Vivo Proliferation Technology

"One day, I will make this banner culture popular in North America." Robert’s usual confidence was evident.

August was puzzling over these banners, always feeling something strange about them, but couldn’t figure out what was wrong. So he set aside the issue for the moment and sent the banner template to his assistant — Dr. Marcus.

"Make a banner exactly like this and hang it in my office!" August issued an order to Marcus.

As for Robert’s recommended method, tying the banner to priority access for medical consultations, August hasn’t decided yet whether to take such a radical step.

"Are we to persuade the Professor to take up the surgery invitation from Langnaife Company, since he doesn’t seem interested?" Having arranged his private affairs, August began to focus on more important matters.

The surgery organized by Langnaife Company has already become talk of the town. They are going to use an advanced Skin Extracorporeal Proliferation technology. This technology was developed by Professor Manstein but, the genius having shifted his focus to spinal cord injury repair, he lost interest in it. Langnaife Company funded another team to continue the research on this project and achieved great success.

After receiving this new technology from Langnaife, plastic surgery master, Ivan, made technological improvements from the perspective of plastic surgery, which allowed control over the thickness and discoloration of the skin, thus achieving mature application in the field of plastic surgery.

This technology solves the requirement for skin in certain surgical procedures. It takes a small piece of skin from the body and places it in a special external culture medium. The piece of skin can grow around, continuously expanding to many times its original size, up to a hundred times larger.

In the past, when treating patients with burn injuries or skin defects, autologous skin transplantation was performed, and skin was taken from other parts of the patient’s body – akin to taking from one place to fill another. If the skin demand was small, this technique was manageable. But if the skin needed was very large, for example for a patient with extensive burn scars, traditional methods were powerless.

The new method can nearly provide an unlimited supply of autologous skin, making surgery easier.

"We must persuade him. This is a great opportunity. Professor Manstein can expand his connections and it will be immensely helpful for his future career. If he gains Langnaife’s support, he can walk sideways in the academic circles of Europe and America. If they knew his true level, they would treat him like a god, not just sending an invitation to probe his interest." Robert was also of this view.

August was peeking around the corner of Yang Ping’s office door and upon seeing that Yang was free, both he and Robert entered his office.

"What’s up?" Yang Ping looked at the two grinning men.

August gestured for Robert to speak, as he was better with words.

Robert cleared his throat, "Professor, we’ve come to suggest that you participate in the surgery that Langnaife invited you to. It is confirmed that this surgery will conduct widespread scar treatment for the patient and adopt the most advanced skin extracorporeal proliferation technology. Taking a small area of healthy skin from the patient, it multiplies it in artificial cultivation, expanding its area several dozen times, even a hundred-fold, before re-transplanting back onto the patient to replace the original scar. Between all this, some stem cell technology is involved. I believe you should look into it, Professor. Of course, understanding this technology isn’t the most important part; more importantly, you can acquire connections with Langnaife, which will be hugely beneficial for your future research. They have several Nobel laureates under contract."

Yang Ping had also heard of the Skin Extracorporeal Proliferation technology.

Our country also has teams researching it, such as the burn treatment team at Shanghai Changhai Hospital. They could use a small piece of the patient’s skin to multiply it externally into thin and transparent skin cell layers.

Through 2-3 weeks of external cultivation, the patient’s own skin cells can rapidly multiply between 4,000 to 10,000 times, constantly providing a source of skin for patients. However, the skin that this team cultivates is a transparent autologous skin cell membrane, not a full-thickness skin. It can be used in the repair of burn wounds, but it is temporarily unusable in plastic surgery.

If Langnaife’s technology has nurtured full-thickness skin or medium-thickness skin including the cuticle and dermis, then it is undoubtedly a breakthrough.

"About this technology, I have read Professor Manstein’s paper. At that time, the technology was in the experimental stage and was not suitable for clinical application. There have been no related papers published since then. Has Langnaife made a breakthrough that it can now be used clinically?" Yang Ping was relatively interested in this technology, as a pure technophile, he was always curious about new technology.

"Exactly, the team sponsored by Langnaife has made a breakthrough and it can be used clinically. However, because it’s too expensive – each square centimeter costs about 600,000 dollars – it’s too expensive to popularize, and can only be used by the rich for the time being." August quickly added.

"This is very common in the medical field. For instance, in recent years, the wealthy have been trendily opting for the "life-extending needle", which costs anywhere from tens of thousands to millions. In reality, it’s merely stem cell injection treatment from a lab." Robert chimed in.

"David Rockefeller, third-generation heir of the American Rockefeller family was the world’s first successful heart transplant patient. He lived to be 102 years old, and over his lifetime, he spent 2 billion dollars successfully changing his heart six times." August continued.

Yang Ping’s fingers were rhythmically tapping the office desk, but there was no sound.

He refused the surgery because he was disgusted by the dark history of Langnaife. They had been criticized for alleged organ smuggling, although they later clarified that they were not involved.

If the surgery is indeed, as described in the invitation, a plastic surgery procedure for a patient with post-burn and post-trauma sequelae and does not involve organ transplantation, and if the skin extracorporeal proliferation technology has indeed reached the stage of clinical application, Yang Ping still had some interest.

At least it implies that the company stands out in medical research. The more you know about cutting-edge research results, the better.

In the field of skin grafting, this skin extracorporeal proliferation technology can be said to be the world’s top and most mature technology until there is a breakthrough in stem cell cultivation or skin printing technology.

Given that Manstein is interested in this company, it must have something unique.

Moreover, Ruixing’s progress in Biological 3D printers is currently very slow. This cutting-edge technology requires deep accumulation, and it won’t be surpassed in a short time.

Yang Ping’s area of expertise is medicine, and he’s not good at fields beyond that. Hence, he can’t help much with Ruixing’s 3D printer.

If they could lean on the strength of Langnaife, the progress of Ruixing’s research could be sped up.

"So, should I participate in this surgery?" Yang Ping felt he needed to meet this mysterious company and mythical people like Ivan.

"Of course, not only should you go, but also take us with you." Robert said.

"Why?" Yang Ping saw that Robert seemed quite excited.

"You need an assistant who’s familiar with Langnaife." Robert immediately justified.

"No, two!" August corrected.

PS: I apologize again for not being able to update for a while due to my busy work schedule. Now that things are better, I am back to updating! Thank you, everyone!