Surgery Godfather
Chapter 857 - 762: Distinguished Expert

Chapter 857: Chapter 762: Distinguished Expert

The patient had to wait a full three hours before he woke up and was taken to the Ward. When his wife heard that the surgery was successful, she excitedly made the sign of the cross on her chest over and over again.

In the Doctor’s Office at Mayo, the doctors were so swamped by Yang Ping that there was barely room to breathe. In truth, to conquer these proud Mayo men was simple, all it took was one surgery they could not achieve themselves.

The ophthalmologists enthusiastically invited Yang Ping to visit their eyeball transplant animal experiment project, which is currently ongoing in the laboratories of the Mayo Medical School. It is a joint research project between Mayo and the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.

So far, eyeball transplantation is still at the animal experiment stage all around the world. The endeavor began with animal experiments in the 19th century and had since proceeded with great vigor, but had always been at a standstill without significant breakthroughs.

In 1977, a team from the American National Eye Institute came to a cautious conclusion after extensive research: full eyeball transplantation cannot be successful! This is because there are three insurmountable barriers—immune rejection, lack of nerve function, and insufficient blood supply.

Of course, that was just an outdated judgment. Before the moon landing, many people believed it was impossible, yet eventually, that dream was realized despite all the difficulties.

Immune rejection is a challenge all heterogeneous organ transplants must confront. With the development of immunosuppressive drugs, this problem could be solved.

Lack of nerve function was the biggest hurdle, but the doctors had already made some breakthroughs. They had identified two special genes in the retinal ganglion cells of mice, genes that affect the in vitro survival time and the post-repair growth distance of vision nerve cells. So, they deleted these two genes from the mouse retinal ganglion cells. After removing them, the growth ability of the mice’s optic nerve enhanced by 10%, resulting in longer survival times and greater growth distances.

The final issue, insufficient blood supply, could be resolved through the sophisticated techniques of microsurgery.

Therefore, after seeing Yang Ping’s outstanding skills in microsurgery, Claus believed that with Yang Ping’s help, they would definitely be able to solve the problem of insufficient blood supply. Thus, all three major challenges could be met with solutions.

Upon hearing "special genes," Yang Ping was highly interested in the topic. His own research was currently stuck on "three-dimensional cellular construction guidance genes." He speculated that certain special genes must exist within stem cells, which under certain conditions could not only guide stem cell differentiation but also direct three-dimensional cellular construction.

And these genes responsible for guiding three-dimensional cellular construction were named by Yang Ping as "three-dimensional cellular construction guidance genes."

The retinal ganglion cells of mice were extremely prone to death in vitro, and even the few surviving axons could not grow long distances. The ophthalmologists at Mayo sought to understand the reasons behind this from a gene decoding perspective. It seemed they were on the right track when they found two special genes.

These two special genes were like a lock that secured the survival ability of the retinal ganglion cells. So, they deleted these genes, effectively unlocking them, hence enhancing their abilities to survive and grow.

However, these two genes might not be the only special genes that existed. The ophthalmologists would need to continue their efforts, searching for special genes until they completely unraveled the mysteries within.

This approach coincided with Yang Ping’s approach. He was very eager to learn how they identified these two special genes, hoping to gain some insight from their methods.

Thus, Yang Ping gladly accepted Claus’s invitation to visit the laboratory at the Mayo Medical School, which was located in Rochester Town along with the Mayo Clinic.

Yang Ping planned to return to China the next day, so time was of the essence. Without much delay, he went to observe the animal experiments on eyeball transplantation.

"Respected Professor Yang, we need your help. If you can assist us in anastomosing the eye artery, the mouse eyeballs will surely get sufficient blood supply, greatly increasing the chances of a successful experiment," Claus stated plainly.

The arteries in a mouse’s eye are incredibly small, and no matter how they tried to anastomose in past experiments, it led to varying degrees of blood vessel stenosis, either resulting in occlusion and failure or severely affecting the volume of blood flow.

As Yang Ping toured the facility, he said, "I need to know the details of your experiment, so I can understand how to assist you, like whether the blood supply issue is really only affected by the quality of the vascular anastomosis."

Claus explained to Yang Ping, "After retinal ganglion cells are isolated from the body, they die swiftly, even with a blood supply. This is a hindrance to our progress in heterologous transplantation."

"Ten years ago, we observed a strange phenomenon starting with the BAX gene, which coordinates cell death. We found that mice lacking the BAK gene retained their retinal ganglion cells for years after the optic nerve had been severed, while mice with the BAK gene lost all retinal ganglion cells within three weeks after cutting the optic nerve."

"Thus, we began researching how gene expression affects the survival of nerve cells. We know that the BAK gene is just one of the influencing factors. We must continue to identify other genes and then develop drugs that block the expression of these genes, enabling retinal ganglion cells to survive well after being separated from the body."

"Survival alone isn’t enough; we must also ensure that the axons of the surviving retinal ganglion cells are capable of growing long distances, all the way to the visual centers in the brain. Fortunately, we have made some progress and can use drugs to promote the growth of the nerve axons."

"Now, if we can achieve high-quality vascular anastomosis, I believe that the experiments will be a success."

Claus was full of confidence, attributing their previous lack of success to poor quality in anastomosing the eye arteries.

"My time here is limited, so please make the arrangements quickly. I’m willing to help you," Yang Ping promptly agreed.

This would be the perfect opportunity to understand in detail how they were identifying the special genes, which could be of great value to his work.

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In the Mayo Clinic Department of Neurosurgery, John Ansen led the call to the Mayo higher-ups, proposing to invite Yang Ping to serve as a distinguished expert at Mayo.

There was no such position at Mayo before, but with the unanimous support from the entire Department of Neurosurgery, the Dean of Mayo and the executives promptly held a meeting to discuss the proposal and decided to create this special position.

Mayo was willing to pay an annual compensation of three million US Dollars to invite Yang Ping as a guest distinguished expert. He would only need to come to Mayo a few times a year to provide surgical guidance. Moreover, Yang Ping’s surgical credentials at Mayo would be endorsed by the Mayo Clinic Department of Neurosurgery and the state medical board would be applied for by the Mayo Clinic.

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