Surgery Godfather
Chapter 860 - 765: The Creator of the Useless Ones

Chapter 860: Chapter 765: The Creator of the Useless Ones

The peer review by experts for the "Science" Journal typically involves two colleagues. According to regulations, the editor Lewis also passed the article to another expert—Professor Fukunaga Kunzan from the University of Tokyo in Japan, one of the top three world-renowned experts in the stem cell field. The three papers involving skin expansion technology were essentially research within the stem cell or cloning field.

Under the normal review process, Professor Fukunaga wouldn’t have seen these three papers so soon, as there were many other manuscripts queued up before Yang Ping’s. Professor Fukunaga was always meticulous and would review each submission in order, taking his time.

After Yang Ping’s three papers received a strong recommendation from Manstein, Lewis had to send an urgent email to expedite Professor Fukunaga’s review to strictly adhere to the process, and he attached Manstein’s review comments to the urgent email as well.

Professor Fukunaga Kunzan’s life was very regular; after work, he never engaged in any social events but instead stayed at home reading books or journal papers.

His house in Tokyo wasn’t very large, only just over ninety square meters, and of that space, nearly thirty square meters was taken up by his study. It was clear that Professor Fukunaga was a book lover, with reading occupying a major part of his life.

After dinner, he habitually checked his email to see if there were any new messages. Professor Fukunaga maintained close communication with several leading stem cell laboratories worldwide, and that communication was predominantly via email, an essential part of his daily work.

The strikingly labeled urgent email caught his eye; he immediately opened it to find an urgent review request from "Science" Journal.

It seemed the authors had chosen single-blind review, allowing Professor Fukunaga to see the authors’ names on the three papers, among them a familiar Chinese name—Tang Shun, featured prominently as a principal researcher. Professor Fukunaga had a graduate student also named Tang Shun, and he suspected this person was his student.

His eyes moved to the affiliation of the authors—China Sanybo Hospital affiliated with Nandu Medical University.

Yes, that hospital. His doctoral student worked there.

At the time, Professor Fukunaga had repeatedly tried to persuade Tang Shun to stay at the University of Tokyo, but Tang Shun was determined to return to his home country. When Tang Shun told his mentor about his workplace, Professor Fukunaga was furious. A talented stem cell doctor could, if not stay at the University of Tokyo, go to the United States; if he had to return to China, the best choice would have been the Chinese Academy of Sciences or the laboratory of a well-known medical university.

Yet, this young man had chosen a hospital, a hospital whose name Professor Fukunaga had never even heard of before. Professor Fukunaga did not understand Tang Shun’s decision at all, believing that it was impossible to achieve anything notable as a basic medicine researcher at a hospital and that he was giving up his future.

Tang Shun struggled to explain, knowing that no matter what he said, Professor Fukunaga wouldn’t change his mind.

But Tang Shun was very sure about his choice. He bid farewell to his teacher and returned to China. He had called Professor Fukunaga, who was still angry and didn’t want to take his call. Thus, mentor and student temporarily lost contact over this matter.

This time, when Yang Ping submitted the paper, the single-blind review was Tang Shun’s idea; he knew the papers would eventually reach Professor Fukunaga.

Seeing his student’s name, Professor Fukunaga was very interested. He read through the three papers thoroughly, and of course, just like Manstein, he spent an entire night on them.

After reading, Professor Fukunaga leaned back in his chair, unsettled for a long time.

The accomplishments of these three papers far exceeded his own, achieving what he had always wanted to do but had not yet realized—cloning organs from somatic cells, specifically using mature somatic cells for cloning.

Even though the organ was only skin, with a relatively simple structure consisting of just two layers of different thicknesses—dermis and epidermis—they indeed managed to clone using somatic cells.

This was a great beginning, one that would open a new era of cloning, a significance in the history of science comparable to the cloning of sheep.

Ignoring some of the rules about reviewing, Professor Fukunaga excitedly grabbed his phone and dialed Tang Shun’s number.

"Tang Shun-kun—"

The Japanese professor added the honorific -kun due to his excitement.

"Professor Fukunaga!"

Tang Shun was also delighted to receive a call from his teacher and hadn’t expected him to reach out proactively.

After calming his breathing, Professor Fukunaga spoke, "Congratulations on the breakthrough in cloning technology; it’s incredible. To directly use skin as the expansion origin, followed by cloning-style expansion, this marks the true beginning of local cloning technology—the advent of actual human local cloning. It’s a great start."

However, the papers made no mention of the genetic code behind this expansion technology—why the skin can be expanded, the principles behind the added inducing factors, the function of each factor, how they were obtained—all of this was not disclosed in the paper. Are the authors only aware of the outcomes without knowing the principles, or are they intentionally keeping secrets? If someone wanted to replicate the experiment, for the time being, they would have to acquire the inducing factors just like the originators.

"Thank you, Professor Fukunaga. I am just an assistant," Tang Shun replied.

Tang Shun wasn’t being modest; indeed, he was just an assistant doing experiments as per Yang Ping’s A4 paper instructions. To his surprise, the experiments succeeded on the first attempt.

Even as an assistant, that was quite an achievement. It must be why Tang Shun chose to go to China Sanybo Hospital. It hadn’t been long since he returned to his country, less than three months—yet, he had already made such a remarkable accomplishment.

Professor Fukunaga, curious, asked, "I find it strange that I’ve never heard of Professor Yang Ping’s name before?"

Because the name Yang Ping was listed first as the author.

"He is my current mentor, a genius doctor whose talent goes beyond anyone’s imagination."

Tang Shun could only introduce Yang Ping that way.

Professor Fukunaga then eagerly wanted to replicate Yang Ping’s experiment, "If I want to replicate this experiment, do I need you to provide the inducer factor?"

"Yes, that’s correct, because for certain reasons, we temporarily cannot disclose the method of obtaining and the specific formula of the inducer factor. Any team that needs to replicate the experiment, we can provide the inducing bioagent for free."

Tang Shun also knew that only if an experiment could be replicated by others, it would be recognized.

However, the specific details of the inducer factor were crucial and involved the next step of the experiment. For the safety of the subsequent experiments, they had to be kept secret.

"Tang Shun, I am so excited, well, how can I obtain your inducer factor, or should I make a trip to China?" Professor Fukunaga was eager to start the experiment right now.

Over the phone, Tang Shun told the Japanese professor to be patient, "Professor Fukunaga, you don’t need to come in person, I’ll send it over to you, or Miss Fukunaga Yasuko could make the trip as well."

"Alright, I’ll send Yasuko to make the trip, thank you, Tang Shun."

Fukunaga Yasuko, Tang Shun’s senior sister, a young professor at Tokyo University, the daughter of Professor Fukunaga, and Tang Shun’s number one girlfriend on WeChat. Of course, she was already in her early thirties but had always been single.

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The prestigious journal Science, founded in 1880 with an investment of $10,000 by the great inventor Edison, became, 14 years later or in 1894, the official publication of the largest American scientific society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, published weekly, with a total of 51 issues a year and a global circulation of more than 1.5 million copies.

The UK’s Nature is a commercial journal, whereas the United States’ Science is an academic journal. Of course, this distinction isn’t important, as both are top-tier journals.

In Washington, D.C., USA, the headquarters of Science, the lights were burning bright.

Editor-in-chief Lewis adopted Manstein’s suggestion. He was working overtime to re-layout the next issue of the journal, which meant all the work had to be redone, a massive undertaking.

The colleagues in the editorial department grumbled. Those who had been working for a short time and those who had been there for over twenty years had never experienced such a thing, to publish three articles by the same person in one issue, not to mention giving one the cover story, and even more preposterous was the rush to republish, reworking an issue that had already been laid out.

"Boss, what exactly happened? I’ve already applied for leave, and this is trampling on workers’ rights," someone reluctantly pounded on their keyboard.

Then, many started to protest, objecting to this inhumane overtime.

Lewis walked among the rows, knowing he couldn’t silence these guys. So he coldly declared, "This is the work of that terrible German, Manstein. If needed, I can post his phone number and email address up on the glass door, and you’re welcome to question him at any time."

When they heard that it was all Manstein’s idea, even the loudest protestor gave up the struggle, "Alright, we give up."

And miraculously, all their followers also shut their mouths and dutifully worked overtime on their keyboards, reformatting the content of the journal.

Because Manstein was almost a godlike figure in their hearts, and this guy was unpredictable, both in thought and behavior. With such people, it was best to keep one’s distance.

Even if these people genuinely filed a labor complaint or lawsuit, they believed Manstein had a hundred legal ways to make the complainers regret it, not only gaining nothing but also losing their jobs.

Once, Manstein faced a barrage of "righteous people" from the Western world because of ethical issues with his experiments. Whether in Europe or the United States, Manstein didn’t need any lawyer or assistant, single-handedly dealing with all challengers through multiple rounds of paper battles and live debates.

In the end, not only did these people lose face, but they also left the entire world with an impression—that all these guys were nothing but ignoramuses decked in finery, utterly clueless.

Therefore, there was a saying in the academic world: "If you don’t want to become a universally recognized ignoramus, don’t mess with Manstein."

Manstein thus earned a domineering nickname—The Ignoramus Maker.