sinovels Chapter 1429 Turning a Blind Eye
Chapter 1429 Turning a Blind Eye
Chapter 1429 Turning a Blind Eye
After Weber returned to Germany, Mainstein received an email.
It wasn't written by Weber; it was signed Hannah, the young female postdoctoral researcher who came to China with Weber. She was blonde, had a low ponytail, and barely spoke throughout the email. The email was very short.
"Professor Mainstein, I am Hannah, Professor Weber's student. Last week in China, I saw your data. After returning to Germany, I reviewed our lab's data from the past five years and found three independent studies that showed phenomena similar to the protocellular activation you observed. At the time, we interpreted those phenomena as 'non-specific reactions' or 'background noise' and did not investigate further. Now I suspect we may have missed something important. Professor Weber asked me to ask you: if we send you the original data, would you be willing to help us reanalyze it?"
Mainstein forwarded the email to Yang Ping, adding a note: "Professor, Weber's team has found a correlation with our phenomenon in past experimental data."
Yang Ping replied: "It's not a shadow, it's the same phenomenon from different angles. They saw it, but didn't recognize it. Just like what you saw on M21. These things have always been there, just waiting for someone to recognize them. Actually, we didn't create anything, we just discovered what already existed. The whole process is recognition, not creation."
When Mannstein read this passage, he was reminded of M21.
The monkey they called "surprise" recovered, and for a long time, it was considered an "accident." It wasn't a success story of the targeted intervention group, nor was it the focus of the mechanism research; it was just a footnote, an outlier that was "mentioned incidentally." If it weren't for that late-night restaining, if it weren't for his insistence on using double labeling with corticosteroids and NeuroD, those red, migrating, repairing cells might have remained dormant in the paraffin block forever, and no one would have known of their existence.
That evening, as Mainstein sat before the microscope, when the double corticosteroid staining results lit up in his field of view, he thought he was seeing things. He adjusted the focus and looked again. He adjusted it again and looked again. It wasn't the blurry grayish-red of the background staining; it was a clean, intense, flame-like red. Hundreds and thousands of positive cells extended outward from the damaged area, forming chains like flocks of migrating birds.
His first reaction wasn't excitement, but suspicion. Was there something wrong with the antibody? He repeatedly checked the lab records, retrieved the negative control, and even had Fritz verify the results. Fritz was a veteran technician in the lab, with nearly thirty years of experience in tissue staining; he'd seen all kinds of slides. He placed the slide under the microscope, adjusted the focus, remained silent for about ten seconds, then looked up at Mainstein. His gaze wasn't one of surprise, but rather a complex mix of awe and reverence.
“This wasn’t a mistake,” Fritz said.
The day the double-labeling results came out, everyone in the lab gathered around. Two fluorescence images were placed side by side, the left one showing double cortisol and the right one showing NeuroD, with the positive areas almost completely overlapping. The glowing cells against the dark background looked like lamps, silently shining, as if saying: We've always been here.
Mainstein replied to Hannah's email: "Send the data over."
Three days later, a package arrived at the Sanbo Institute from Germany. Inside were three external hard drives, totaling 4TB in capacity, containing all the raw data from the laboratory over the past five years. When Mainstein connected the hard drives to his computer and opened the first folder, his finger paused for a moment.
Yang Ping walked over and stood behind him. On the screen was a list of folders arranged chronologically, the earliest date being five years ago. Five years of data, thousands of experiments, tens of thousands of photomicrographs, hundreds of thousands of data points. Weber had sent all the raw data, without reservation.
"He's brought out his entire fortune," Yang Ping said.
“It’s not moving out, it’s handing over,” Mainstein said. “He trusts us.”
When he said those words, even Mannstein himself felt they carried a heavy burden. Trust isn't absent from academia, but it's usually limited. Labs can collaborate, share data, and peer-review each other, but very few will hand over all their raw data—including data deemed "invalid," marked "abnormal," or archived in the "discarded" folder—to another lab without reservation.
Weber wasn't cooperating; he was surrendering.
Mainstein assigned the task to five people in the lab, each responsible for a year's worth of data. Clara was in charge of electrophysiology, Hans of behavioral science, August of histology, Fritz of animal facility records, and Mainstein himself was responsible for integrating and cross-validating all the data. Every afternoon at three o'clock, the five of them would gather in the conference room, and each person would give ten minutes to report on their findings for the day.
Soon, Clara discovered an electrophysiological signal marked as an "outlier" in the data she was responsible for. The original record stated: "M44, 20 weeks post-surgery, irregular electromyographic activity in the lower limbs. Possibly related to electrode placement, recommended to rule it out." Clara retrieved that original waveform, amplified it, filtered it, and compared it with the neonatal potential waveform recorded by Mainstein's team. They were almost identical.
“This isn’t a problem with electrode placement,” Clara said. “It’s an electrophysiological manifestation of early protocellular activation that lasts for at least four weeks and is then cleared away as noise.”
August discovered a set of immunohistochemical images labeled "non-specific staining" in the histological photographs. The original experimental aim was to label a specific neuronal subtype, but numerous scattered, irregularly shaped positive signals appeared in the area surrounding the lesion. The conclusion at the time was "antibody cross-reactivity, no biological significance." August placed that set of images side by side with photographs of M21 sections on the screen.
"This is not a cross-reaction. This is a positive signal for dicortin. Although the antibody they used was not designed to label dicortin, a cross-reaction occurred precisely because the concentration of dicortin in the sample was high enough to be captured non-specifically by the antibody."
Fritz found an earlier clue in the animal facility records. A monkey, designated M29, exhibited "unexplained hind limb movements" sixteen weeks post-surgery. The record at the time stated: "M29 exhibited atypical postural adjustments in its hind limbs while moving within its cage. Possibly compensatory behavior; observation is recommended." After four weeks of observation with no further changes, the record was dropped. Fritz retrieved the behavioral video recording and played it frame by frame. It wasn't compensatory behavior. It was active, purposeful hind limb extension, brief and incomplete, but fundamentally different from compensatory behavior.
The five team members have accumulated more than thirty "missed findings." Each one had appeared in the original data, each one was marked as "abnormal," "non-specific," or "suggested for exclusion," and each one was archived, sealed, or forgotten.
Mannstein stared at the summary table for a long time.
Weber's team was no slouch. Quite the opposite; they were incredibly meticulous. Every experiment had a complete procedural record, every outlier was carefully labeled, and behind every "suggestion to exclude" was a detailed analysis and discussion. The problem wasn't that they weren't meticulous; the problem was that they were too meticulous. They meticulously adhered to all experimental protocols, meticulously identified all anomalous signals, meticulously analyzed all possible confounding factors, and then meticulously arrived at the conclusion: these signals were not genuine.
This conclusion is logically sound. Because what you've learned tells you that spinal cord injury doesn't spontaneously repair nerves, so when you see signs that resemble repair, the correct answer is "this is not repair."
This is the true meaning of "seeing without seeing." It's not that the eyes can't see, but that the brain won't allow you to see. Recognizing a phenomenon requires more than just seeing it; it also requires knowing what it might be. Like those M21 slides, which Mainstein examined repeatedly before Fritz re-stained them, he only saw "abnormal cells"—strange in shape, distribution, and number—but simply "abnormal cells." Only after the double corticosteroid staining results did those "abnormal cells" transform into "migrating neural progenitor cells." The phenomenon didn't change; what changed was the observer's perception.
On Friday afternoon, Mainstein compiled all the findings into a report and sent it to Weber. The report had no title, and the first page contained only one line: "Professor Weber, the answer has always been in your data; we just read it out for you."
Weber's reply arrived that evening: "Maninstein, I was wrong to say you were moving too fast. You're not moving too fast, you're ahead. People who are ahead look back at those who are following behind and feel like they're standing still."
Mannstein read it several times, then handed the phone to Yang Ping. Yang Ping read it once, said nothing, and simply returned the phone to him.
News of Weber's shift spread faster than he had anticipated. A week later, Mainstein received seven emails from laboratories in different countries. The most noteworthy one came from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), from the program director of the Department of Neurological Diseases, with the subject line: "The NIH would like to organize a workshop on your latest findings."
Mannstein showed the email to Yang Ping. Yang Ping replied almost without hesitation, "Go ahead."
Mannstein opened his mouth, but said nothing. He knew Yang Ping was giving him the spotlight. Yang Ping genuinely had no interest in these things; it wasn't feigned arrogance, he truly didn't think they mattered. The honors of academic conferences, international recognition, and industry status were worthless to him. He cared more about whether the experimental design was clean enough, whether the data was reproducible, and whether the mechanism could be explained. As for who gave the presentation, who received the award, and whose name appeared first, he didn't care.
“Okay, I’ll go.” The flight to the United States was a red-eye flight. Mainstein chose a window seat, slept for a while, and when he woke up, he saw the clouds outside the window burning a golden-red in the morning light. He took out his laptop, went through the PowerPoint presentation from beginning to end, and revised a few wordings.
On the afternoon of my arrival at the NIH, my presentation was scheduled for the last session, starting at 4:30 PM. The venue was large, seating about 300 people, and it gradually filled up. It wasn't just scientists from within the NIH who came; there were also people from surrounding universities—Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Penn—some driving for three hours.
Mannstein walked to the podium. There were no pleasantries, no small talk. He opened the first slide of the PowerPoint presentation.
"What I'm going to talk about today can be summarized in one sentence: Spinal cord injuries can be repaired. Not possibly, not maybe, not 'observed in animal models,' but can! I have clinical data from human patients."
Some people in the audience were whispering among themselves.
Mainstein pressed the page turner. A photo of Chen Jianguo standing between the parallel bars appeared on the screen, his legs firmly planted on the ground, his hands gripping the bars, and his gaze fixed ahead.
"This patient suffered a complete injury to the fifth thoracic spinal cord eleven years ago. He stood independently for the first time in the fortieth week after surgery. Now, in the fiftieth week after surgery, he can stand for more than five minutes. This is not due to the exoskeleton or electrical stimulation, but because the damaged nerves have been repaired."
The audience fell silent.
Mannstein presented all the data: electrophysiological records of M7, histological sections of M8, single-cell sequencing results of M21, Chen Jianguo's cerebrospinal fluid test report, sensory level decline curve, muscle strength recovery timeline, and standing time variation graph. He only spent a few seconds flipping through each slide, not to be perfunctory, but because all the key data were on the charts, in black and white, requiring no further explanation.
After the presentation, during the Q&A session, someone raised their hand.
"Professor Mannstein, what is your sample size? Can data from just one human trial lead to the conclusion that spinal cord injuries are 'repairable'?"
Mainstein looked at the person asking the question: "No! One case is not enough. But one case can prove that this is worth continuing. Without one case, there won't be many. This is just the beginning."
Another person raised their hand: "Your mechanism research is not yet complete. The causal relationship has not been rigorously proven. Before the causal relationship is proven, how can you be sure that your intervention led to the functional recovery, rather than spontaneous recovery?"
"We're not sure," Mannstein said. "But this patient has been injured for eleven years. Do you know how many cases there are in the literature on human spinal cord injuries where a complete injury spontaneously recovers after eleven years?"
The person who asked the question did not answer.
"Zero! No one has spontaneously recovered any meaningful neurological function eleven years after an injury. This is the consensus in the medical community. So, when our patients stand up eleven years later and say, 'This is not the effect of intervention,' that is anti-science."
The room fell silent, not in awkwardness, but in a quiet that had been moved. Mannstein could sense the change in the atmosphere; it had shifted from scrutiny to attentive listening.
After the report, Mannstein was surrounded by more than a dozen people. Some asked for collaboration, some requested data, and some invited him to give a lecture at another university. A professor from Switzerland pulled him aside and asked if he would be willing to apply for EU funding together. A young researcher from Japan pushed his way to the front, saying that he had seen a similar electrophysiological phenomenon three years ago, but at the time he thought it was a recording error and had not saved the original data, and now he wanted to redo it.
After returning to the hotel, Mainstein called Yang Ping.
"Professor, the report is finished."
"How about it?"
"Some people questioned the sample size, and some questioned the causal relationship. I've asked all the questions that needed to be asked, and I've answered all the questions that needed to be answered."
"We don't need them to believe us."
Mannstein thought for a moment and said, "Yes! They don't need to believe it; they just need to repeat it themselves. Whether they believe it or not is not important; what's important is that they repeat it."
Two days later, in the evening, Mainstein returned to Nandu. Tang Shun was waiting for him at the airport arrival gate holding a sign. Mainstein carried only a small suitcase and a bulging briefcase.
"Professor Mannstein, shall we go straight back to the institute?"
"Back!"
When Mainstein returned to the research institute, it was already past 7 p.m. when he pushed open the door.
Chen Jianguo was no longer there. The training room was empty. The parallel bars cast two parallel shadows under the light, stretching all the way to the innermost wall. But there was a new sticky note on the wall, bright yellow, with Sister Li's handwriting on it:
“Professor Mannstein, Jian Guo stood for six minutes today. He asked me to tell you that he is waiting for you to come back.”
Mannstein stared at that line of text for a long time. He had been away on a three-day business trip. Before leaving, Jianguo had stood for five minutes; upon returning, it had taken him six. Three days, an improvement of one minute.
He took out his phone and snapped a picture. Then he walked out of the research institute and looked up at the sky.
There are stars tonight, not many, but clear. He recalled Yang Ping's words, "The stars in Southern Metropolis stubbornly twinkle amidst light pollution," and felt that this sentence should be written down. Not in a paper, but in someone's notebook. So that one late night, sitting alone by the window reflecting on their life, they can turn to this page and see these words.
The stars in the Southern Metropolis Daily stubbornly twinkled amidst the light pollution.