sinovels Chapter 1437 Waited for 5 Years
Chapter 1437 Waited for 5 Years
Chapter 1437 Waiting for Fifty Years
Weber remained silent for a long time, so long that Yang Ping thought he had forgotten the conversation they had just had.
“Professor Yang,” Weber finally spoke, his voice slightly hoarse from the night wind, “I’ve spent fifty years in the lab. For fifty years, I always thought what I lacked was better equipment, more funding, and smarter students. Now I know that what I lacked was time and experience.”
Yang Ping said, "You have nothing to lack; you possess the best accumulated knowledge in the world."
Weber shook his head. “In my lab in Heidelberg, I have the best stem cell equipment in the world and the smartest PhD students in Germany. The papers they publish every year are taller than a person, but how many of those papers have actually changed anything? How many have made patients feel less pain or stand for an extra day?”
Yang Ping did not answer.
“No,” Weber answered the question himself. “Not a single one. We’ve done countless experiments, published a hundred papers, and won ten awards. But patients with spinal cord injuries are still in wheelchairs.”
Weber's voice trembled slightly, not from the cold, but because something that had been suppressed for too long was loosening.
"Professor Yang, do you know why I came to China?"
Weber turned around, leaning against the railing, facing Yang Ping, "Because after reading your paper, I realized how insignificant my own research success is."
Yang Ping fell silent.
Weber took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with his sleeve. His movements were slow, as if he were cleaning something precious and fragile.
He put his glasses back on. "My lifelong pursuit has been to create something different, but I've always felt dissatisfied. After coming to China, I'm very satisfied with my work."
"Actually, you've done enough," was the only answer Yang Ping could give him.
The night wind picked up, making Weber's coat flutter loudly.
“Go back,” Yang Ping said. “We have work to do tomorrow.”
"You go back first, I'll stand here for a while longer."
Yang Ping did not insist and turned to leave the rooftop.
Weber stood alone on the rooftop, watching the lights in the distance grow increasingly sparse. His fingers tapped lightly on the railing, the rhythm soon becoming disordered. He took off his glasses, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and then put them back on.
The sixth week after surgery for M7 is a watershed moment.
The optogenetic closed-loop regulation system officially went live at the end of the fifth week. The predictive algorithm, combined with Weber's improved heat dissipation scheme, passed all seven days of stability tests. Abnormal discharges were suppressed within the normal range, the tactile threshold further increased from 0.6 gf to 0.8 gf, and the pain threshold increased from 13 g to 15 g, approaching the reference range of normal macaques.
But more importantly, there are changes in motor function.
On the first morning of the sixth week, Fritz performed his usual morning care for M7. He took M7 out of its cage and placed it on a soft mat, preparing for passive joint exercises. M7 lay prone on the mat with its hind legs dangling at its sides, just as it had in the previous weeks.
Fritz grasped M7's left hind leg and began to flex and extend it. The range of motion was normal, without stiffness or spasm. He released the left leg and switched to the right.
Then he froze.
M7's right hind leg moved on its own after his hand was released.
It's not a reflexive twitch, not a spasm, but a rhythmic, directional flexion and extension. The toes first spread out, then curl, like a baby practicing grasping. Then comes the ankle: dorsiflexion, plantarflexion, dorsiflexion, plantarflexion. Then comes the knee: flexion, extension, flexion, extension.
Fritz's hand hung in mid-air, afraid to move or breathe, for fear of shattering this fragile miracle.
“M7,” he said softly, “move again.”
M7 turned its head and glanced at him. There was no pain, no fear in those brown eyes, only a calm, almost languid curiosity. Then it looked away, gazing out the window.
Its right hind leg moved again, more forcefully than before, its toes pushing off the mat and propelling its body forward a few centimeters.
Fritz jumped up, knocking over the stool, but he didn't catch it. He rushed out of the animal room and bumped into Tang Shun, who was carrying a cup of coffee, in the hallway. Coffee spilled all over the floor, and before Tang Shun could say anything, Fritz had already grabbed his sleeve.
“M7,” his voice trembled, “its legs moved, they moved by themselves.”
Tang Shun stared at him for two seconds, then put the coffee cup on the table against the wall, turned around and ran towards the animal room.
When Yang Ping received Tang Shun's call, he was in his office reviewing a grant application. Tang Shun's voice was low on the phone, but that lowness couldn't hide his excitement; it was like a taut string trembling.
"Professor, please come to the animal room quickly. M7's right leg has shown voluntary movement, flexion and extension pattern, purposeful, not a reflex."
Yang Ping put down his pen, picked up his notebook, and strode out of the office. He ran into Weber in the hallway; Weber had just come out of the lab with a data report in his hand.
"Professor Weber, come with me."
"what happened?"
"M7 has moved."
Weber didn't ask "What moved?" He knew what Yang Ping meant by "moved." He shoved the data report into the hands of a passing student and followed Yang Ping, jogging along. The man, over seventy years old, had knees that clicked as he ran, but he didn't stop.
The animal house was already packed with people. Tang Shun, Fritz, Eva, Hans, Lina, everyone was there, even Elena was there, standing in the corner with a half-eaten apple pie in her hand.
M7 lay face down on the soft mat, her right hind leg tucked under her body, just as before.
“It really moved just now,” Fritz said urgently. “I saw it with my own eyes. It bent and stretched several times and even kicked.”
Yang Ping didn't ask any further questions. He squatted down in front of the M7 and looked it in the eye.
“M7,” he called its name, his voice soft, as if speaking to a child, “move it a little more, okay?”
M7 looked at him, his face reflected in his brown eyes.
Then its right hind leg moved.
First the toes: spread, curl, spread again. Then the ankle: dorsiflex, plantarflex. Finally the knee: draw a slow, definite arc between flexion and extension.
The entire animal enclosure was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Eva's phone was recording; her hand was steady, but the camera trembled slightly as her breathing quickened. Lena covered her mouth, tears silently sliding down behind her round-framed glasses. Hans stood frozen, his mouth half-open, like someone who had been acupunctured.
Weber crouched down, one hand on the ground and the other on his knee, and leaned closer to look at M7's right leg. His reading glasses had slipped down to the tip of his nose, but he didn't push them up; he just tilted his head and looked at it.
“It’s not a spasm,” he said, his voice hoarse. “A spasm has a frequency of eight to twelve hertz per second, but this frequency is less than one hertz. It’s a conscious movement.”
"How do you know it's conscious?" Yang Ping asked.
“Because it’s looking at its own legs,” Weber pointed to M7’s eyes. “M7 is watching its own legs move; if it were just a reflex, it wouldn’t be looking.” Yang Ping followed Weber’s finger. M7’s head was tilted slightly to the right, its eyes fixed on its hind legs, with a focused gaze, like a child discovering their hands for the first time.
“Record the time,” Yang Ping stood up, “Forty-two days post-surgery, spontaneous movement appeared in the right hind limb. Record the form, flexion-extension pattern, and coordination of the three joints. Record the observers, all of them.”
Tang Shun took out his phone and started typing. Yang Ping turned to Eva.
"Eva, this afternoon you will be doing a motor evoked potential test. I need to know the functional integrity of the corticospinal tract."
"it is good!"
"Fritz, starting today, record the number, frequency, and amplitude of M7's spontaneous movements every day and make a table."
"it is good!"
"Professor Weber, when will the proteomics results be available?"
"tonight!"
"Send it to me tonight, anytime is fine."
Weber nodded.
“Everyone else,” Yang Ping said, looking at the people in the room, “do what you need to do. M7 has moved, which is a good thing, but it’s still a long way from being able to walk. Don’t be too happy yet, and don’t spread the news. It’s not time to celebrate yet.”
The crowd dispersed, their voices hushed and their smiles barely concealed. Hans, panting, made a phone call in German down the corridor, presumably to his family in Germany. Lina huddled in a corner, her face buried in her knees, her shoulders heaving, it was hard to tell if she was crying or laughing. Eva returned to the testing station and began adjusting the equipment, her fingers moving twice as fast as usual, as if she were rushing to do something.
Weber dedicated his life to research and witnessed far too many illusions of "breakthroughs"—a brilliant experimental result, a high-scoring paper, a bustling press conference. Then came the long wait: waiting for others to replicate the results, waiting for clinical trials, waiting for approval.
“Professor Yang,” Weber said, “M7 has moved. Do you know what that means?”
“I know,” Yang Ping turned around and looked at Weber, “which means we’re on the right track.”
“It’s not just that we’re on the right track,” Weber said in a low voice, so low that only Yang Ping could hear him, “it’s that we’ve succeeded. The four technologies—original cell activation, exogenous stem cell transplantation, scar regulation, and central sensitization closed-loop inhibition—are not just one plus one equals two; they are four ones multiplied together, equaling ten thousand.”
Weber's fingers tightened slightly; the little gesture that had been repeating itself on the table now appeared inside the cuff of his white coat.
At 2 p.m., Eva’s motor evoked potential test began.
M7 was lightly anesthetized and lay prone on the testing table. Its head was fixed to a special support, and electrodes were attached to its scalp. Eva used a transcranial magnetic stimulation device to apply a brief magnetic field pulse above M7's motor cortex, and then recorded the induced electrical activity in the muscles of its hind legs.
"First stimulus, 60% intensity." Eva pressed the button.
The oscilloscope displays a flat baseline with no waveform.
"Seventy percent."
Horizontal line.
"Eighty percent."
Horizontal line.
Eva's finger paused on the voltage adjustment knob for a moment. She glanced at Yang Ping sitting next to her; Yang Ping's expression remained unchanged, his gaze fixed on the oscilloscope.
"Ninety percent."
A tiny peak appeared on the oscilloscope, like the sun just peeking over the horizon. The peak was small, less than one-tenth the amplitude of the normal value, but it was there, clear and definite.
Eva's fingers tightened.
"hundred percent."
This time, the peak was larger, reaching a quarter of the normal value. The latency was nearly twice as long as normal, indicating that the nerve conduction speed was very slow, like a bumpy old road where a car can barely drive, but it's very bumpy.
“Record,” Eva said to Lina, who was taking notes beside her, “Motor evoked potentials can be elicited, with a threshold intensity of 90%, an amplitude of 12% of normal, and a latency of 210% of normal.”
She turned her head and looked at Yang Ping.
"The conduction function of the corticospinal tract has been restored, although it is weak, but it is open."
Yang Ping nodded. He didn't smile, but there was a light in his eyes—not excitement, but confirmation, like walking through a thick fog and suddenly seeing a signpost with a single word written on it—"Yes!"
Weber stood beside the testing platform and pulled an old flip phone from his pocket. He glanced at Yang Ping, who nodded slightly.
Weber took his phone, walked out of the testing room, and stood in front of the window in the corridor. He was about to share the good news with his friends.
M7 showed explosive progress in voluntary movement in the seventh week after surgery.
On the first day of the sixth week, it could only perform single, discontinuous flexion and extension movements. By the end of the sixth week, it could perform three consecutive flexion and extension movements, and its grip strength with its toes had significantly increased. On the first day of the seventh week, when Fritz entered the animal room in the morning, he found that M7 had moved from one end of the mat to the other, a distance of about thirty centimeters.
It moved it by itself.
When Fritz showed the video to everyone, no one in the conference room spoke. In the video, M7 lay on the mat, its two hind legs kicking alternately, like a baby learning to crawl, its movements clumsy but determined. With each kick, its body moved forward a little, little by little, taking nearly two minutes to move thirty centimeters.
But it moved it by itself.
“This is not a reflex,” Eva pointed to the frame-by-frame analysis on the screen. “Look at this. The timing and amplitude of the push-offs are changing, which indicates that there is higher central regulation. If it were a rhythm generator at the spinal cord level, the gait would be stereotyped and repetitive, but this is not. Each push-off is different.”
Yang Ping said, "It's learning; the M7 is relearning how to walk."
Lina wrote this sentence down in her lab notebook and circled it in red.
After Webber stood up, he walked to the animal room, where M7 was lying in its cage with its hind legs curled up, but its posture was much more relaxed than last week.
“M7,” Weber crouched down and looked at it through the cage bars, “you are truly remarkable. Do you know what this means? The fact that you were able to repair the spinal cord injury so quickly this time shows that exogenous stem cells can promote the repair of the original cells under certain conditions. This is remarkable. I have been waiting for this day for fifty years.”
M7 turned his head to look at Webber, a thin glint in his brown eyes.
Webber reached out his hand, and M7 reached out his hand in return, gently grasping one of his fingers.
(End of this chapter)