sinovels Chapter 1439 It's time to pop the champagne!
Chapter 1439 It's time to pop the champagne!
Chapter 1439 It's time to pop the champagne!
It snowed in Heidelberg for a whole week.
Weber stood at the laboratory window, watching the cruise ships on the Neckar River glide slowly through the snow. The tourists, bundled up in thick winter coats, took photos with their phones, marveling at the ancient city. He watched for a few seconds, then drew the curtains and returned to his workbench.
All six monkeys were in place: three from Heidelberg University’s own breeding center and three on loan from research institutions in Berlin. Weber spent three days examining each monkey’s health, weight, blood count, and imaging data, and then created a detailed file for each monkey—just as he had done for M7.
"Hope, trust, love, patience, courage, wisdom," Hannah looked at the list and couldn't help but laugh. "Professor, are you naming monkeys or praying?"
“Yes,” Weber said. “They are doing something important for me, the most important thing in my life. I should give them the best names, not just a string of cold numbers.”
Hannah didn't say anything more. She had followed Weber for twelve years and knew that every decision the old man made had its reasons, even something as simple as naming a child.
Preoperative training begins one month later.
Weber personally designed the training program, down to the hour of every day. Training took place every day from 8:00 to 10:00 AM and from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, rain or shine. The six monkeys were divided into two groups of three, taking turns for training.
Hoffnung learned the fastest, adapting to the testing platform in three days and learning to walk steadily on the gait analysis track in a week. Vertrauen was the slowest; it disliked having its hind legs touched and struggled every time its range of motion was measured. Weber didn't force it, but instead spent an extra half hour each day with it, gently stroking its hind legs to help it gradually get used to the touch.
Liebe was in the middle, neither outstanding nor lagging behind, but Weber noticed that it had a special temperament. It was calm and composed, and did everything at its own pace. While other monkeys would pace restlessly in their cages after training, Liebe would quietly lie on its mat, observing everything around it with an almost philosophical gaze.
Geduld lived up to its name; it was the most patient of the six monkeys, able to lie quietly on the operating table for thirty minutes without moving, which is extremely rare in primate behavior training. Weber wrote in its file, "This monkey is naturally suited for surgery."
Mut was the boldest of all the monkeys. While the other monkeys would shrink back at the sight of new testing equipment, Mut would come over and pat the metal instruments with his paws, as if to say, "This thing won't do anything to me."
Weisheit was the last and also the smartest. Weber taught it to perform complex limb movements in just three days, which would take a week or even longer for an ordinary monkey.
Six monkeys, six names, six personalities. Weber spent a lot of time with them every day, not for data, but for trust.
“Monkeys aren’t machines,” he told Hannah. “They’re animals that get scared, nervous, and uncooperative. If you don’t understand them, you won’t get real data.”
Hannah nodded. She had seen too many researchers treat animals as tools, to be used and then disposed of. Weber was not like that. He treated every monkey like a patient, no, like a child.
One month later, the surgery began.
The first patient to undergo surgery was Hoffnung.
Weber stood before the operating table, the high-speed drill humming softly in his hands. He removed the lamina, cut open the dura mater, exposed the spinal cord, located the injury area, and made the pre-designed hemisection, every step exactly the same as what he had done in Nandu. Hannah assisted from the opposite side, passing instruments, suctioning blood, and monitoring vital signs.
“The damage is complete,” Weber said calmly. “Ready for transplantation.”
The first tube contained inducing factors, the second tube contained exogenous neural stem cells suspended in a thermosensitive hydrogel, and the third tube contained FG-3019. These three tubes, each containing a different liquid and a different color, were sequentially injected around the damaged area.
“Close the incision,” Weber put down the instruments and let out a long breath. “Hoffnung, welcome to the first day after surgery.”
On the first day after surgery, Hoffnung woke up from anesthesia. Its condition was better than expected. It started eating on the second day, was able to roll over in its cage on the third day, and began to support its body with its arms on the fifth day. These behaviors were exactly the same as M7's.
Weber sent Yang Ping an experimental briefing every day.
After reviewing the first week's report, Yang Ping replied with a single sentence: "Highly consistent with the first week after surgery for M7, Professor Weber, your technique is superb."
Weber replied, "It's not about skill, it's about luck! The restoration of the M7 was groundbreaking; mine was just a repetition."
“The ability to repeat groundbreaking things is itself groundbreaking,” Yang Ping replied.
Weber stared at the message in silence for a long time. Then he put his phone on the lab table and continued writing his experimental notes.
Vertrauen's surgery was performed three days after Hoffnung.
Vertrauen was larger and deeper than Hoffnung. While making the incision, Weber encountered a small problem: the dura mater in Vertrauen was almost twice as thick as usual, which was rare in his experience. He switched to a sharper scalpel, slowed down, and made incisions one by one, as if sculpting a delicate work of art.
Hannah was on tenterhooks. Duratomy is one of the most dangerous steps in spinal surgery. The slightest mistake could damage the underlying spinal cord tissue and affect the experimental results. But Weber's hands were surprisingly steady. His seventy-eight-year-old fingers did not tremble at all under the microscope.
“The dura mater incision is complete,” Weber said in a steady voice. “Location of the injury area: T8 segment.”
Vertrauen's postoperative recovery was slower than Hoffnung's; it didn't start eating until the second week and couldn't roll over until the third week. Weber was a little worried and spent twice as much time observing it each day. By the fourth week, Vertrauen's right hind leg showed spontaneous movement, although a full week later than Hoffnung, the amplitude and frequency of the movement were steadily increasing.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s slow,” Weber wrote in his experimental notes. “As long as there is improvement, it means we are on the right track.”
Liebe's surgery went the most smoothly.
When it lay on the operating table, it didn't look like an anesthetized monkey at all; it looked more like a baby enjoying a nap. Its breathing was steady, its heart rate was normal, and its blood pressure was stable. Weber completed the entire procedure in less than forty minutes, a full fifteen minutes faster than planned.
The day after surgery, Liebe began eating. On the third day, she sat up in her cage. On the fourth day, she tried to stand up using her arms for support. On the sixth day, her legs began to move.
Webber watched Liebe standing in the cage, her hind legs trembling slightly but not moving, and suddenly thought of M7.
“Professor Yang,” he sent a message to Yang Ping, “Liebe might be the M7 of Europe.”
Yang Ping replied: "The M7 isn't the only one, Liebe, you have six M7s."
The surgeries for Geduld, Mut, and Weisheit were completed over the next two weeks.
Geduld's postoperative recovery was the most stable. Just like its name suggests, it was unhurried and steady, taking each step with care. He ate on the first day after surgery, turned over on the third day, stood with support on the fifth day, and spontaneous movement of his hind legs appeared on the eighth day. All the recovery milestones were around the average, without any particular prominence or lag.
Mut then displayed its personality. On the third day after surgery, it struggled to stand up in its cage, fell down, stood up again, fell down again, and stood up again. It repeated this more than ten times, each time becoming more stable. On the tenth time, it stood up and then let out a sharp cry, like a declaration of victory.
Weber was startled by the cry, then laughed. Weisheit was the last to be operated on, and also the smartest. Four weeks after surgery, it began to try to push off the ground with its hind legs. Other monkeys would only push unconsciously, but it pushed consciously and rhythmically, as if it were stepping on something.
“It’s the first monkey to show a gait pattern four weeks after surgery since M7,” Hannah said, her voice trembling as she watched the video. “Professor, this monkey may be the closest to M7.”
Weber stared at the screen without speaking, his fingers tapping lightly on the table in an irregular rhythm.
Eight weeks after the surgery, data from all six monkeys were available.
Weber compiled all the data into a report, "Experimental Report on Combined Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury at the Primate Research Center of Heidelberg University, Independent Replication Validation in Six Primates." It was a full four hundred pages long, with original records for every data point and statistical analysis for every chart.
He encrypted and compressed the file and sent it to Yang Ping.
When Yang Ping received the email, he was at the research institute in Nandu watching M7 do rehabilitation training. M7 could already run fifty meters continuously, and after finishing, without panting, he jumped onto the perch and looked down at the people below with a superior gaze.
"Professor, Professor Weber's report has arrived," Tang Shun handed over the phone.
Yang Ping didn't turn it on immediately. He had the M7 run its last lap, recorded the time and gait parameters, and then returned to his office and sat down at his desk.
He started reading from the beginning of the four hundred pages, turning each page one by one, checking every piece of data, and enlarging every chart.
"Professor Weber's data has arrived. All six samples were successful. Gather the team. Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, in the conference room, for data comparison."
"All six were successful?" Tang Shun's voice was almost a shout on the phone. "Professor, is...is this true?"
"It's true. Six monkeys, six independent individuals, the same experimental protocol. The recovery curves are highly consistent with M7, and none of them showed obvious central sensitization. The Germans are more meticulous than you think."
“Weber is crazier than I imagined,” Tang Shun said.
"He's not crazy, he's just meticulous. A meticulous person, when faced with something worth meticulously pursuing, will become crazy."
The data analysis session on the second day was the quietest meeting of Yang Ping's career.
There was no applause, no cheers, no one stood up to speak; everyone remained seated, watching the six recovery curves on the big screen in silence.
Six curves, six colors, start from the same point, pass through plateaus of different lengths but the same shape, then begin to rise almost simultaneously, and finally converge at a similar endpoint.
Six monkeys, six storylines, one ending.
Mainstein was the first to speak: "Professor, I want to say something, but I'm afraid I'll burst out laughing again."
Yang Ping glanced at him.
"Let's finish laughing first, then we'll talk."
Mainstein genuinely laughed, chuckled a few times, then composed himself and said seriously, "Professor Weber's experimental results validate our theory: in spinal cord injury repair, the role of exogenous stem cells is not to replace damaged neurons, but to activate endogenous repair mechanisms. The minor, uncertain effects reported in previous literature were due to the presence of sporadic, extremely small amounts of progenitor cells at the injury site. Exogenous stem cells are like a key that unlocks the door to progenitor cells. But without a door, the key is just a useless piece of metal."
He paused.
"Professor Yang, you have unified the three-dimensional guided gene theory and the stem cell theory. This is not only a breakthrough in spinal cord injury repair, but also a paradigm shift in regenerative medicine. It's amazing."
Yang Ping didn't reply. He stared at the six curves on the screen for a long time.
Tang Shun took notes beside him, his pen moving swiftly across the paper, making a rustling sound.
The final version of the paper was completed three days after the data collision.
The title was revised three times, the abstract twice, and the discussion section was almost completely rewritten. Weber integrated all the data from the six monkeys, redrew the statistics, redrawn the charts, and rewrote the results section.
“Now it’s not n=1 anymore,” Yang Ping said at the meeting. “It’s n=7, M7 plus six, seven primates, two independent laboratories, cross-center blind verification. This paper does not report a phenomenon, but proves a theory.”
Weber sent the final revision comments from Germany, changing only one place: in the last paragraph of the discussion section, he added a sentence: "We previously thought that the effect of stem cell therapy on spinal cord injury was small and uncertain. Now we know why: stem cells are not the main player; the main player is the endogenous progenitor cells, and stem cells are just a supporting role, playing an accelerating and amplifying role."
After reading it several times and confirming the misunderstanding, Yang Ping submitted Weber's manuscript.
This article was not only accepted on the first try, but was also recommended by the editor-in-chief of Cell to be used as a cover story.
Weber was quite excited: "It means that the whole world will see M7, not 20,000 people, not 200,000 people, but 2 million people, 20 million people... M7 will become a symbol of spinal cord injury repair."
"Professor Yang, do you remember what I said? I said that the value of all my published papers is not as great as the value of this one experiment you are doing now. I was wrong."
"It's not that it can't compare, it's that it's far behind, a hundred times, a thousand times. Because the previous papers could only make minor discoveries, while this discovery is revolutionary."
Yang Ping didn't say anything. He switched the phone to his left hand and tapped the table lightly with his right hand.
"Professor Weber, once the paper is published, it's time to open that bottle of champagne."
"Should I wait for you to come to Germany, or should I go to China?"
"When you come to China, M7 will be waiting for you."
Weber's breathing came through clearly on the other end of the phone, carrying a slight emotional fluctuation.
"Okay, I'll come! I'll bring the data on the six monkeys, and that bottle of champagne, to China to meet M7."