Chapter 813: Dr. Z Saved the World?
[After 27 days in a coma, the two Ares program colonists have recovered!]
[Breaking news! Martian bacteria was defeated by the Moon Palace expert team! Dr. Z provided important clues!]
[...]
The day after Johnson woke up, the Lunar Orbit Committee announced the latest progress on the X-0172 bacterial research to the world.
The world heard that out of the three colonists who fell into a comatose state, two of them had successfully woken up with the infected bacteria removed from their bodies. This caused a huge sensation in the international community.
After Everyone Daily reported the news, the Washington Post immediately covered the news and interviewed the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Eliasson.
A month ago, at the UN emergency meeting, Eliasson read out an initiative calling all countries in the world to deal with this global crisis.
Even though his speech wasn’t the main reason why various nations cooperated in this crisis, his speech was still undeniably iconic.
When someone asked him to evaluate the crisis response performance of various countries, Eliasson responded without hesitation.
“This was one of the greatest threats to humanity. We stayed together as a team and didn’t give up!”
Reporter: “What do you think about the unsuccessful rescue of the African American colonist Travis?”
Eliasson: “I think there is still hope. I trust our international expert team. They just need a little more time!”
Out of the three patients infected with the X-0172 bacteria, two of them were successfully cured. This was a considerable breakthrough.
According to the Chinese announcement, in a week’s time, Johnson and Julia would be transferred from the Moon Palace to the ISS by the Magpie Bridge spacecraft. The experts from the United Nations would give them a final examination on the ISS before sending them back to Earth.
The Earth’s ecological crisis caused by the Mars bacteria had finally come to an end.
During the 27 days, countless people had expressed concerns about the future of the Earth’s ecosystem. Finally, all those concerns were gone.
Humans were no longer defenseless against the spores of X-0172 bacteria. Everyone was confident that it wouldn’t take long for the last colonist to recover.
All they needed was a bit of time.
In addition to the two colonists who were about to return to Earth, the media also paid attention to “Dr. Z”, who played an important role in the entire crisis.
According to Professor Stephen from Stanford University, if it weren’t for the pheromone molecular formula and synthesis method provided by this person, they would still be stuck on the X-0172 spore formation bottleneck.
“The results of his research made a huge contribution to the elimination of the Martian bacteria!
“Although I don’t know why he chose to remain anonymous, I hope he can stand up and accept his honor!”
Speculations about the identity of Dr. Z were formed.
The media outlets weren’t the only ones curious about the identity of this scholar. The general public had also developed a considerable amount of interest in this anonymous scholar.
Interesting enough, if his name were written in the thesis, the general public wouldn’t be interested in the thesis author at all. Everyone would forget his name after the media reports.
It was like how everyone knew that a Nobel Prize winner was nutty, but no one would remember every Nobel Prize winner.
But now, even people who weren’t in the field of biology were curious about the identity of this author. They wanted to know which country this scholar came from, and why they chose to be anonymous...
Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.
Institute of Biology.
Professor Liu Zuobing handed a report to Lu Zhou and spoke emotionally.
“I can’t believe the slow release agent with no side effects is on Mars.”
He was referring to the discovery that the pheromone secreted by the X-0172 bacteria when forming spores promoted active dormancy of the host.
Lu Zhou began reading through the report.
According to the experiment data, mice implanted with the X-0172 bacteria would begin to form spores when exposed to a temperature of minus 12-15 degrees. This released dormant pheromones, which placed the host into a dormant state.
When the host had slept for 24 hours, the host would enter a full sleep state. During this state, the host’s metabolic levels would drop to extremely low levels. This ensured that the host would retain normal cell structure. The host’s vegetative cells could then be rejuvenated at a later date.
Lu Zhou raised his eyebrows. He was intrigued.
Professor Liu noticed Lu Zhou’s expression. He smiled and spoke.
“Remember the nematode cell we got a while ago? We plan on inserting the 18S-rDNA gene fragment into the X-0172 bacteria. The X-0172 bacteria will synthesize special proteins that might maintain the morphology of dormant biological cells.”
Lu Zhou flipped through the page and casually asked, “Is it fine to add the DNA to the X-0172 bacteria?”
Professor Liu Zuobing: “It is within our risk tolerance range.”
“Then we’ll go with your plan.” Lu Zhou gave the report back to Professor Liu and nodded. He said, “Remember, safety is always the highest priority.”
Professor Liu Zuobing solemnly said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be extra careful.”
So far the only place with activated X-0172 bacteria was the Moon Palace. The bacterial samples sent to Earth were inactivated. However, despite this, as the chief designer of the Lunar Orbit Committee, Lu Zhou had some research privileges.
The moment the crisis happened, a live sample of the X-0172 bacteria was sent to the Institute for Advanced Research. The highest level of security was assigned to this sample.
However, they obviously didn’t disclose this to the public.
Professor Liu was about to leave when he suddenly remembered something.
“Oh yeah, that metabolite extract... Did you run out of it yet?”
“I have a little bit left. I put it in my office. If you need it, I can get someone to fetch it for you...” Lu Zhou looked at Professor Liu and asked casually, “What?”
Professor Liu shook his head and spoke.
“There’s a question I don’t know if I should ask.”
Lu Zhou said, “What question?”
Professor Liu Zuobing said, “Do you know who Dr. Z is?”
Lu Zhou: “No, why?”
“I’m just asking.” Professor Liu smiled awkwardly and said, “That Dr. Z who posted the thesis on arXiv, is it you...”
Lu Zhou asked, “Do you really think it’s me?”
Professor Liu nodded honestly.
“Generally speaking, very few biology theses are posted to BioRxiv. I rarely hear my colleagues uploading their theses to arXiv... If I recall correctly, arXiv is mainly for physics, mathematics, and computer science theses.”
Not to mention there were only a few people who had contact with the X-0172 bacterial sample. The experts on the Moon Palace said that they did not write the thesis themselves. The Jinling Institute for Advanced Study was the only place on Earth that had access to the samples.
If Dr. Z weren’t Lu Zhou, then it would have to be people in Professor Liu’s research team...
Obviously, his research team wasn’t that nutty. He knew there was no way anyone in his team could write a thesis of this level.
However, he wasn’t totally confident in his assumption. After all, Lu Zhou had never published a biology thesis before, and he had never heard of Professor Lu doing any kind of biology research...
Liu Zuobing was a little confused.
Professor Lu stayed awkwardly silent.
Biologists have their own preprint upload site?
They don’t post it on arXiv?
Sh*t, this is my first time hearing about this.
I should have done more research, this is quite embarrassing.
“Whatever, stop talking about this useless stuff.”
Lu Zhou changed the conversation topic and said, “Regardless of who Dr. Z is, we will remember his contribution. If he wants to stay anonymous, we should respect his decision... Also, the X-0172 research team can be disbanded. Merge the research data with the dormancy project team.”
Professor Liu immediately said, “There’s still one colonizer who hasn’t woken up yet.”
Lu Zhou: “We’ve already solved the difficult part. The rest will be handled by the international experts. As for you, you should continue research on human cryonics dormancy.”
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