"Alzheimer's disease, huh?"
Looking at Wang Wei's message, Chen Chen could not help but recall the old man with the hearty smile, the habit of drinking tea from a beaker and always joking around in class.
Professor Wang Xi was a senior academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was renowned in the academic world but he had to retire from the frontline of scientific research at the age of 65 due to health issues.
Chen Chen did not expect the humorous professor on the podium, the top scientist who led the field of biology, to suffer from this common disease...
Chen Chen sighed to himself, then looked up and said, "Little X, check up on Professor Wang Xi from Shangdu Jiao Tong University in Mainland China. I want to know everything about him."
"Roger that!"
Little X's voice came from the speaker. Chen Chen's computer turned on automatically and the computer screen flashed like a flower.
Window after window popped up and closed. In less than half a minute, detailed information appeared on the computer screen.
"Department of Neurology, Central Hospital Affiliated to Shangdu Jiao Tong University Medical College, Alzheimer's disease."
When Chen Chen saw this, he understood that Wang Wei's judgment was correct.
Chen Chen recalled the help Professor Wang Xi had given him at this time last year and immediately made up his mind.
With this in mind, Chen Chen gently touched his left hand. There was a large brass ring on the index finger of his left hand.
As Chen Chen gently touched the ring, he seemed to have triggered some kind of mechanism. The surface of the ring suddenly popped open, revealing several transparent pills inside.
Chen Chen took out one of the pills and swallowed it. After that, he closed his eyes and entered a state of relaxation.
One second, two seconds, three seconds...
"Phew!"
The familiar feeling of having everything in the world under his control quickly returned. Chen Chen opened his eyes abruptly and began to recall all the information he had on Alzheimer's disease.
Alzheimer's disease was what people in Mainland China referred to as Alzheimer's disease. It was a neurodegenerative disease in the brain that could occur after reaching a certain age.
This disease did not seem to be fatal and because there were too many cases of it, people were used to it. However, many people did not know that it was second only to cancer in terms of limiting human lifespan.
There were many causes of Alzheimer's disease, and the most obvious one was the age factor. Starting from the age of fifty, the incidence of Alzheimer's disease increased significantly with age, and by the age of eighty, the incidence rate was as high as two-fifths.
As for age, there were too many factors. Heredity, mental illness, head trauma, even the death of a spouse, living alone, financial difficulties, and a bumpy life could be one of the causes of Alzheimer's disease.
Emmmm …
In other words, the academic community had not even found the cause of Alzheimer's disease.
The medical community had always believed that "Aβ deposition" and "abnormal phosphorylation of tau protein" were the main culprits of Alzheimer's disease. However, with the development of some drugs, these arguments had long been questioned by the academic community.
Nowadays, it was even more recognized in the medical community that "Aβ deposition" and "abnormal phosphorylation of tau protein" were only manifestations of Alzheimer's disease, but not the root cause.
The so-called Aβ-deposition referred to the deposition of β-amyloid protein, which was a type of pathological change in cells. This kind of lesion could lead to mitochondrial damage and even lead to a variety of fatal diseases such as apoptosis.
This kind of deposition phenomenon first appeared in the cerebral cortex. As the disease worsened, it would spread deep into the brain until it destroyed the human brain.
Currently, among the six internationally recognized effective treatment drugs, other than an NMDA receptor antagonist, the others were all acetylcholinesterase inhibitors.
Simply put, all the internationally advanced drugs could only slightly slow down the disease and prolong the patient's life for a few more years. Apart from that, there was nothing else.
Rumor had it that a drug for Alzheimer's disease had been launched in Mainland China recently. It was billed as "the first drug to target the brain-gut axis in the world". Despite the grandiose name, it was basically a drug to control intestinal bacteria.
Emmmm …
Let's not talk about that for now.
At present, Alzheimer's disease was still irreversible, even if the drug was taken. This was because the cause of the disease was the death of a large number of brain nerve cells.
In the later stages, the patient's brain had completely shrunk and even consciousness was no longer present. From Chen Chen's perspective, without consciousness, even if the person was still alive, what difference was there from being dead?
Therefore, if Chen Chen wanted to save Professor Wang Xi, he could not delay any longer.
With this in mind, Chen Chen quickly got up and walked toward the power control room. At the same time, he ordered, "Little X, download the first part of Rise of the Planet of the Apes for me."
After that, Chen Chen walked out of the office door and entered the elevator.
If he wanted to treat Professor Wang Xi, he had a total of three methods:
First, which was also the simplest method, use the USB drive to extract the information of the drug ALZ-112 in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
ALZ-112 was a virus with a specific gene. By infecting the brain, it could regenerate and repair the neural circuit.
Unlike the later ALZ-113, ALZ-112 was not contagious, so it would not cause the world to be wiped out by the virus in the movie.
The disadvantage was that ALZ-112 could only temporarily treat Alzheimer's disease, it could not cure it completely.
However, Chen Chen did not have high expectations for the first method because the USB drive could not extract any life forms. Viruses were also a type of life form, so he could only extract the information of ALZ-112.
The scene in the information only appeared for an instant in the movie, so there was no guarantee that the information was complete.
Second, if the first method failed, Chen Chen could try to make a movie about Alzheimer's disease and extract the drug in his movie. This was almost a cheating method to solve the problem.
This was also Chen Chen's new attempt at using the USB drive.
Of course, the chances of success were extremely close to zero in Chen Chen's opinion.
This was because if this method succeeded, Chen Chen could make a movie about energy. He could just install a tool like the ZPM in Stargate and not have an endless source of energy?
This way, the law of conservation of mass and energy would be broken.
However, even though the probability of this happening was basically zero, he still had to try it.
While trying the second method, Chen Chen would simultaneously carry out the third method – proactive research.
After all, Chen Chen had the trump card of NZT-48. Previous experiments had shown that NZT-48 had a certain effect on Alzheimer's disease. If it did not work, Chen Chen could use this as a breakthrough and supplement it with neural stem cell treatment.
The human body did have the ability to regenerate brain nerve cells, but this ability would decline with development. When humans reached adulthood, the central nervous system would no longer be able to regenerate and repair itself after being damaged.
The reason for this was the lack of necessary cytokine stimulation. Secondly, the position of dead cells after degradation was filled by other cells, resulting in a steric effect.
This was the root cause of Alzheimer's disease being irreversible.
However, using neural stem cells could break this rule.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
