"Very good, that's right. Come on, do your best."
Wei Kang closed the document, quickly signed it, and then handed it to Tang Que across from him.
However, he thought about it and added a few words.
"By the way, the company's artificial intelligence research and development has made great progress recently. You can try it for drug screening or constructing gene expression vectors."
Tang Duo nodded and left silently.
He quickly divided the tasks into pieces and distributed them.
Two or three people formed a small team and received their own work.
The entire biological laboratory is like a gear with full horsepower, running with great power.
They must first repeat two known routes to replicate the drugs of their friends.
Tang Que could foresee that this was not an easy task, but a test.
If you are stuck at this step, you will not be able to continue and develop Sanqing's own medicine.
The reason is obvious. Friends' ideas can be used, but the drug molecules and viral vectors must not be the same to avoid violating the other party's patent protection.
Otherwise, even if corresponding gene therapy drugs are developed, they will still be trapped by intellectual property rights and cannot be truly made in China.
To bypass patent barriers and find your own drugs, it is obvious that you need to have an in-depth understanding of virology vectors and genomics. This is part of basic scientific research and requires solid accumulation. It cannot be achieved immediately by overtaking others in a roundabout way.
Behind this is often decades of research accumulation in interdisciplinary disciplines such as biology, virology and molecular evolution.
He looked solemn and was ready to fight a protracted battle.
However, a week later, Tang Que was sitting in the office, staring at the two people in front of him, and blurted out in disbelief.
"What? Done?"
After looking at it for ten seconds, he frowned: "Are you sure?"
Opposite him was the gentle and handsome Jiang Kai. He was an alumnus of Chen Yiqing and had a Ph.D. in biology from Harvard. He returned to China at the same time as Xiang Gaofei. He had been in Sanqing Biological Laboratory for more than half a year and became a R&D officer because of his outstanding ability. Team leader.
Jiang Kai said slowly: "Yes, Novartis' Z drug analysis work has been almost completed. The avv9 adenovirus vector has also been constructed. The data display on the computer is perfect, and the cell experiments are 100% consistent."
Tang Que was a little surprised: "So fast?"
"The company's new AI software was used to construct the viral vector and study the interaction with its receptor, so the progress was extremely fast. Once the sample is produced, we will conduct animal experiments as soon as possible to further verify the effect."
There was another person standing next to him, a chubby man of medium build, who quickly nodded in agreement: "Indeed, our small molecule drugs are progressing extremely smoothly. After analyzing the drug targets, we quickly copied the relevant drugs. Improved mRNA shearing is also being tested on animals."
Tang Que touched the stubble on his chin and fell into deep thought.
After a while, he waved his hand and asked the two people opposite to leave.
And he looked at the relevant data and information intently.
After a long time, he took a long breath and said: "It is indeed completed. The speed is far beyond expectations. I thought it would take at least two or three months to make any progress."
"It seems that this newly launched AI software is quite easy to use." He opened the software called aicell on the desktop and logged in.
The software is very powerful. Not only does it have a complete human genetic database, it can also design the genome like parts, insert various base pairs, and it will also provide functional tips for various genes.
Proteins can also be designed using amino acid components, and then simulate their function in the human body, and can even be broken down into chemical molecules.
It can also simulate three-dimensional models of various cells, organs, and nervous systems of the human body, and even simulate the interactions between them, perfectly reproducing the operation and structure of the entire human body.
In short, it has all the functions he imagined and could not imagine.
Tang Que couldn't help but click his tongue and marvel.
"Awesome!"
"It seems that since the progress has been greatly advanced, we can continue to the next step."
"There is no need to carry out clinical trials on replicated drugs, as long as animal experiments can show effects."
"The important thing is to develop our own drugs, so the first thing is the selection of viral vectors."
The construction of gene expression vectors is the core part of genetic engineering. Regarding the selection of viral vectors, currently there are three common options: adenoviral vectors, lentiviral vectors, and retroviral vectors, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
Lentiviral vectors can be integrated into the host genome and can effectively infect various types of cells such as neuronal cells, liver cells, cardiomyocytes, tumor cells, endothelial cells, stem cells, etc., thereby achieving good gene therapy effects.
If patients use lentiviral vector gene therapy drugs, they can completely modify the disease-causing gene mutations, thereby completely curing the disease and becoming normal people.
However, because the virus base integrates host genes, it also raises concerns about its carcinogenicity and genome safety.
The advantages and disadvantages of adeno-associated virus AAV are also relatively clear. For example, its genome structure is relatively simple, it has almost no pathogenicity, the threshold for modification and concerns about treatment are easy to overcome, and it is generally believed that it will not be integrated into the genome.
These advantages made it the first approved gene therapy drug, but its overall capacity is limited, resulting in the introduction of fewer functional elements, and in the long term, there is also a slight risk of cancer.
Retroviruses are also integrated into the host genome, but they can only infect dividing cells and have limited capacity and a narrow range of use.
Therefore, the final choice will be between lentivirus and adenovirus.
"Lentivirus or adenovirus? Lentivirus or adenovirus?"
"A safe expression, a long-lasting effect."
“It’s really hard to make a choice!”
These two thoughts kept echoing in Tang Que's mind. He needed to make a decision and choose a given virus vector before he could continue the next research and development.
"Are you going to do it once and for all or what?"
“How about going crazy and choosing the most permanent solution?”
"It's decided. Since the research and development speed is so fast, we have a lot of extra time. Let's study the lentiviral vector first."
"When we design the vector, we must carefully design the genome, add insulator sequences and regulatory sequences for optimization, and also improve the packaging plasmid to increase safety."
"First conduct an in-depth simulation in aicell to fully understand all the data, and then make samples and conduct experiments on animals. Safety must be guaranteed first."
"However, if there is indeed a risk of cancer, at least the cancer can still be treated, and the price is not too expensive. Compared with the 14 million SMA treatment cost, it is not so desperate."
"If this route doesn't go well, then follow Novartis and continue the research on adenoviral vectors. Just use different serum types. I remember Novartis is avv9 type. We can definitely use avv8 or others."
After he made his decision, he immersed himself in work at the table.
List the tasks one by one and assign them to the team.
Then make adjustments based on different developments.
Fortunately, most of the preliminary work can now be done on software, which will greatly reduce the workload.
At that time, all we need to do is conduct cell experiments to verify it.
