When the first successfully gene-edited pig cell appeared in front of his eyes, Gao Jun was so excited that he almost jumped from the microscope.
However, this is only the first step on the road to success.
At the beginning of the experiment, he used ordinary pork cells, and next he will work on pig reproductive cells.
The new gene fragment is introduced into fertilized pig eggs, and then disease-resistant pig embryos are cultured. Clinical experiments can begin after they are born.
It all goes back to the family pig farm, where it takes place.
He prepared what he needed, bought some experimental equipment from the Internet, and sent them to his home.
Fortunately, he had been working for several years, lived frugally, and had some savings, which could support him to continue this experiment in a short period of time.
Then I submitted my resignation to the company and bought a train ticket to go home.
He lives in a relatively remote area and the rent is cheap, so he does not need to return the house for the time being. This way, if the experiment does not go well, he can come back and do the experiment again in the future.
This time, it's do or die.
Of course, it was also because he saw the hope of success that he had the courage to go all out.
His hometown is in a small town below the provincial capital of Hunan Province. After a lot of traveling, he finally set foot on familiar land.
It was getting late, so he struggled to get on a tricycle with his 28-inch suitcase and returned home before dinner.
Bang bang bang!
He knocked on the door and shouted: "Mom, Dad, I'm back. Open the door!"
There was a rush of footsteps through the door, and soon the door opened.
"I'm finally back. Come in and eat. Why did you bring such a big box back? Is it heavy?"
Mother's eyes were a little red, and she reached out to take the suitcase in his hand.
Gao Jun smiled honestly: "It's not heavy, but it takes up a lot of space. I'll do it by myself."
"Okay, then wash your hands and come over for dinner."
Gao Jun put away his suitcase and walked to the kitchen. While washing his hands, he asked, "Where are the things I sent back two days ago?"
"They're all kept in your room, and you won't let me open them. What's in them?"
"Haha, it's nothing, just some experimental equipment."
"Why did you suddenly do this? You should go to work normally, learn more from your colleagues and leaders, and avoid doing these messy things. They can't be used as food."
"By the way, how many days will you stay back? Have you asked for leave?"
"Oh, don't worry about this. I will probably stay for a while when I come back this time."
"How can you have so much vacation? What are you going to do at home?"
As soon as he came back, his mother's nagging gave Gao Jun a headache.
He had no choice but to bury his head in his meal and remain silent.
My father was sitting next to me, with a straight face and not saying much. He was eating with his head down, but his movements were very slow and he was obviously absent-minded.
Gao Jun looked at his father's face and felt sad. He quickly picked up a chicken leg and put it in his bowl.
His father raised his head, glanced at him, and forced a smile: "Jun'er, you're back. Stay a few more days and have fun."
Gao Jun nodded, feeling an urge in his heart to tell his father about the experiment he was doing. After thinking about it, he felt that it would be better to wait until the experiment was successful and be sure before telling him, so as not to let the old man's joy be in vain.
After all, pig cells in the laboratory and genetically modified pigs cultured are two different things. No matter how well done in the laboratory, there is a high possibility of suffering setbacks in reality.
This kind of thing is very normal, and science is like this, moving forward through constant trial and error.
It would be better for him to wait until the trial and error was over before telling his father the good news.
The old man looked not in good spirits. If he was frightened or shocked in any way, it would be his fault.
After the family finished eating, Gao Jun unpacked the couriers piled up in the bedroom.
He cleared out the unused storage room next door and placed all the reagents and utensils there.
"We can only try this first, and if it doesn't work, we'll think of a way."
The next day, he followed his father to the pig farm and obtained the required fertilized eggs from the sow.
He had asked his father before, and the pig farm was about to be bred during this period.
The subsequent gene editing was very simple, just a few repeated steps, and the operation only took him five minutes.
Sprinkle the prepared CRISPR-CAS9 solution onto the fertilized pig eggs with a pipette, then place the culture dish containing the cells into a simple incubator, and the entire operation is over.
As long as you wait 2-3 days, the targeted genes in the fertilized pig eggs will be replaced.
Of course, the actual operation is not that simple. What is arduous is the preliminary preparation work, such as preparing guide RNA according to the base sequence of the target DNA, and then combining the guide RNA into the plastid and a series of steps.
Fortunately, he was already prepared and only had to do the simplest things when he got home.
After 3 days, the fertilized eggs are injected into the sow, and a domestic pig with the warthog genetic modification can be cultivated.
This is his first clinical experiment. In order to avoid losses caused by failure, he only plans to breed two pigs with disease-resistant genes.
When the piglets grow older, the two genetically modified pigs will be infected with the virus to test the lethality and transmissibility of the new breed and evaluate its performance.
It takes 114 days for a sow to give birth to piglets, which takes a long time. He simply started working on a pig farm and seriously learned pig-raising techniques from his father.
Now, not only the mother, but also the father could see that something was wrong.
"Zai, tell me, what's wrong with you? You finally went out to study and found a good job in a big city. Do you still plan to come back and raise pigs?"
His parents looked a little anxious and couldn't understand his behavior at all. They felt that he had suffered some kind of shock outside and was mentally disturbed, so they asked him cautiously.
At this point, Gao Jun knew that he could no longer hide it, so he admitted it directly.
"Dad, didn't you say you don't want to run a pig farm anymore? So I plan to come back and take over this business and continue running the pig farm."
The father looked shocked and asked in disbelief: "You, you, why? You don't know how to raise pigs."
Gao Jun chuckled: "I can learn from you. You have so much experience. Besides, my learning ability has always been very strong. I will definitely be able to learn it. You don't have to worry about this."
It took the father a while to calm down, and he looked worried: "Then what if you can't go on? This swine fever is very fatal. By then, all the pigs will be dead, and you will lose all the money you spent on marrying your wife. You Otherwise, let’s go back to work.”
Gao Jun smiled and said: "Are you so unsure of me? In fact, I have already found a way to come back this time."
The father sneered: "What can you do? The country can't handle it, but you can handle it? Are you trying to make me happy or not?"
The old man was a little angry. He felt that his son was fooling around and had lost his future. It was too unreliable.
Instead, my mother kept trying to persuade me: "I think this is okay. What's so good about a big city? It would be nice if my son could stay with us when he comes back. And this is also called a son inheriting his father's business, right? It's a good thing! Just let him He’ll try it, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll talk again.”
"Alas," the father sighed, looking a little lonely: "It's up to you. There's not much left in this pig farm anyway, and there's nothing you can do about it."
Gao Jun kept a smile on his face. He knew that his mother had long wanted to go back to his hometown and take the civil service examination. As for his father, it was normal not to believe it until he saw the results. When the genetically modified pigs can really resist swine fever, he will definitely do so. Believe the facts in front of you and be impressed by yourself.
In the next few months, he diligently learned the skills of raising pigs. He went to the pig farm before dawn every day, starting from the lowest level. He was not afraid of hardship, tiredness or dirt, and he could do any kind of work.
In particular, the sow carrying the genetically modified pig is his focus, and he spends some time observing it every day.
In his free time, he would turn on the computer and continue to read papers and materials, and discuss some technical issues with the group members. Other members would also communicate with him if they made small progress.
During this time, I stayed away from the hustle and bustle of big cities and returned to the peace of rural life, living a very fulfilling life.
Gao Jun gradually fell in love with the life here. He had not lived like this for seven or eight years since he was admitted to university. Now that he has experienced it again, he deeply feels that the countryside is still very suitable for scientific research.
Nowadays, rural areas have also developed. There is no shortage of anything. If you need anything, you can order express delivery and have access to the Internet. For a senior otaku, it is really very comfortable and comfortable. It is no worse than staying in the city.
Four months later, the two gene-edited pigs were born healthy and looked no different from ordinary pigs.
Of course, he was not idle during this period. He also edited some other fertilized pig eggs, which were also waiting to be released in the sow's belly.
Piglets are usually fed for a month, then castrated by a veterinarian, and fed for another five months before they are ready for slaughter.
Gao Jun planned to wait until the piglet grew up a little and became stronger before starting the experiment.
To this end, he specially built a shed at the foot of the mountain away from the pig farm, where he planned to keep the two genetic pigs.
More than a month later, two gene-edited pigs were infected with swine fever virus and were locked in an isolation shed.
Gao Jun goes to feed the animals in person every day, observes and records data.
At first, the two pigs had some reactions. They soon started to have a fever, their skin became red, and they felt very hot to the touch.
Gao Jun was very worried, but after the two pigs had a high fever for about four or five days, they began to slowly improve, their body temperature gradually dropped, and other symptoms did not continue to appear.
Generally speaking, if it is an ordinary domestic pig, its skin will turn purple at this time, there will be bleeding spots, and then it will die quickly without symptoms.
But the two gene-edited pigs survived, and after a week or two, they were completely back to normal.
After some testing, it was found that antibodies had been produced in the pigs' bodies, and the virus had completely disappeared from the two pigs' bodies.
Sure enough, after the introduction of the new warthog gene, the immune response of domestic pigs was not excessive, but a normal immune response, producing antibodies and eliminating the virus.
Gao Jun raised his fists excitedly and spun around in circles several times.
"Yeah! It worked! I knew this way was feasible."
"However, to be cautious, we still need to continue to observe and see if there will be any changes later."
"But I can already show it to my father and let him regain his confidence in raising pigs."
Gao Jun quickly called his father over and introduced him to the situation of the two pigs one by one.
My father didn't understand those advanced technologies and vocabulary. He only knew that these two piglets survived the swine fever virus infection, and that was enough.
He stretched out his hand to touch the little pig and couldn't help but burst into tears: "That's great, Zai, you are still the best. This book is not in vain. Sure enough, I still have to go to college to come up with a good solution."
The corner of Gao Jun's mouth rose crazily, he couldn't help but put his arms around his father's shoulders, and said with great excitement: "Dad, now there is hope for the pig farm, let's continue to run it together."
The father nodded and smiled: "Of course, if this method is feasible later, we will have to expand the scale."
Gao Jun laughed and saw his father regaining his energy instantly as if he was a child again. He was extremely happy and felt that all his efforts were worth it and were not in vain.
The next thing is very simple, which is to register the patent.
This is why he decided to become a biohacker and work alone.
If he develops gene-edited pigs together with others, or asks others to help with research, it will be difficult to tell in terms of patents. It is likely that he will have to share the patents and the benefits that come with them.
And this is what he is unwilling to do. From this point of view, biohackers who work alone are much luckier than scientists in universities or companies.
Researchers in many companies have invented a breakthrough and very important result, but all they have received is a signature on the patent or a negligible bonus, and all other benefits have been taken away by the company.
Mullis, the inventor of the world-selling PCR machine, was an employee of a small biotechnology company. After he invented this important DNA detection and copying machine, he worked hard to convince the company of the importance of this invention. .
This lucky biological company later sold the PCR patent to Roche Pharmaceuticals for a high price of 300 million U.S. dollars, becoming the most expensive patent transaction in history. As the inventor, Mullis only received 10,000 U.S. dollars issued by the company. Dollar bonus.
Ten years later, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery, which was a belated compensation and his own reputation.
Scientists may value reputation more than profit, and the reputation of the Nobel Prize is enough to match it, but most people may find it difficult to calmly face the cruel fact that the patent fruits have been taken away by companies.
An important chemical reaction was invented, and the patent was sold for a high price of US$300 million, but he had no share of the money.
Gao Jun learned from the experiences and lessons of his predecessors and wisely chose to go it alone.
Let alone an amateur, even if he were a scientific researcher working for a biological company, he would resign immediately and take a few months' rest before continuing research and development on his own to avoid the tragedy of losing patents.
He quickly registered a patent for gene-edited pigs and even registered an agricultural technology company.
There is no doubt that if his genetic pigs can develop long-term resistance to African swine fever, it will be an extremely popular product with unlimited financial potential, which can bring him huge wealth.
Because traditional breeding methods generally only achieve traits such as size and fertility, it is almost impossible to achieve traits such as disease resistance.
At present, most domestic pig farms still use traditional methods for breeding. Biotechnology is widely used in plants in agriculture, but in animal husbandry, it is still a brand-new technology that has not been sufficiently developed and applied.
If the clinical trial is successful and the genetic pig shows excellent resistance, he will apply to the Food and Drug Administration for permission to use it for commercial use.
We must know that products that can be popularized are products, and those that cannot be popularized can only be scientific research supplies.
It's obvious that what he wants to make is a product, not just scientific research supplies.
After obtaining the production license, he can sell the disease-resistant genetic pigs to others, completely saving the pig farm that was bankrupted by African swine fever.
Thinking about the huge profits, he couldn't help but smile proudly.
