"Xue Bo...well, something happened to that lab mouse."
At the door of the office, an intern stood there and said tremblingly. After speaking, he quickly lowered his head, not daring to meet his eyes.
Xue Shen looked up from the computer and recognized the intern, who seemed to be looking after laboratory mice, and suddenly looked confused.
"Something happened, what happened?"
The first thought was that the mouse had an adverse reaction. Did it die suddenly?
When I looked back, I thought it was impossible. I just transplanted a small section of the femoral artery into the mouse. What could happen?
The intern rolled his eyes and hesitated: "It seems that, um, the transplanted blood vessel is missing."
With a "bang", Xue Shen slapped the case and stood up.
"Explain to me clearly what blood vessels are missing."
He leaned forward, his eyes as terrifying as an eagle, staring at the intern with full aura.
The intern suddenly shivered like a little chicken and almost cried.
"Xue Bo, it's not my fault. I observe the mice every day. It was very obvious at first, and I could even feel the transplanted blood vessels. After the wound has healed in the past few days, I can no longer feel it."
Xue Shen breathed a sigh of relief: "This doesn't mean anything, maybe it's blocked by the muscle layer..."
Before he finished speaking, he knew something was wrong. No matter what the mouse was, it was still an organic life form. With such a long artificial blood vessel, it would not be completely invisible.
"Could it be that it has grown together with the meat? There should be a difference. Why is it missing?"
Xue Shen muttered in his heart and came to the laboratory.
As soon as I entered, I saw several snow-white and pink mice lying in the cage. They were all full of energy, squeaking and exchanging post-operative care experiences.
I counted them, there were six in total, and they were all fine. There was no problem at all, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
A week ago, he asked the medical students of the project team to perform femoral artery artificial blood vessel transplantation on these mice.
The operation was very successful, there was little bleeding during the whole process, and the mouse was in very good condition after the operation.
He directly asked the intern to take care of them. If nothing happened, they would all be executed in a month. The transplanted blood vessels would be removed for pathological anatomy and the data would be compiled into a perfect experimental report.
However, the intern's appearance suddenly made him a little uneasy.
Xue Shen put on gloves, caught a mouse from the cage, and carefully looked at the surgical wound.
I found that white hair had grown on it, and it was almost healed, leaving no trace.
He touched the transplanted femoral artery and found only a thick layer of muscle. When he pressed it hard, the mouse immediately let out a squeaking scream.
"What about my artificial blood vessel that was so long and thick? It really disappeared." Xue Shen was dumbfounded.
What can we do? One month has not come yet, the experiment has not been completed, and the samples are gone.
Still unwilling to give up, he touched and pinched the mouse again and again.
The mouse howled miserably when he touched it, and even the surviving mice in the cage looked at him with horrified eyes before stopping unwillingly.
"No, we need to dissect it in advance to see what's going on with the transplanted blood vessels."
"It's impossible to disappear into thin air."
After a while, he made up his mind and stuffed the mouse back into the cage.
The medical student in charge was hurriedly found, a mouse was taken out, and it was killed by intravenous injection of high potassium.
When the transplant site was opened again, everyone was shocked by the scene that appeared in front of them.
It can be seen that the outside of the artificial blood vessel has been covered with new cells and tissues, wrapped layer by layer, and inseparable.
The two ends have grown together with the mouse blood vessels, and the sutures have been absorbed. The entire femoral artery is almost the same as the original one, and no difference can be seen at all.
"This..." Xue Shen opened his mouth wide and was speechless for a moment.
No wonder the intern said he couldn’t feel the artificial blood vessel.
It has become a real living blood vessel, it is strange that it can be touched.
When the artificial blood vessel is first transplanted, it has a certain hardness and unevenness, and the foreign body feeling can be easily felt under the wound.
When it grows together with the new tissue and blood vessels, it becomes just like the original blood vessels, and it is difficult to distinguish them under the layers of muscles.
The intern is not a professional doctor, so it is normal for him to not be able to touch it.
Xue Shen shook his head before he figured out what was going on.
It turns out that artificial blood vessels are too similar to natural blood vessels. After transplantation into mice, the mice's bodies accepted the material and regrown new tissue cells in the correct location.
This is because the time is too short and the artificial blood vessels have not been completely integrated with the tissue cells.
Over time, as the artificial blood vessels are fully integrated into the body, they will look, behave, and function exactly like natural blood vessels.
"Hahaha, great. This is a good thing." After Xue Shen figured it out, he was instantly overjoyed.
However, all this still needs facts as evidence. He quickly asked the medical students to take out the transplanted artificial blood vessels so that they could observe the internal structure and see if there were any changes.
Soon, an artificial blood vessel about 3 centimeters long and an autologous aorta of 0.5 centimeters at each end were completely removed.
"The graft was well connected to the aorta in the body, without any infection, and no vascular necrosis or tearing was seen at the vascular ligation and anastomosis site."
The medical student coughed lightly and explained the anatomy results and the slice observation results under the electron microscope.
"After the specimen was taken out and incised, the inner surface of the blood vessel cavity was completely covered with a white membrane, and no thrombosis was seen."
"HE staining under the microscope shows that the artificial blood vessel is completely covered and surrounded by autologous tissue, and the two ends naturally migrate to the intima of the normal artery, and the tissue structure from the inside to the outside is basically the same."
"Endothelial cell growth can be seen on the inner surface of the artificial blood vessel. Among them, the endothelial cells of the artificial blood vessel near the anastomosis are growing well, showing a typical uniform paving stone-like change, with the long axis parallel to the direction of blood flow."
"The number of endothelial cells on the intima surface in the middle part of the artificial blood vessel is significantly less than that at the edge, and a large amount of fiber components can be seen, and the test showed that the components are collagen fibers."
"The preliminary conclusion is that the artificial blood vessels have good compatibility with the blood and tissues of mice, and have self-healing capabilities similar to natural blood vessels, with good strength and no deformation."
"The mice were not given any anticoagulant or antiplatelet drugs after surgery, which proves that the artificial blood vessels have high patency and good anti-thrombosis ability."
"Since the implantation time in mice is still short, less than two weeks, it is not yet known whether the performance can be maintained stable in the body for a long time."
"Overall, various data and test results show that this is a very ideal artificial blood vessel product."
Bang bang bang!
Everyone looked at the bloody artificial blood vessel on the experimental table and couldn't help but applaud.
"Okay, let's look at large animal experiments next."
"Everyone, keep up the good work, come on!"
Xue Shen clenched his fists and waved them excitedly in front of him. It took him a while to calm down.
The first round of mouse experiments has proven the effectiveness of the artificial blood vessel, and it will be sent to a third-party animal experiment center next week for the second round of pig thoracic aorta replacement surgery experiments.
There is no doubt that after witnessing the miracle of artificial blood vessels with his own eyes, he had great confidence in his own product.
"Haha, what the hell are those artificial blood vessels commonly used on the market?"
Xue Shen sneered in his heart and dismissed the competing products from his friends: "When it comes to small-caliber artificial blood vessels, none of them can do it."
"Commonly used polyester blood vessels can only be used for large-diameter blood vessel replacement surgeries and endovascular fistulas. Once used for small-caliber blood vessels, thrombosis will form within a short period of time after surgery."
"The polytetrafluoroethylene material has good anti-thrombotic properties, but its texture is as hard as the skin of an 80-year-old grandmother's feet. If it is used for surgical suturing, it will be a huge challenge for doctors, not to mention 30% of blood vessels are unblocked. Sex is nothing more than a piece of useless wood."
"Polyurethane material has good elasticity and can resist thrombosis. It is not so rubbish, but it is not stable enough. It will degrade and calcify in the human body. If you dare to use it, you may die."
"As for the natural mulberry silk artificial blood vessels, they are just a gimmick. No matter how small the diameter is, it does not matter as small as 1 mm. Not to mention the low strength, even if the transplant is successful, it will be sutured and it will naturally degrade in a few months. The bamboo basket is useless, and it’s hard to say whether the degraded particles are safe in the human body.”
"Imported goods are nothing more than that. As for other domestic goods, they are even more shoddy and cannot stand up at all."
He has done corresponding market research and is well aware of the products of his friends, but he does not pay attention to domestic products at all.
Because the level of the domestic polymer material industry itself is average, most of the PTFE materials produced are general-purpose products with low quality and are mid- to low-end products.
In terms of high-end expanded polytetrafluoroethylene materials, there is a big gap between upstream and foreign countries. Not to mention artificial blood vessels, even supporting medical sutures and cardiac patches, there are no large-scale industrialized products in China. It also relies on imports and is very expensive.
Even among high-value consumables, artificial blood vessels are among the most high-end. Domestic ones are really not good at this, and the problem of preventing bleeding has not been solved for a long time.
Artificial blood vessels can be said to be the ultimate interpretation of the need, need, and need. It is a system engineering, interdisciplinary, involving materials engineering, bioengineering, medicine and textile engineering. It requires the input of talents from various disciplines, and it also needs to break through the boundaries between industries. Only through the gap can we succeed.
The existing manufacturers of artificial blood vessels are not single businesses, but are large comprehensive medical enterprises that are used together with high-value consumables such as cardiac stents.
The two main application areas are aortic disease in cardiac surgery and hemodialysis.
Among them, aortic disease accounts for the largest proportion, about 62%.
There are 40,000 to 50,000 patients in China who are going to the hospital for surgical aortic treatment every year. Most of these patients need artificial blood vessels to replace the diseased blood vessels.
The other is an artificial blood vessel fistula. A thicker artificial blood vessel is implanted in the arm to connect the artery and vein to facilitate hemodialysis. This is a life path for patients with renal failure.
Because after long-term hemodialysis, most patients' commonly used blood vessels will harden and shrink, and their conditions will worsen day by day, so they have to take this last resort to maintain their lives.
But if there are artificial blood vessels that are the same as natural blood vessels, they no longer need to perform endovascular fistula surgery, but only need to perform artificial blood vessel transplantation.
****
Just when the artificial blood vessel project was going smoothly.
Sanqing Farm has also entered the harvest season.
During this time, the sows have been put out of the slaughterhouse. Since they are fed with better ingredients, the meat is very delicious and has become very popular after being launched in the canteen.
Even the devil's tendon pig was sold out and became a delicious pork chop rice dish in the cafeteria.
This kind of pork chop is full of strong lean meat, has a special flavor, and is limited to the season. It set off a craze in the canteen that day, attracting countless diners who are looking for novelty.
It even became popular on hot searches and became a symbol of weird and delicious food, driving the tourism business of Sanqingyuan.
At this point, Sanqing's canteen has become completely famous.
Netizens across the country now know that there is a small stall here that often sells some weird genetically modified foods.
It's very popular. If you go there late, you won't be able to grab it, so you can only drink the most ordinary special alcohol Zhanlang milk.
Wei Kang also likes the special food in the canteen very much, and gets his lunch there every day.
Of course, he always orders takeout and has the security deliver it.
In addition, the farm also sent several ham pigs, and a few chickens every week.
Therefore, Wei Kang deliberately renovated the basement and added a cold room to facilitate food storage.
In this way, he can be guaranteed to enjoy organic meat from the farm for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
On this day, Wei Kang got off work on time again and had just returned home.
Then the biggest surprise in life came.
"What? Are you pregnant?"
Wei Kang stared blankly at his wife who flew into his arms as soon as he entered the door. He was completely dumbfounded.
It took me a while to jump up, and I was so excited that I couldn't stop walking around.
He was still shouting things like "Great, it's finally here".
It wasn't until my wife made a dissatisfied moan that she sat down on the sofa obediently.
The two sat hugging each other, Wei Kang still couldn't restrain his joy, caressing his wife's abdomen with his hands, smiling from ear to ear.
Jian Lian Yun was nestled in his arms, with a motherly smile on her face, and talked about her experience of the day.
"Hey, I've been trying for so long, but there's been no movement. I've already forgotten about it."
"I've been so busy these past few days that I realized I hadn't been there. I went to the bathroom at noon and saw this pregnancy test stick in my bag, so I thought I'd just use it."
"I didn't expect it to happen. I quickly went to the gynecology department for a check-up in the afternoon and it was officially confirmed."
"Hehe, as expected, you can't keep thinking about this kind of thing. The ancients are right, flowers planted with intention will not bloom, but willows planted with no intention will make shade."
"Husband, you say so."
"Yes." The smile on Wei Kang's face disappeared for a moment, and happiness continued to flow from the corners of his grinned mouth.
My whole body felt light and airy, as if I had dreamed of returning to space, and even the air I breathed had the scent of candy.
My mind was in a mess, and thoughts were flashing by like a revolving lantern, completely out of control.
"I have a child, parents, do you hear me?"
"The old Wei family has a daughter."
"What should I name the child?"
(End of chapter)
