Dr. Charlie stood in front of the projection screen, explaining the video of the artificial heart diligently, dancing with excitement.
"Let me put it this way, the heart is basically there to pump blood."
"However, there are prerequisites for transporting blood. This transport must be carried out under various controls. You can't jump around randomly. Moreover, if something happens to you, your heart must make its own control in time."
"The most important thing is that unlike the digestive system, once the regulation of circulation goes down, you are dead."
"Even if you lie there quietly, your heart is under control all the time. The entire human body is in a dynamic balance, with a lot of positive and negative feedback, allowing people to lie down quietly and still be able to function the next day. Open your eyes and see the world.”
"Every time you perform normal pacing, the sinoatrial node first occupies the high ground of the action potential, and relies on overspeed driving to suppress the Purkinje fibers, causing the impulse to form ventricular contraction to achieve the goal."
“Every peak and trough on your electrocardiogram is the result of sodium ion channels, calcium ion channels and transient outward ion currents (the current generated by the action potential of myocardial cells) operating like precision instruments.
"When you get up every day, from lying down to standing on the floor, just one movement requires mobilizing the strength of the whole body."
"Your skeletal muscles, nerves, various arteries, veins, and heart are all maintaining your body so that you don't become unconscious."
"And for the heart, this is just the most common everyday thing."
"The heart is closely related to the sympathetic vagal peptidergic nerves, kidneys, plasma proteins and blood cells, various endocrine cells, as well as the blood vessels and various receptors on the blood vessels throughout the body, and affects the whole body."
"So, the artificial heart is really not that simple. It is the most dazzling pearl in the crown of medical devices."
"I'm not bragging. Sanqing's artificial heart can achieve full functions and independent power supply. It's really awesome..."
Bill stared at the video intently, lost in thought.
Merck's grandfather and grandson looked at the operation scene and were once again immersed in the emotions of surprise and shock.
"Okay, dear Dr. Charlie, I probably understand the awesomeness of artificial hearts."
After a long time, Bill finally spoke up, interrupting Charlie's eloquent speech.
He pondered and said: "Then, the next goal is very clear. We need to get a physical object and observe it."
Dr. Charlie looked embarrassed: "Currently, this product is only undergoing clinical trials in China. It is difficult to obtain a physical product, but it is not difficult to observe implanted patients."
Bill and Merck looked at each other and laughed.
Merck laughed loudly and said: "Don't be stupid. The real thing we are talking about is an artificial heart implanted in the human body. What is the point of this thing if it is not observed in people? We are not scientists, how can we go to the laboratory to observe it? "
Bill smiled and said: "Dr. Charlie, in fact, it is not difficult at all to obtain physical objects. As long as you donate to Sanqing's charity fund, you can participate in clinical trials."
"We can fund a heart failure patient and allow this poor man who has been waiting for a heart transplant for a long time to receive the most advanced artificial heart implant. The only condition is that he agrees to allow us to conduct follow-up observations. He will definitely happily agree to this Free gift, be our guinea pig.”
"That's probably what happened. Of course, the specific details will be more humane, and a contract will be signed to protect our interests."
Dr. Charlie smiled awkwardly. He had forgotten that the two people in front of him were the richest people. Things that could be solved with money were just a piece of cake for them.
"Dear Merck, it seems that the plan we have been planning for a long time can be launched." Bill said seriously with a solemn expression.
Mr. Merck nodded solemnly and said word by word: "Let's get started."
His face seemed calm, but his trembling voice betrayed his inner excitement.
Bill took out a finger-sized USB flash drive from his pocket, plugged it into the computer, and projected a piece of information onto the screen.
"Thirty years ago, the year I became the world's richest man, I started my deployment in the field of artificial organs."
"I have been the richest man for more than 20 years and have invested in and acquired countless companies. These are all biotechnology companies I have invested in. Without exception, they are all companies developing artificial organs."
"The projects currently being developed include artificial lungs, artificial kidneys, artificial livers, artificial pancreas, etc. In addition to the human brain, they basically include all major human organs. The artificial bladder project that was successfully clinicalized that year was also sponsored by me."
"Of course, it is not all my own funds. I established a medical foundation in my own name. You should have heard of its name. The top 100 richest people and families in the world have donated money, and the foundation Any technological progress will be shared with them.”
"At this point, I believe you understand my goal, which is to live forever."
"Immortality may have been just a crazy dream for ancient emperors, but for the top wealthy people who own the most advanced technology companies, it is not an unattainable dream, but a practical goal."
"I also know a little bit about biological sciences, and I understand that there is no magical medicine in this world that can make people live forever. Human genes determine that the life span is only 150 years old at most, so I can only make bold assumptions and carefully verify it. , and developed a plan that is closer to reality.”
"A person's death often begins with the failure of various organs in the body. If we start from this aspect and assume that I can continuously replace the failing organs, can I achieve immortality in a certain sense?"
"It's a bit crazy, but it's theoretically feasible."
"It's just that the speed of human technological development is too slow. It's like a lead ball tied to the wings of a flying bird. It tightly constrains my imagination and prevents me from completely letting myself go."
"My plan is divided into three major steps. The first step is to achieve the transplantation of important organs, the second step is to achieve the transplantation of the entire body, and the third step is to achieve the transplantation of the brain or consciousness, thereby achieving true immortality."
"Of course, there are still too few discoveries about the brain. The scientific community generally believes that the human brain cannot be transplanted, so I can only work hard in the direction of consciousness transplantation, mainly focusing on brain-computer interfaces and artificial intelligence."
"The two pieces are closely integrated and closely related. If electronic pulses can really replace chemical signals and brain nerve signals to create real life, then there is no doubt that we can also upload human consciousness to the Internet and the Internet through the brain-computer interface. on the hard drive.”
“There have been breakthroughs in the artificial intelligence I invested in in the past two years, which confirms this and shows that I am not going in the wrong direction.”
"Next, I will continue to invest heavily in the field of brain-computer interfaces, grasping it with both hands, and strive to truly transform into a digital life by the time I die."
At this point, Bill finally laughed: "Mabuse has the same idea as me in this area. He also founded a brain-computer interface company. With his ability, I believe he will be able to achieve his goal."
"Well, the brain may be a bit far away. It may take 10 or 20 years to see the glimmer of hope, but I have been waiting for 30 years and I have enough patience." He shrugged and continued.
"There is a saying in China that you should eat your food one bite at a time, otherwise you will choke, which is very bad for your health."
"Let's go back to the first and second steps. These two steps are mainly related to organ transplantation. Before I can't digitize my consciousness, I need to constantly replace the failing organs to extend my life as much as possible."
"When it comes to organ transplantation, one thing I'm very dissatisfied with is that it can only be done with a single organ, because the rejection reaction after allogeneic organ transplantation is so great that multiple organ transplants can be fatal to anyone."
"Only true autologous cloned organs can solve this problem."
"Sadly, this is a goal as far away as digital life."
"At the beginning, the discovery of ips pluripotent stem cells really surprised me and I had high hopes for it."
Bill sighed regretfully and said: "It's a pity that, almost 20 years ago, scientists have only solved the ethical issues of embryonic stem cells, but have not yet solved the problem of developing ips pluripotent stem cells into any single organ, or even the idea of solving the problem. None, this speed is too slow.”
"I had to shift my focus to a more practical place, which is the field of artificial organs."
"Compared with real organs, artificial organs have one biggest advantage, which is enough for people to ignore other shortcomings."
"That is, the rejection reaction of metal implants is very small, almost negligible."
"You should know more about this than me."
Dr. Charlie listened to all this without any surprise in his heart, because he had long heard about the dreams of immortality of these super rich people, especially their large investment in life extension, and was not particularly surprised by this.
Hearing Bill talk about the rejection reaction of organ transplantation, which is his professional field, he suddenly became energetic and continued what the other person said.
"Yes, the body's immune system rejects foreign objects, including transplanted organs."
"The human body's immune system has a very complete defense mechanism. As long as it is not 'one of our own', the immune system will madly attack bacteria, viruses, foreign bodies, and foreign tissues that enter the body. This is an important protection mechanism of the human body. No one can change it.”
“When a patient receives an organ transplant, the foreign tissue or organ will be regarded as a foreign object and the body will attack it. Even if the patient is immunosuppressed, chronic rejection will still occur over time, leading to various problems. "
"There is currently no solution to this problem."
"At the same time, patients taking immunosuppressive drugs also cause another serious problem, that is, their immunity is greatly reduced. The price of reduced immunity is that they are more susceptible to infection, and even the risk of cancer, cardiovascular and other diseases will increase. "
"In terms of rejection, artificial organs are actually better than allogeneic organs, because some commonly used metal materials, such as cobalt, nickel, chromium, titanium and other alloys, have very good compatibility with human tissue. very small."
"Many medical implants use these metal materials, such as fixed plates and joints commonly used in orthopedics. They can be implanted in the body for many years and almost no rejection or infection will occur. As for metal allergies, they are even rarer and generally occur. The rate is only one in a million.”
"Yes, you are absolutely right." Bill clapped his hands excitedly.
"Because of this, I turned to the field of artificial organs after being disappointed with stem cell technology."
"We have made a lot of achievements in this regard, but there are also some limitations, that is, the artificial heart has been stuck in the ventricular assist stage and cannot completely replace the real heart."
"Other artificial organs also have some problems and can only be used outside the body. For example, the artificial kidney can only dialyze blood outside the body, and the artificial lung also maintains breathing outside the body."
"But in general, technology is constantly improving. From a ten-year perspective, the progress is still visible to the naked eye."
Having said this, Bill glanced at Mr. Merck and said with a smile: "By the time I reach Merck's age, artificial kidneys, artificial lungs, and artificial livers that can be implanted in the body will definitely have been invented."
"It's a pity, old Merck, you may not have the luck to wait until this day."
"Hahaha." Merck laughed without any grudge, until tears came out of his eyes.
He wiped the corners of his eyes and said disapprovingly: "Bill, I've always admired your vision in technology, but I'm afraid you've made a mistake this time."
"Would you like to make a bet? I think that when I am about to die, the artificial organs that can be implanted into the human body will definitely be not only the heart, but also the liver, kidney and lungs."
Bill also laughed: "Merck, you still love betting so much. I promise you that if you are right, I will cover all the expenses for your artificial organ transplant."
Merck looked at the screen triumphantly: "That's it, I think you will definitely lose, because Sanqing has now developed an artificial heart, and other artificial organs will definitely be developed within ten years. Very confident.”
"With the current medical conditions, it shouldn't be a problem for me to persist for ten years."
Bill showed an exaggerated expression, yelled and jumped: "Wow, old Merck, you are so optimistic about Sanqing. Can't my twenty biological companies be better than one Sanqing?"
As soon as this sentence came out, he fell silent and took a long time to breathe out.
"Oh, I can't compare to Sanqing."
Mr. Merck laughed again, and the hearty laughter echoed in the room and did not dissipate for a long time.
Catherine watched all this silently, with a faint smile on her face.
Dr. Charlie also understood that Bill did this on purpose, mainly to make Merck happy.
Maybe this is the secret to why Bill can become friends with so many super-rich people, he thought to himself.
Mr. Merck was really happy, laughing for a full minute before stopping and waving.
“We’ve talked about these things for a while, it’s time to introduce the hard stuff.”
"What's the specific plan of your cyber hacking plan?"
Bill suppressed the smile on his face and said seriously: "That's right, this plan is also divided into three steps."
"The first step is single-organ transplantation. Find some mice that need organ transplantation but have no chance, and transplant artificial organs into them to see how long the artificial organs last and what defects they have. We will continue to improve them."
"The second step will be to go further and carry out multi-organ transplantation on mice to see if it is possible to transplant an artificial heart, an artificial liver, an artificial kidney and an artificial lung into a mouse at the same time, and try to transplant multiple organs. replace."
"If we can get to this point, then the third step is to try to transplant artificial organs one by one into aging mice to see how much life can be extended."
"Of course this is a long and difficult process, and there are also ethical issues. I'm afraid it will be difficult to gain public recognition, so I plan to do it secretly and wait until the day it succeeds before making it public."
"At that time, mankind will usher in the first year of cyberspace and create a new history."
Dr. Charlie looked at the two men talking about the guinea pig, and they looked indifferent. At first, he thought they were real guinea pigs.
After hearing this, he suddenly realized that the guinea pig mentioned by these two people was actually the person participating in the experiment.
These people will be locked up in underground laboratories, subjected to various experiments, and even have their internal organs cut off one by one and replaced with artificial organs one by one.
Thinking of this scene, Dr. Charlie couldn't help but exclaimed: "Oh, my God."
However, he quickly reacted and immediately covered his mouth.
Bill shook his head at him and said seriously: "It's too late, we will silence you later. Hahaha."
Mr. Merck smiled and said: "Bill, don't be joking, you will scare dear Charlie. He is a good knife in the operating room. I will rely on him for surgery for the rest of my life."
The two of them changed the topic tacitly and stopped mentioning the guinea pig.
It was obvious that they considered Dr. Charlie one of their own and were not worried that he would leak out.
Even if it were leaked, there would be no evidence and it would lead to death.
They believe that Dr. Charlie is a smart man who knows what is best for them.
Charlie finished the meeting absentmindedly and left in a hurry.
Seeing his figure running faster than a rabbit, Bill couldn't help but smile and turned to Merck.
"Looks like he's really scared."
The corners of Merck's mouth turned up, revealing a confident smile.
"Don't worry, a million-dollar check is enough to calm his inner turmoil and calm him down."
Bill raised his eyes and looked into the distance, looking at the lush mountains in the distance, and felt relaxed and happy.
He said leisurely: "Then our plan will be stepped up."
Merk chuckled and said, "Just leave it to me. The most indispensable thing in Eagle Country is homeless people who suddenly disappear."
"I have chosen the person, and I will send him to China for surgery after his heart failure."
The two chatted softly, as if ordinary people were exchanging their thoughts on a popular game.
However, they are playing a life-extending game.
The players who participate in person are just chess pieces.
