The entire Laboratory erupted with cheers as Manstein raised his hands, as if he had just scored a goal. Clara let out a scream, then covered her mouth in embarrassnt. Hans laughed like a two-hundred-pound child, although he had always been two hundred pounds.
Manstein waited for the cheers to die down before adding, "But we still have to wait for the review from the dical journal."
Yang Ping said nothing; he understood the review process for the dical journal. The current pool of reviewers was not large enough, and finding suitable reviewers was challenging, which naturally lengthened the process. This was a common issue for all new journals; it couldn’t be rushed.
The review from dical finally ca back in the sixth week.
It was Tuesday, a rare sunny day in Nandu. Yang Ping was in his office reviewing a grant application when his phone buzzed with an automated notification from the submission system. He opened the email and glanced at the conclusion:
"Major revision required."
Major revision.
Yang Ping’s expression did not change. He continued reading the grant application, wrote a paragraph of revision suggestions for the applicant, and then opened the attachnt with the review comnts.
Two reviewers.
The first reviewer, from a top dostic university, wrote three full pages. It began with affirmation—"This is a milestone research"—followed by a long list of questions. Sample size, statistical thods, control setup, chanistic evidence, long-term follow-up data... each point was very professional, and each hit the mark.
The second reviewer, an anonymous international reviewer, wrote in very fluent English, likely a native speaker. Only one page, but the last sentence made Yang Ping read it twice:
In translation: You claim your work is based on the three-dinsional orientation gene theory, but the connection between theory and experintal results is not clearly explained.
Yang Ping closed his computer and leaned back in his chair, pondering for a long ti.
Manstein was sitting at the Microscope, and when he heard footsteps, he looked up. Seeing Yang Ping’s expression, he said nothing, just offered the Microscope to Yang Ping, gesturing for him to sit.
"No need," Yang Ping said, "The review comnts are back."
"Major revision or minor revision?"
"Major revision!"
Manstein’s expression did not change, but Yang Ping noticed his fingers clench slightly on the Desktop.
"Two reviewers, one dostic, very professional, and each question very realistic. One international, saying the connection between our theory and data is unclear."
Manstein was silent for a few seconds.
"They’re both right," he said.
Yang Ping looked at him.
Manstein stood up and walked to the whiteboard: "I always knew about this problem, Professor. Your theory is about how Cells perceive their position in a three-dinsional space and make correct behavioral decisions based on positional information. But my experint used gene regulatory thods. The logical chain between the two is: Gene regulation → microenvironnt change → Cellular positioning restoration → axon regrowth connection → functional recovery. There are three arrows in between, and I’ve only proven the first and last. I have no direct evidence for the middle two arrows."
Yang Ping walked to the whiteboard, picked up a pen, and drew a line under the sentence Manstein wrote.
"I’ll help you prove the middle two arrows."
Manstein turned to look at Yang Ping.
"Are you sure? Professor, this isn’t your experint. It’s mine."
"Consider it volunteer work," Yang Ping said. "The theory is mine, the experint is yours. The middle two arrows are the bridge between theory and experint. I’ll write the theoretical frawork part; you supplent the experintal evidence part. Let’s respond to the reviewers within a week."
Manstein looked at Yang Ping, opened his mouth to say sothing, but in the end, only said one word: "Okay!"
The following seven days were the most frantic seven days Yang Ping had ever seen.
Manstein divided the team into three groups. The first group was responsible for experinting, using histological thods to directly prove that axon regeneration was indeed guided by three-dinsional directional signals. The second group focused on in-depth analysis of the "non-responder." Fritz took all tissue samples from the animal room, Clara conducted a whole-geno sequencing, and Hans did 172 pages of data analysis. The third group handled new control experints, using non-targeted gene editing as negative control to rule out the interference of off-target effects.
Manstein himself switched between the three groups simultaneously. Morning in the animal room observing monkeys, late morning in the Laboratory conducting molecular experints, afternoon in the office writing response letters, and discussing each review comnt with Yang Ping over the phone at night.
Yang Ping was also busy. He restructured the core propositions of the three-dinsional orientation gene theory, writing them into the theoretical frawork section of the paper in a clearer and more direct way. He wasn’t patching it up; he was reconstructing it. The theoretical section in the previous paper was like a draft, but this one was like a final version—cleaner, sharper, and more powerful.
On the third day, Clara discovered an anomaly in the geno of the "non-responder."
"Off-target effect of Cas9," she said during the group eting, her voice shaking a little. "It caused an insertion mutation at a non-target site in the geno, which happened to affect a gene related to neuron survival. This might be why it didn’t recover; it’s not that the thod is ineffective, but that there was an unexpected outco in gene editing."
The eting Room fell silent for a mont.
"Is this good news or bad news?" soone asked.
Manstein said, "Both! The bad news is that our gene editing is not precise enough, and off-target effects might be more common than anticipated. The good news is that the occurrence of non-responders is not because the thod itself is flawed, but because of a technical issue during execution. This ans if we can improve the precision of gene editing, the response rate might increase further."
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