by <unknown>
With that, he exited the room first.
It was not until he had walked out of the laboratory building that Chen Chen saw that the troublemakers were led by four or five individuals. These individuals were in jackets, yelling in some unknown dialect. Qian Wenhuan stood on the platform and kept trying to explain something to the crowd.
Cheng Cao and the other five bodyguards had replaced the security guards in blocking the crowd, preventing them from barging into the experimental center.
Some employees stood watching from the back while others had moved forward to help. It was utter chaos.
"Boss?"
"Boss!"
When Chen Chen arrived, the eagle-eyed Wang Liang swiftly moved to him. "Boss, what do we do now?"
"Who are these people? What's going on?" Chen Chen stared at the agitated crowd outside the gate and frowned.
"These are villagers from several villages near the research institute, the largest of which is called Gorob Village. It has hundreds of households."
Wang Liang wiped the sweat from his forehead as he hastened to explain, "This group of people said that we've hired too few locals and so many foreigners came in suddenly, leaving an even smaller quota for the locals. They said that, according to local rules, we need to hire at least a hundred of them."
Chen Chen frowned at this. He had already recruited fifteen local security guards and ten front-desk employees, the reason being, the less trouble, the better. Otherwise, based on their lazy, gluttonous behavior, Chen Chen would rather not hire a single one.
"Plus, they've heard about the professors' salaries from somewhere and are claiming that we're being unfair. They want us to increase the salary of the locals." Another employee chimed in.
Chen Chen nearly laughed when he heard this. "I see. Go and get Qian Wenhuan."
The person nodded and hurried away. In a short while, Qian Wenhuan ran over with a tense brow, with Cheng Cao following behind.
"Boss, why are you here?" Qian Wenhuan said hurriedly, "it's too dangerous. This crowd might easily get out of control."
Cheng Cao reminded softly. "Many of these villagers are HIV-positive, so be careful not to get injured."
Chen Chen waved his hand. "It's alright. Wenhuan, tell them that they can get work if that's what they want. From tomorrow onward, I'll recruit fifty volunteers to participate in a clinical trial. As long as they sign the contract, I'll pay each of them a hundred thousand Namibian dollars."
"A hundred thousand?" Qian Wenhuan and Cheng Cao exchanged a glance. "Understood. I'll tell them now."
"Hold on." Chen Chen stopped Qian Wenhuan. "I have one condition — I'll only recruit those over fifty years old."
"Got it!" Qian Wenhuan nodded. Cheng Cao wanted to follow Qian Wenhuan but was stopped. "I can handle it myself. You look after Boss!"
With that, Qian Wenhuan squeezed into the crowd.
Soon, after Qian Wenhuan had relayed the news, the initially clamorous crowd was gradually pacified.
Following that, a few local security guards put on a big show of standing up to deliver a long, loud proclamation. Only then did the villagers dispersed with disgruntled looks.
When Chen Chen saw this scene, he secretly memorized the faces of those security guards, then turned and walked back to the laboratory building.
Chapter 96: Registration Begins |
It was more than ten minutes after the unruly villagers had dispersed that the police of Walvis Bay arrived, taking their own sweet time.
Chen Chen did not meet them and instead sent Qian Wenhuan to settle the matter.
Upon returning to the laboratory building, Chen Chen pulled out his phone. "Little X, help me look up Gorob Village and see if someone is stirring things up from behind the scenes. Also, give Dlamini a prod. Ask him to erase the identities of those on the name list and send them over as soon as possible!"
After sending this message, Chen Chen could not help but frown.
Now that he had compromised, the crowd would think that he was a pushover. The next time something cropped up, they would come rushing over again.
In truth, if they did not hold back, Cheng Cao's team would be able to easily flatten the hundred-over crowd. Still, perhaps it would be too much of a shock to everyone else.
Moreover, those few local security guards were people from nearby villages too. If something happened, they could not be relied upon. Thus, in the final analysis, there was no one on their side.
Even so, when Dlamini sent over the thirty people on the name list, this issue would be resolved.
Not only that, but also when those cold-blooded mercenaries were here, they just had to make a few threatening implications and those local security guards would quit out of terror.
Just when Chen Chen was pondering all this, another notification sounded. Chen Chen looked at his phone. As expected, Little X had already found out about the people in Gorob Village.
The one who held the highest post out of all the villagers was a bureau chief from Walvis Bay. The others were ordinary civil servants at most.
Ordinary villagers might not understand the significance of Blacklight in Namibia, but how could a bureau chief not understand?
Nevertheless, Chen Chen could meet with ministers and parliament members any time he wanted. Even if this bureau chief had the guts of a hundred men, he would not possibly cause trouble for Chen Chen.
Furthermore, Chen Chen had taken care of whomever he had to in Walvis Bay. This bureau chief was not left out either. Logically, it could not have been him who was interfering with Chen Chen.
In other words, either there was someone else behind the scenes or it was truly a temporary, spontaneous mobilization on the villagers' part.
In that case, Chen Chen only had to wait for Dlamini's mercenaries to arrive.
Once that happened, he would not have to give a hoot about the villagers. If they caused trouble, he would just beat them back. If anyone ended up dead or disabled, there was nothing that money could not solve.
In a nation like this, this was the most effective method.
Even the officials were bribed. No matter how much trouble the villagers riled up, they would not get anywhere. If they wanted money, there was no other choice than to act as Chen Chen's obedient guinea pigs.
Chen Chen had chosen to develop his biological research here for a reason.
In this country where AIDS and extreme poverty ran rampant, civilians had no access to healthcare. When ordinary folk became sick, there was no other way but to struggle on. If they succeeded, they lived. If not, they died. This was already a good foundation for popularizing clinical trials.
Moreover, although the political situation in Namibia was still stable, it was still a regime in which power was fragmented. In most villages, the law basically did not exist and the identification system was fundamentally ineffective. Even if dozens died in some medical mishap, it would barely cause a ripple.
In addition, the population was sparse, so there were uninhabited regions stretching hundreds of kilometers. It was easy to get away with heinous acts.
Therefore, Chen Chen had opted to open a biological research center here.
If it were not for the restrictions on the import and export of drugs, the institutional environment here would be perfect for an unscrupulous company like Blacklight Biotechnology…
…
Early the next morning, before dawn, a group of villagers from Gorob Village had gathered before the gates.
However, it was different from yesterday's hostile atmosphere. Currently, many of them were staring steadily at the doors of the research center, greed and desire burning in their eyes.
A group of elderly people had formed a circle, starting a small fire to ward off the early morning chill; a few youths in tattered T-shirts had grouped together, sharing a single cigarette; several women sat numbly before the gates, seemingly unmoved by the babies ceaselessly crying on their backs.
This group of people was like a bunch of refuge
es.
As the sun rose gradually and they started to push at the gates impatiently, a group of people finally walked out of the laboratory building and toward the gate.
When Wang Liang saw the large crowd again, he frowned instinctively. "Are they here to cause trouble again?"
"I think not."
Cheng Cao shook his head and walked forward decisively, saying in English, "Who's your leader?"
"I am."
An old black man with white hair and turbid eyes walked forward. "I'm Kofi Madill, chief of Gorob Village. I represent everyone here."
Cheng Cao sized up the old man and instantly understood that these people must have arrived at a collective agreement. He nodded. "Have you chosen your fifty candidates?"
"We have. The rest are here just as companions," the old man explained.
"We won't let the companions in."
Cheng Cao opened the gates and said, "Those who meet the requirements may come in. The rest of you, stay out."
"What about our money?" Just then, a few youths popped up from the crowd and asked.
"Before the contract is signed, the company will pay nothing." Cheng Cao shook his head.
"If you don't pay us, how do we know that you won't change your mind about paying us?" When they heard that Cheng Cao was not willing to pay upfront, the crowd started jeering and started to show signs of rowdiness once more.
On one side, Wang Liang stepped back subconsciously. He had heard that many people in places like Namibia were HIV-infected. If someone was scratched or bitten in a scuffle, would that not…
When Cheng Cao saw this, his face turned stony. Yesterday, he was not sure of Chen Chen's approach, but after knowing that Chen Chen was not afraid of blowing things up, he had no reservations now.
With this in mind, Cheng Cao wordlessly pulled out a baton as his eyes blazed ferociously.
"If you don't want to die, get lost!"
At the same time, the five people behind Cheng Cao also pulled out their weapons.
Unexpectedly, when the villagers were greeted in this aggressive manner, they seemed to hesitate. The initial atmosphere of hostility and arrogance came to a halt.
"Hold on, hold on!"
Just as Cheng Cao was about to start driving the villagers away, a few of the local security guards rushed out. They positioned themselves between Cheng Cao and the villagers, and the young man who led them yelled, "Don't be hasty, everyone, just calm down. Let's talk about it properly!"
After he spoke, this youth went up to the villagers and started a long, animated discussion. At several points, he even pointed at Cheng Cao's waist.
At Cheng Cao's waist, the grip of a gun was protruding.
The youth discussed with the villagers for more than ten minutes before he walked to Cheng Cao and burst into a wide grin that displayed his pearly whites. "Captain Cheng, I've pacified the villagers. They're just a bunch of ordinary folk. I hope you can talk to Boss and see if he can pay in advance?"
"Don't you worry about that."
Cheng Cao put away his baton. "Since they're pacified, the chosen fifty can go in."
With that, he opened the gates.
The villagers, upon seeing this, could only give way unwillingly, allowing a group of white-haired elders to go in.
"Hold on!" Suddenly, Cheng Cao seized one of them and said to the youth, "You can't tell me that this guy is 50 years old?"
Everyone looked over and saw that the man who was stopped, despite being thin and bony, definitely did not look old.
"Does it really have to be so stringent?"
The security guard frowned. Even so, under Cheng Cao's unfaltering gaze, he stepped away to discuss with the villagers again.
In a while, the security guard led that man away, then came back with another old person while casting a sullen look at Cheng Cao. "Surely this will do?"
Cheng Cao let them pass.
In the end, after fifty seniors had entered the gate, Cheng Cao directly closed the gate, paying no mind to the villagers' cries. Then, he led everyone to the laboratory building.
Cheng Cao ignored the fact that some of the elderly were ill. In any case, this group would still have to undergo a strict health check before they were qualified for the experiment.
After all, not just anyone could be a guinea pig.
Chapter 97: Misunderstanding Cloning |
In the end, after the physical examination and bone age test, only thirty-three of the fifty elderly people met the requirements of the experiment.
The remaining seventeen who did not fit the bill were naturally sent back.
It was impressive that Gorob Village could come up with so many people above fifty years old. Apparently, for the village chief to get the numbers, he had rushed over to the neighboring villages himself to negotiate for more people.
Elderly people were scarce because of the lack of medical care. It was still alright in the city, but in the villages, there were not many who could live beyond the age of fifty.
Namibian officials had calculated the statistics. In this country, more than ten percent of the children were orphans because the parents of these children had died of AIDS shortly after giving birth.
In Namibia, the national population was only 2.58 million but the HIV infection rate had reached 21.3%. This meant that one in five people of this country was HIV-positive.
However, the fortunate thing was, the HIV infection rate in Namibia was not considered too high. It was far below Botswana's 37.3%, Swaziland's 38.8%, and Lesotho's 28.9%.
Africa was world-famous for two things. One was diamonds and the other was AIDS.
Ignoring the dissatisfaction of the Gorob villagers, Chen Chen made the thirty-three people take a bath, then arranged for them to live in the basement. They were well-fed but their area of movement was restricted.
At the same time, in the laboratory, Chen Chen had recruited a group of experienced assistants and started the cloning process for the embryos of these elderly people.
In terms of specific operations, Chen Chen used a more advanced three-dimensional polarization spindle imaging system. After positioning the egg cell nucleus, he used a laser to punch a hole in the zona pellucida, then removed the nucleus without damaging the egg cell. Only then was he able to use the micromanipulator to implant the somatic cell nucleus of the elderly.
However, it was too bad that the techniques of these assistants could not compare to Chen Chen's. They failed several times in the middle as well as during the process of using electric current and chemical induction. In the end, Chen Chen's guidance was necessary to complete all the cloned embryos.
Following that, the cloned embryos needed 14 days of growth to reach the blastocyst stage, after which the embryonic stem cells within would be extracted.
International opposition against human embryo cloning was mostly due to this step. To some people, killing these fertilized eggs was equivalent to killing people, which was ethically unacceptable.
Even so, fortunately, these objections did not hinder the study of cloned embryos. As of now, the technology of embryonic stem cell cloning in various countries was still making great strides.
By controlling the growth environment and manipulating the expression of specific genes after the embryonic stem cells were extracted, these stem cells could be differentiated into the required hematopoietic stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells.
The stem cells cloned with this method had almost the same genes as those of the elderly, so there would not be any rejection. Plus, these were young, healthy stem cells.
After the elederly people had gone through chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the stem cells would be implanted into their bodies to replace the stem cells that had aged long ago.
Once these young hematopoietic and mesenchymal stem cells returned to the bone marrow, they would swiftly differentiate into blood cells, muscle cells, liver cells, osteoblasts, fat cells, chondrocytes, stroma, and other human cells, repairing and improving t
he damages of aging.
This was the function of stem cells.
However, for some time, academia had been caught up in a massive misunderstanding, which arose from the earliest cloning of the sheep, Dolly —
Everyone knew that the cloned sheep Dolly was the world's earliest artificially cloned animal. Before Dolly was born, its cell donor was a white-faced Finnish Dorset sheep.
The experimenter had extracted mammary gland cells from this sheep, then took out the nucleus. Thus, Dolly was cloned.
In other words, Dolly's genes were basically the same as this white-faced Dorset sheep.
This white-faced Finnish Dorset sheep was 6 years old when its mammary gland cells were extracted.
However, after the cloned sheep Dolly was born, it was discovered that Dolly's telomeres were shorter than other sheep of the same age.
Not only that but Dolly also showed signs of premature aging when she was 6 years old. Although she was well taken care of, Dolly eventually died.
In the same year, the white-faced Finnish Dorset sheep, the donor of the cloned sheep Dolly, died at the ripe old age of twelve.
In biology's research on lifespan and aging, the more mainstream theories were "telomere theory" and "free radical theory", both of which had not been thoroughly confirmed. Still, if telomeres were the key factor affecting lifespan, then the death of the cloned sheep Dolly seemed to support this theory.
The nucleus donor for Dolly was a six-year-old sheep. Therefore, although Dolly was newly born, her telomere length had been worn down to only six years of life? Thus, she would die at the same time as the donor, six years later?
Back then, this misunderstanding had affected the entire academia, casting a shadow over cloning technology.
This was because, if this conclusion was accurate, then most treatments developed from cloning technology were futile. No matter what the cloning process was, the length of the telomeres was fixed and could never be altered…
This misunderstanding even influenced science fiction after 2000, resulting in works that had clones who were collectively cursed with the defect of short lifespans.
