Chapter 334: Chapter 281: Stem Cell Therapy

In the surgical prep room of the medical center, numerous films were clipped to the lightboxes. Chen Yu stood with his arms crossed, carefully examining each one as he weighed the options for the surgical plan.

"Chen, have you considered stem cell therapy?"

Beside him, Jamie suddenly asked out of the blue.

"What do you mean?" Chen Yu turned to look at Jamie.

Jamie said, "I mean, I’ve noticed some new papers and studies suggesting that mesenchymal stem cells might be applicable to cartilage and tendon injuries for autologous regeneration. I feel like this is a promising direction and an important area for future research. I mean, think about it, we even managed to create that sheep."

’Sheep?’

Chen Yu paused for a moment, then quickly realized he must be talking about the cloned sheep.

"What paper were you reading? Let me see it," Chen Yu asked.

"Hold on a second."

Jamie left the room and returned a dozen or so minutes later with an issue of JAMA.

It was an issue from February of last year.

He flipped to one of the articles and pointed it out to Chen Yu.

Chen Yu took it and examined it carefully.

After a while, Chen Yu put it down and said, "I get the general idea."

Using stem cells for cartilage repair wasn’t exactly a new concept. As early as ’94, a medical team in Sweden had attempted autologous cartilage repair.

They would take cartilage tissue from a non-critical part of the body, culture and expand it using stem cells, and finally transplant it to the damaged area.

However, the post-operative clinical results were generally poor.

But the paper he was holding proposed that mesenchymal stem cells might have better expansion and repair effects. They envisioned finding a suitable scaffold, like a heart stent, that could be embedded in the damaged area to ensure the structural integrity of the regenerated cartilage. Then, they would inject mesenchymal stem cells into it to achieve regenerative healing.

This idea was conceptually similar to the microfracture therapy Chen Yu currently used.

It just incorporated human stem cells.

And Chen Yu had, in fact, already identified a problem with microfracture surgery.

Over the past two years, Chen Yu had performed many of these procedures and had a number of research samples on hand.

It was basically proven that the fibrocartilage produced by blood seepage from the fracture was inferior in performance to the body’s native hyaline cartilage.

But the reason Chen Yu had successfully treated Batty and Hardaway was mostly due to the "system’s" effect.

Chen Yu found that if he used the "system’s" effect, the regenerated fibrocartilage could achieve a very high level of performance and strength. But if he didn’t use it and treated ordinary patients, the results were often unsatisfactory.

Fortunately, ordinary patients didn’t have such high athletic demands. Moreover, after discovering this problem, Chen Yu would also use the effect on ordinary patients whenever he had "treatment efficacy" to spare.

But in the long run, this therapy was definitely not the ultimate solution for cartilage wear, a common ailment among athletes.

Chen Yu reopened the journal to check the authors of the paper.

It was a team, and the leader was a Professor John Cunningham.

And they were a medical research team from Harvard Medical School.

Chen Yu thought for a moment, then picked up his phone and called Wash.

’The man was from Harvard Medical School, so he might know this person.’

Besides, Mayo itself was a top-tier hospital that sponsored many medical research projects and had access to the most cutting-edge research findings.

It was only because Chen Yu was focused on his niche of surgery and Sports Medicine. Otherwise, with his impressive resume, he could have easily networked more with the medical community and pharmaceutical companies; there were plenty of channels to access this kind of information.

"Professor John Cunningham? Yes, I know him. What’s up?" As expected, Wash knew of the professor.

Chen Yu explained his intentions, asking Wash to make an introduction.

"How about this, I’d like to visit him in person if it’s convenient," Chen Yu said after a moment’s thought, deciding a personal visit would be better.

Wash said, "Of course, that’s no problem. And with your current reputation and credentials, you could visit him directly without even going through me."

Chen Yu wasn’t some nobody. As the Miracle Doctor and a presidential medical consultant, who couldn’t he get a meeting with?

After hanging up, Chen Yu said, "Jamie, get ready. We’re going to Boston tomorrow."

The next day, the two of them flew to Boston and had no trouble meeting John Cunningham.

Cunningham was very enthusiastic about Chen Yu’s arrival. He excitedly embraced Chen Yu right away and said with a smile, "I’ve been wondering when I’d finally get to meet you, the Miracle Doctor. I’ve attended so many medical conferences but never saw you. Chen, perhaps you should focus a bit more on the academic side. It would benefit the entire medical field."

Putting aside the feat of waking a comatose patient, just the top athletes Chen Yu had treated were each of immense research value. They could be studied as case studies to advance the field of medicine.

Chen Yu eased out of the hug.

Cunningham was in his fifties, wore glasses, and had thinning, light-blond hair.

"I feel I’m still young and want to focus on clinical practice," Chen Yu said evasively.

’If he got into academic research, there was no way he could explain the miraculous effects brought about by his ’system’.’

Cunningham nodded in understanding.

’Clinical practice was certainly more lucrative. At Chen Yu’s age, having already made a name for himself, it wasn’t realistic to expect him to focus solely on research.’

After some more small talk, Chen Yu finally brought up the purpose of his visit.

"We call the stem cell treatment for cartilage defects that you mentioned a first-generation therapy. The year before last, they published the results of their follow-up cases, which basically proved the regenerated cartilage is still fibrocartilage and lacks sufficient mechanical properties. That, combined with an overly complex treatment process, means the therapy can essentially be declared a failure."

Cunningham didn’t show much regret over the failure.

’Medical research, like all scientific research, advanced through repeated failures.’

Then he introduced his team’s research findings.

"We’re now considering using autologous periosteum. We pre-seed cultured chondrocytes from stem cells onto the periosteum and then suture it onto the damaged cartilage area."

Chen Yu generally understood.

’To put it bluntly, it was similar to the Swedish team’s method, just a step further. They originally used autologous cartilage, but now they only used the periosteum, which was likely less damaging to the body.’

’Of course, while it seemed like a small step, it involved pre-transplantation and in-vitro culture and expansion, which would undoubtedly require significant research.’

But it still didn’t quite meet Chen Yu’s expectations.

"John, what about the concept you proposed in the paper?" Chen Yu pressed.

The therapy using autologous periosteum was what they considered a second-generation therapy. They had already achieved results and were now pushing for clinical trials, but the FDA’s approval process for those trials was still ongoing. No one knew if it would ultimately succeed.

But the method they mentioned in the paper was clearly a more advanced one.

Cunningham didn’t hide anything. "That’s a future concept of ours, because existing techniques can’t give the regenerated cartilage tissue adequate mechanical properties."

At this point, he paused and gave Chen Yu a second look.

Cunningham had always been curious about how the top athletes Chen Yu treated with microfracture surgery were able to recover and return to competition.

Chen Yu hadn’t published any related papers, so no one knew how he did it.

"So we’re considering using a special scaffold, like a honeycomb, that has a certain degree of strength. We’d then fill it with mesenchymal stem cells, with the goal of integrating it with the surrounding cartilage and giving it sufficient strength."

Since these ideas had already been published in a paper, Cunningham wasn’t afraid to discuss them with Chen Yu.

After his explanation, Cunningham added, "Chen, you have resources and you’re an expert in clinical practice. We could actually collaborate on in-depth research in this area. It would surely be very promising."

The subtext was that Chen Yu had money.

It was safe to say that Chen Yu was now one of the highest-earning doctors in the United States.

And not only did he earn a lot himself, but he also had access to many resources.

’Unlike him, who relied entirely on sponsorships.’

"I’ll think about it." Chen Yu smiled, neither agreeing nor refusing.

Next, Chen Yu toured his laboratory and had an in-depth discussion with him before departing.

On the way back to the hotel, Jamie asked curiously, "Chen, I think their research looks quite promising. And it seems like they’re short on cash. Aren’t you going to consider his proposal?"

After their conversation, Jamie clearly got the feeling that Cunningham was trying to pull Chen Yu in.

That made sense.

Medical research teams like theirs were always short on funding.

The National Medical Research Institute provided a large amount of medical research funding each year, but there were too many projects to study and too many research institutions. It wasn’t something just anyone could apply for.

So they could only rely on patrons—that is, medical companies or wealthy individuals looking to do some charity.

And that depended on the team leader’s network.

Clearly, Cunningham didn’t have an advantage in that regard.

Chen Yu said, "I did think about it. And after thinking, I’ve decided we’ll do it ourselves. Jamie, your current research project is finished, and you don’t have much on your plate right now. How about you consider putting a team together to research this?"

It wasn’t that Chen Yu didn’t trust Cunningham, but he knew a thing or two about the messy business of scientific research.

Many research teams just treated their patrons like suckers.

Besides, after their conversation, Chen Yu also felt that Cunningham’s research had hit a bottleneck. The concept was good, but they had no direction on how to actually implement it.

Investing money at this point would be no different from throwing it into the river.

’And if he was going to throw money away, why not throw it away himself?’

At the same time, since Cunningham had already published a paper on it, there was no problem with him being inspired by it and conducting his own research.

Jamie was slightly taken aback. After a moment’s thought, he asked tentatively, "How much are you planning to invest?"

’It still came down to money.’

Chen Yu thought for a moment and said with a smile, "Let’s start by investing two million and see how it goes. We can decide what to do next based on the results."

Two million US dollars should be enough for the initial research. After all, Chen Yu had his own clinic, so the equipment and space were already available.

If they really produced some good research results, it would be easy for Chen Yu to find more funding with his network.

"Speaking of the scaffold, you could consider using donor material. Using the patient’s own would be too expensive and troublesome. Just use pig tissue. I think that would be a very good choice," Chen Yu added.

The core of this research project was, naturally, this special scaffold that provided mechanical structure.

If they used the patient’s own tissue, just finding suitable research subjects would be a huge pain. It would be best to use a donor source.

And for a donor source, the best choice was, of course, a pig.

"It’s cheap, easy to obtain, and in the future, the clinic’s cafeteria could even use the leftovers to make bone broth."