I Have A Super USB Drive

"Human life is limited. Everyone will be born, old, sick, and die, but who knows why we will die?"

On the podium, a professor who was nearly old and rare spoke slowly, and the sound echoed through the sound in the spacious large classroom.

"As we all know, the unit of life is a cell. Every one of us here is split from a small fertilized egg cell."

"One becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight..."

Under the stage, Chen Chen squeezed his chin and turned his gel pen in his right hand, staring at the projection screen madly.

"Cells will also age and die. Newly dividing cells continue to replace apoptotic cells. This is the secret of our continuous growth."

"However, this division is not infinite."

"In 1965, Professor Hayflick at Stanford University discovered that human cells cannot replicate themselves more than 57 times. Each cell will die after 56 replications."

"It's like, there is a counter in the cell, which determines when the cell will stop dividing and when the person will grow old..."

"Theoretically, human cells can divide up to 56 times. Based on the cell division cycle calculation, the life expectancy of a person should be around 120 years old. This theory is called..."

"Patter!"

Just when he was fascinated by it, Chen Chen suddenly slipped his finger and flew the gel pen out and fell under the table.

Chen Chen immediately bent over and reached out to touch the ground.

"Ok?"

When his head was lowered below the table and bucket, inadvertently, a dark light came into his eyes.

Don't ask why the light is still black. At the moment of bending down, Chen Chen did see a black light.

He looked subconsciously.

It was a long strip of things, completely black, stuck under the table, and embedded in a hidden groove.

So after picking up the pen, Chen Chen stretched out his arm again and squeezed towards that position.

With slight force, only a click, the dark thing was successfully pulled off.

"The classmate over there who is under the table, please answer—"

But at this moment, the professor's voice suddenly came from the podium.

"Puff!"

Behind him came the low laugh of the dorm buddies.

Chen Chen quickly got out from under the table, his face flushed with embarrassment.

He looked at the professor who was still smiling, then looked down at the textbook, and then he stumbled and said, "Hay, Hayflick limit?"

"Please sit down."

The professor pressed his hand and told Chen Chen to sit down.

The lecture continues.

"At both ends of the DNA, in the presence of a kind of'telomere', this kind of thing plays a vital role in cell division."

"It is responsible for keeping the chromosomes intact. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres become shorter. When the telomeres are too short to protect the gene structure, the cell will inhibit growth, stop copying, and enter aging."

"This is the Hayflick limit."

As he spoke, the professor turned around and quickly wrote the six words "Haflik Limit" on the blackboard.

Sitting down again, Chen Chen breathed a sigh of relief. Taking advantage of the professor's turning around and writing, he quickly picked up the things in his hand and took a look.

emmmmm...

With this look, Chen Chenxing was completely lost.

It turned out that the black thing was nothing but a USB flash drive.

Unlike the USB flash drives on the market, the length of this USB flash drive is much longer than ordinary USB flash drives. It is twelve or three centimeters long and looks like a carbon rod.

Only the USB interface exposes the fact that it is just a USB flash drive.

In addition, the entire U disk is completely integrated, completely black, and even trademarks and memory logos do not exist.

But for the sake of looking cool,

At this time, the professor continued to lecture: "With the current level of technology, it is impossible for cells to break the Heflick limit, but we can also bypass this problem in other ways..."

With that said, the professor wrote five words on the blackboard again:

The immortal Hela.

"Everyone will definitely think, if there is a way to prevent telomeres from wearing out, can our cells be immortal?"

"The answer is yes!"

The professor excitedly added the words "HeLa cell line" under "The Immortal HeLa".

"The HeLa cell line is a cell line isolated from human cervical cancer tissue in 1951, and its contributor is Herita Lax."

"Researchers found that the cells collected from Lacus did not die, but showed signs of growth. The number of cells doubled every 24 hours."

"Later it was discovered that the reason for the immortality of these cells was the RT tumor virus that causes cervical cancer. The genes of this virus can change the'switch' of normal cell lifespan, thereby making the cells immortal and multiplying indefinitely."

"In the years to come, HeLa cells were provided to research institutions throughout the federal government. It helped scientists achieve cell cloning, and was used to investigate the effects of nuclear radiation on the human body. It was also used on rockets flying to space to study weightlessness. Cell proliferation in the state..."

"According to data from the Medical and Biological Database, as of this year, there have been more than 65,000 papers related to HeLa cells, and more than 50 million tons of HeLa cells have been cultivated..."

"So, there is a common sense that everyone knows in later generations-cancer cell lines are'immortal', as long as there is a suitable culture environment, it can divide indefinitely."

Speaking of this, many students in the audience began to applaud spontaneously, which is a tribute to that contributor.

"Of course, if we humans use this'switch', it is the way to die!"

The professor turned the subject and suppressed applause.

"After all, if the cell division cycle in our body is disrupted and cannot age on time, it will turn into a malignant tumor, threatening our lives!"

"We humans are constantly advancing on the road of pursuing the truth. As early as in the clan society, the average life span of humans was less than 20 years old, but by the Middle Ages, the average life span of humans has increased to 40 years..."

"With the advent of science, human civilization has completely entered a period of rapid development. In just a few decades, the average life span of the Earth Federation has approached 80 years!"

"But is that enough?"

"Even if mankind develops to the extreme, it is still 120 years old as Heflick's limit said, far from reaching the level of immortality, what should we do?"

After a pause, the professor continued.

"So, the turning point came..."

"Just in 2002, this'switch' was finally found. Cambridge University professor John Sulston and three others discovered a genetic regulation mechanism called'programmed cell death'."

The professor once again wrote the words "programmed cell death" on the blackboard and drew a circle again.

With a click, the chalk suddenly broke because the fingers were too hard.

"This discovery shocked the entire medical community, because it believes that cell death is a physiological and active'suicide', like a program programmed in secret!"

The professor opened his hands, "In other words, we think that aging is a natural process, but in fact it may be a genetic defect! If we can repair this defect, we can hope to overcome aging and gain immortality!"

The audience suddenly whispered.

As if a brand new door had been opened, Chen Chen's pupils shrank, using a voice that only he could hear, repeatedly repeating the two magic words.

"eternal life?"

"eternal life……"

"Therefore, as a major of biological science, you are the most promising generation to repair genetic defects."

The professor smiled expectantly, "Or you can say that you are the generation closest to immortality in human history!"

At this point, the course is almost over.

The silver-haired professor took the handkerchief and wiped his sweat, and concluded with expectation and sigh:

"I have to say that we humans still don't know anything about the vast sea of ​​truth. Perhaps even the unreachable dream of immortality is just the first step in the pursuit of truth..."

"But anyway, the future belongs to you..."

"Okay, get out of class is over!"

Papa papa papa...

The audience suddenly burst into applause.