21st Century Necromancer-Chapter 797 - 793 Contact Inhibition

797: Chapter 793 Contact Inhibition

797 -793 Contact Inhibition

Although Nanami took the children of the Sixth Destroyer Fleet out to play, there weren’t any suitable places for children to play around the hospital, so in the end, she just found a cold drink shop nearby and treated them to ice cream.

After the children of the Sixth Destroyer Fleet and Nanami left, Chen Yu returned to his office to continue the work he had been interrupted from doing.

Chen Yu reached an interesting conclusion based on the results of the experiments conducted by the researchers below, which was that the drug they were researching, capable of killing cancer cells, would not affect the cancer cells if it was below a certain dosage.

Instead, it would promote normal cell division and development, much like a nutritional supplement.

However, if the dosage of the drug exceeded a certain amount, it would be absorbed by the cancer cells and destroy them, yet it would not affect normal cells.

And this was the main purpose for which the drug was developed, to kill cancer cells by destroying them.

Originally, if that were all, this drug could have been said to be very successfully developed, and it would be a perfect drug, destroying cancer cells in large doses while promoting normal cell division and development in small doses—there could be nothing more perfect.

“But,” everything was ruined by one “But.” A researcher wanted to know what side effects would be caused by an overdose of the drug during animal testing, so the dosage was increased.

This is a normal research behavior.

Any drug would analyze the harmful effects and side effects of an overdose during the experimental development phase.

Normally, nothing more than some bodily stress responses or allergies as side effects would occur, but clearly, the side effects brought about by this novel drug were also new—it killed all the normal cells.

Using the word killed might not be accurate.

According to the information Chen Yu could obtain from the experimental report, an overdose of the drug triggered contact inhibition in all the cells of the experimental animal’s body, causing all cells to stop dividing.

The cell membrane has glycoproteins made of sugars and proteins, also known as the glycocalyx, which plays a role in cell recognition.

When cells proliferate to a certain extent, or when they are squeezed together, the glycoproteins recognize this information and cause the cells to stop proliferating further.

This phenomenon is known as contact inhibition.

This is also why our bodies are an orderly whole, without some body tissues growing larger or smaller than other parts in a bizarre proliferation. freewёbnoνel.com

But tumor cells lack this mechanism—they divide indefinitely and proliferate rapidly.

Contact inhibition does not stop all cells from dividing; it simply prevents cells that are in close contact from dividing to avoid overly crowded cells competing for nutrients, keeping the total number of cells within an appropriate range.

Once some cells die, creating new space, the surrounding cells will lift this inhibition and divide to fill in the gaps, maintaining the integrity and function of the organism.

But in the case of an overdose of this drug, it would trigger contact inhibition in all cells, which is just too terrible.

The human body’s cellular renewal cycle is approximately 120–200 days; typically, every six to seven years, all the cells in the body will be replaced with new ones.

Among these, taste buds renew every ten days, skin in twenty-eight days, the small intestine in two to three days, and the liver in five months…

If cells cannot divide, it also means cellular renewal stops.

Just imagine that within two to three days, your small intestine would be completely necrotic, after ten days, it’s your tongue, and twenty-eight days later, you would have no skin left…

This is why in the laboratory, lab animals experience total cellular death following an overdose of medication.

Cells are not being killed; they are dying naturally, but with old cells dying and new cells not dividing, organ functions fail to operate normally, and death of the organism becomes inevitable.

This operates on a different principle from the broad-spectrum anti-cancer drug previously developed by Chen Yu.

The mechanism of action of Chen Yu’s broad-spectrum anti-cancer drug is to inhibit the activity of tumor cells rather than suppress cell division, but this could also be viewed as a promising research direction.

Chen Yu’s broad-spectrum anti-cancer drug can inhibit the activity of tumor cells, causing them to cease dividing and mutating, whereas this new drug is able to directly inhibit cellular division.

Although the principles and operational mechanisms of the two are different, both can function to inhibit cancer cell division.

This new drug could even be said to go a step further in killing cancer cells, because, like normal cells, individual cancer cells have a lifespan.

Cancer cells are perceived as immortal because their telomeres can be repaired through the activation of telomerase, thereby achieving endless division and, in effect, immortality.

However, normal cells cannot do this.

The telomeres within normal cells undergo certain levels of attrition with each cycle of cell division, so after dividing around fifty times, a normal cell can no longer divide, and the body then succumbs to aging and death.

Hence, merely inhibiting the activity of cancer cells cannot completely kill them.

Even though their activity is suppressed and they enter a state of dormancy, akin to hibernation, the cancer cells will gradually die over a sufficiently long period, but this process is exceedingly slow.

But inhibiting the division of cancer cells is feasible because once the division stops, non-dividing cancer cells will naturally die off after a period of time.

With no new cancer cells to replenish, tumors and cancer effectively cease to exist.

The only problem that needs to be solved now is how to ensure this drug affects only the cancer cells and not also decimate the normal cells.

With these thoughts, Chen Yu suddenly felt spurred to research and stood up, grabbing the research materials and leaving the office, heading enthusiastically toward the hospital’s laboratory.

Ideas began to take shape in his mind, which he wanted to try out.

When Chen Yu reached the corridor, however, he saw Kohinata Kaori approaching with the children of the Sixth Destroyer Fleet whom she had brought back.

“Senior Brother, I ran into these kids in the hospital lobby wanting to find you, so I brought them over,” Kohinata Kaori explained to Chen Yu why she was with the four children and also asked curiously, “Senior Brother, where are you going?”

“I have an idea I want to try out in the laboratory, I might not come home tonight.

Kaori, take them to find Hiromi, and ask Hiromi to take them home after work.

Also, tell her I won’t be coming back,” Chen Yu explained briefly to Kohinata Kaori before greeting the children of the Sixth Destroyer Fleet and heading for the laboratory.