Chapter 320 Saturation Experiment

YL Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guangxi Province.

In the working area of ​​the ultra-clean inoculation room, two researchers, male and female, wearing full-body protective suits, were doing a job that seemed a little bit inferior compared to this high-end and atmospheric research laboratory.

They are peeling rice.

In front of the two of them was a bottle full of carefully selected rice seeds. Each of these seeds was plump and large, golden in color, with no trace of mildew on the surface. They were selected from the best.

What the two of them had to do was to manually remove the husks from all the rice that looked like hundreds of grains.

This is a tedious and boring job, but their eyes are extremely focused, and apart from occasionally chatting with each other, they do not make any unnecessary movements.

After peeling until his eyes were sore, one of them spoke:

"Brother, I can't do it anymore. This thing is too much for your eyes. How many have you peeled off?"

The senior brother mentioned by the female voice glanced at the flasks crowded aside and said:

"169. I've almost reached 17 sets. What about you?"

"I'm in the 12th group. Hey, my hands are still too raw and I can't peel the grain quickly. Senior brother, is it too late for us to do induction today?"

The induction in the girl's mouth refers to the induction of rice callus, which is the first step in conducting gene editing experiments. Only after the induction is completed, the Agrobacterium that has been transferred into the gene editing vector can be used to infect the callus, thereby Change the traits of rice genes to achieve the purpose of gene editing.

After the callus is induced, they will continue to do Agrobacterium activation, expanded culture, infection and co-culture, screening culture, and emergence and rooting.

After all these steps are completed and observed for one to two weeks, a gene-edited rice plant can be transplanted into the soil and observed after it matures.

This is a long process. Although it is not as precise as atomic control in other physics or chemistry, if any problem occurs in any step, the entire experiment will fail.

The boy put down the rice in his hand, flicked his wrist and moved his neck, and then answered:

"It's three o'clock in the afternoon. We have to do a total of 50 sets of inductions. It's definitely too late for the two of us. But Xiao Liu and the others will come over soon. If we work overtime tonight, we should be able to finish it."

"After finishing it later, I will take you to Boss Wang's lychee garden to steal lychees to eat - this time you should be smarter and don't grab a tree to pluck. That tree is on the roadside, and the trees next to it are full of fruit. It’s full of trees, but the one you stole is bare. Do you think you’ll get scolded?”

There was a trace of grievance in the girl's eyes. She mumbled a few words vaguely, and then said:

"Then their lychees are grown for people to eat, and they are not an experimental variety. Just eat some."

"Is the point about you stealing lychees? Please recall for yourself what the expression on Boss Wang's face at that time meant? When others pick lychees, they know how to pick a little here and then a little for you. What about you? If I hadn't watched you, the whole tree would have You’ve finished picking all the fruits!”

".I know, you just think I'm stupid."

"Don't you think you are stupid? Come on, don't be aggrieved. People criticizing you are just joking with you. In what year did you not eat half of the lychees in our courtyard first? Just don't take it to heart."

The girl nodded and replied:

"I didn't take it seriously, I just felt stupid."

As she spoke, she subconsciously raised her hand to rub her eyes, but when the boy opposite glared at her, she was so frightened that she quickly put her hand down.

After a pause, she sighed in the sterile suit, and then asked:

"Brother, do you think our experiment can be successful this time? Is the A&C-BEmax editor reliable?"

After hearing the girl's question, the boy thought in silence for a moment, and then answered:

"I have read the documentation of A&C-BEmax. This editor is not the kind of new experimental editor you think of every year. It is a complete one, verified and tuned by experimental data, and has high stability. Editor, in terms of performance and practicality, there is no problem with this editor.”

“But the problem is that although this editor incorporates the features of many editors in the world, it is different from all editors. Therefore, it actually takes a lot of time to learn and become familiar with this editor from scratch. .”

"Okay, now here comes the contradiction. We don't have that much time to study. Because according to the above arrangement, the topic of increasing production through KRN2 editing that we are studying this time is to deal with the food war in the ugly country. Results must be produced as quickly as possible.”

"So the difficulty is also obvious. How do we balance speed and accuracy, and how do we ensure that we achieve success the first time when using this editor."

"This is the biggest difficulty we face now."

The girl listening on the other side nodded thoughtfully, and then continued to ask:

"So what's the solution? We can't just gamble on luck, right?"

The boy smiled softly and replied:

"Don't tell me, it's really a gamble on luck. However, the way we gamble on luck is a bit special - have you seen The Wandering Earth? There is a concept called saturation rescue."

"What we are doing now is a saturation experiment."

"According to the news I have received, all agricultural science institutes and academies across the country that are capable of conducting gene editing experiments have begun to come into contact with this editor. We are among the first batch to use it and the first batch to start vaccination. "

"If our experiment fails, there will be nearly a hundred opportunities across the country."

"Among these opportunities, even if we only succeed once, even if we only feed one plant, it means that our experiment was successful this time."

"Although it's all a matter of luck, we are doing our best to eliminate those uncertainties."

"To use a vulgar chicken soup saying, it probably means, the harder you work, the luckier you get?"

"Hehehe, that seems to be the case. Senior brother, if our experiment is successful, how much do you expect this new variety of rice to increase in yield?"

"Theoretically, it should be about 20% - it mainly depends on the final ear formation. Then you should keep an eye on it and go to the fields frequently to avoid letting birds ruin our experimental fields."

"I know, I know. Senior brother, will you come with me then?"

"Can I not go with you? If you, a girl, patrol the fields alone, my spine will be broken."

Hearing the boy's words, the girl's eyes showed a hint of sweetness, but there was also a hint of doubt and disappointment.

However, this disappointment was quickly diluted by the boring work that continued. They sat opposite each other in the laboratory and worked until about 7 o'clock in the evening before they completed the shelling of all seeds.

After reaching this point, they had no chance to go out and rest.

If explant sterilization and inoculation are not completed immediately, the longer these seeds are exposed to air, the greater the impact on experimental stability.

But the workload that follows is so great that just the two of them might not be able to finish it in one night.

——

Fortunately, after they operated independently for half an hour, the agreed reinforcements arrived one after another, and the sterile inoculation room immediately became lively. Colleagues who were familiar with each other were chatting and laughing while they were operating. Unknowingly, The time came to 12 o'clock.

After completing the sealing of the last petri dish, everyone walked out of the sterile room together. When they took off their protective clothing and walked into the hall, they saw that the floor in the corner of the hall was already filled with things.

And Boss Wang, who had previously criticized girls for "not even stealing things," was sitting on the floor next to the pile of things, with a cigarette in his mouth and a drowsy look.

Seeing everyone coming out, he shook his head and stood up, walked to the girl and said:

"Come on, don't you like to eat lychees? This time I'll let you eat until you're full!"