If I ask you to set up a stall, why do you always run to deserted places?

The idea came to mind.

Su Wanqing herself was startled.

She had never thought about it from this perspective before.

Because all similar experiments reported in the literature were conducted at pH=7.4.

Then the ligand concentration was 10 mM.

These are the accepted standard parameters, and no one would be so bored as to change them.

But now, I don't know why.

Su Wanqing suddenly wanted to give it a try.

She opened the calculator software and quickly entered the new parameters.

The cursor bounced on the screen for a few seconds.

Then a re-simulated molecular diagram slowly generated.

"Hmm?"

Su Wanqing felt like her head was on fire.

Her breathing gradually quickened.

"Neat and orderly".

"Rhombus shape".

"Clear edges and corners."

Every parameter perfectly meets the requirements.

"this....."

Su Wanqing couldn't believe her eyes. She re-entered the parameters and ran the simulation again, and the result was still perfect.

"Damn, still the same?"

".....damn it!"

Su Wanqing checked the information and immediately found the problem.

The original standard document used a ligand concentration of 98%.

The reagent bottle in her hand was labeled with the same concentration.

But the actual effective ingredient content is only 97.2%!

The impurities were 0.8 percentage points lower!

0.8% sounds like a small amount, and it really is!

However, this 0.8% impurity, under neutral conditions, just happened to disrupt the assembly process!

The solution is quite simple.

Simply reduce the amount of ligands fed by 0.3 log units.

The interference from impurities can be ignored!

Ah!

It's that simple!

"..."

People can actually laugh when they're speechless.

Su Wanqing smiled.

After two months of torment, I lost a lot of hair and my eyes turned into panda eyes.

Now tell her the result.

It's just a difference of 0.3 log units in concentration!

Damn it!

Who prepared the reagents for her?!

Su Wanqing has made up her mind: when she gets to work tomorrow, she'll beat up anyone she sees!

Not a single one can be spared!

.....

"Yueyue".

Su Wanqing went to Lin Yue's room.

"What's wrong, Mom?"

Lin Yue peeked out from her room.

"fine."

Su Wanqing didn't know what to do either, so she thought for a moment and said...

"That young apprentice you mentioned, will he still be at school tomorrow?"

"Yes, what's up?"

Lin Yue blinked.

"Could you bring me another one tomorrow?"

Su Wanqing didn't know why she said that.

"Sure!"

Lin Yue grinned.

Su Wanqing wanted to say something more.

Just then, a sound of English came from the study next door.

Su Wanqing's expression changed slightly, and she turned to look at the end of the corridor.

That was Lin Yue's father, Lin Zhiyuan's, study.

He has stayed inside since after dinner and hasn't come out.

The door was tightly closed, and the soundproofing wasn't very good; occasionally, a few muffled English words could be heard.

Lin Yue's father works in research and development at a foreign-invested chemical company.

The group is full of foreigners.

We have an online group meeting every Wednesday night, where a bunch of Europeans chatter away.

Su Wanqing knew about this meeting.

However, her work was not aligned with Lin Zhiyuan's, so she had no idea what they were discussing all day long.

"Mom, is Dad in a meeting again?"

"Um."

Su Wanqing nodded.

Lin Yue pouted and muttered under her breath, "They're always running until the middle of the night."

Su Wanqing didn't reply; she glanced in the direction of the study.

After hesitating for a few seconds, I tiptoed over.

"I'm going to check on your dad."

Lin Zhiyuan's study was not closed properly.

Su Wanqing stood outside the door and could hear the conversation coming from inside.

"I think there's no need to discuss the conformational locking mechanism of this ligand at all."

A male voice with a heavy German accent is speaking.

"All we need is a skeletal structure that can coordinate stably; everything else is meaningless."

"But Mike, what if the skeletal structure itself is flexible..."

"There is no flexibility. I've told you so many times, there is no flexibility. The steric hindrance of this ligand is large enough that conformational inversion is impossible."

"Fuck!"

Another female voice interrupted, sounding very impatient.

"Can you please stop bringing up my assumptions? Have you forgotten who steered the experiment astray two weeks ago?"

"That sample bottle is still lying in the trash can."

"Lina, the failure of that sample was due to insufficient solvent purity, not because my hypothesis was wrong."

"Then how do you explain that the same solvent produced the expected results in the Basel lab?"

"....."

Su Wanqing stood outside the door, her lips twitching involuntarily.

What this group of people are discussing.

Surprisingly, the name sounded somewhat familiar.

What are ligand conformational locking, steric hindrance, and solvent effects?

She remembered when she was a graduate student.

She had studied these things.

However, so many years have passed.

I've completely forgotten about it.

I'm too lazy to get involved in these things now.

Su Wanqing looked into the room.

My husband isn't sitting at the computer right now; he's probably gone up to the balcony to smoke.

"Mom, what are they doing?"

Just then, Lin Yue came over.

Su Wanqing glanced back at her daughter and said, "It's nothing."

She pushed open the door and went in, pouring Lin Zhiyuan a glass of water.

Lin Yue followed her in and glanced curiously at the computer screen.

"This drawing is so bizarre."

Su Wanqing glanced at it.

He said it subconsciously.

"This should be an XRD pattern."

What is an XRD pattern?

Lin Yue scratched her head.

Neither of them noticed.

A green glow is shining on the microphone icon in the lower left corner of the computer screen.

this means.

The microphone wasn't turned off.

"XRD pattern, or X-ray diffraction, is a detection method for examining the atomic arrangement of raw materials."

Su Wanqing explained casually as she tidied the table.

"The conformation problem that your dad's group was discussing, to put it simply, is whether molecules can cross-link on their own."

"You can tell at a glance from the XRD."

"If the interplanar spacing in a specific direction of the unit cell parameters deviates by more than 0.3 angstroms, it indicates that the conformation is locked."

She wiped her hands as she spoke.

"I don't know why they're arguing about something so simple."

Lin Yue, of course, couldn't understand what she was saying.

But seeing her mother's confident expression, she smiled too.

"Those foreigners are really stupid."

"I wouldn't say he's stupid, it's just that his research direction is off."

Su Wanqing smiled.

"Your dad used to argue with me, insisting that foreigners were so much more technologically advanced, but it turns out he can't even understand something like this."

She kept talking.

Suddenly paused.

Huh?

So many years have passed.

How do I remember it so clearly?

and.

Why has the room suddenly become so quiet?