Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 235 Bio-nanomachines

Two weeks later, at the Magic Research Institute, Andrew Tucker had prepared the genetically modified adenovirus.

"We have conducted preliminary experimental verifications, and the elderly mice injected with the transgenic adenovirus showed improved functional levels in all aspects compared to their counterparts, with a reduction in aging rate of approximately 9%."

"9%? That's so low?"

"Due to the immune response, the proportion of non-replicating viruses is relatively large, but overdosing can cause severe inflammatory reactions, and repeated dosing also faces immune problems, so the effect has not been ideal."

It has an anti-aging effect of about 30% in in vitro experiments, but only 9% in animal experiments. Whether it can still work after entering the human body is a question.

However, this is the norm in the pharmaceutical industry. The clinical environment and in vitro experiments are completely different concepts. In vitro, any drug is considered a miracle drug, but the complexity of the in vivo environment is many orders of magnitude higher, and the drug's effectiveness is often greatly reduced.

"Has a replicating virus been prepared?" Murphy asked again.

Genetically modified viruses are still viruses. If they are allowed to replicate in the body, they may cause unpredictable consequences. Therefore, genetically modified therapy uses viruses with replication defects, making them only a one-time tool. This makes them relatively safe and has virtually no side effects.

However, it seems that non-replicating viruses are unlikely to be effective at this point, so Murphy plans to use replicating viruses directly for the Seed of the Mind experiment.

"It's ready."

Murphy arrived at the laboratory soon.

Because the Seed of the Mind is required, mice cannot be used as test subjects.

This time they found 40 goblins, all of which had previously undergone long-term chronic injections of dictamnus extract, resulting in extremely rapid aging and a generally consistent degree of aging.

Forty goblins were divided into four groups. Three of these groups, each with 12 goblins, were injected with different doses of the virus; these were the experimental groups. The other four goblins were not injected with the virus and served as the non-virus control group.

In the three experimental groups, each group was further divided into four subgroups: A, B, C, and D. Murphy would cast different Mind Seed spells on three goblins in the three subgroups A, B, and C, while not casting Mind Seed on the subgroup D, which served as a non-spell control group.

Murphy released the same Mind Seed on all nine goblins in Group A: "After healing aging, disintegrate on its own."

Then, the Seed of Mind used on Group B is: "To maintain the host's health."

For Group C, Murphy had a sudden inspiration: instead of setting the content of the Mind Seed, he gave them a Mind Seed with a communication interface similar to that of the werewolf mercenaries.

For the next two days, Murphy and the others kept observing the condition of the various goblins.

All the goblins in the high-dose experimental groups showed inflammatory reactions, but the performance of group A was relatively stable, the effect of group B was extremely poor, and the goblins in groups C and D were close to death, with one of each group already dead.

The low-dose experimental group showed milder goblin symptoms, but no significant reduction in aging levels was observed.

The results in the medium-dose group were quite good. Although the inflammatory response in group A was slightly higher than that in the low-dose group, it was still within a controllable range, and a significant reduction in aging levels was observed. The effects in group B were similar to those in the low-dose group, while groups C and D showed higher inflammatory responses and a more slight reduction in aging levels.

Based on the results from Group A, it appears that Seed of the Mind does indeed have a beneficial effect on the treatment of genetically modified viruses.

However, the effectiveness of its treatment and whether there are any further side effects still need to be determined through further observation.

Murphy guessed that the situation in Group B was related to the fact that his orders were too vague.

To further verify this, Murphy turned his attention to the goblins in Group C.

He used a Mind Seed on this group of goblins that didn't have built-in commands, but could overwrite commands through the connection with the caster. Theoretically, it was extremely flexible, but he hadn't tried using it yet and didn't know if it was feasible.

Murphy immediately issued a command to a goblin: "Heal the host's aging."

This command can be compared with Group A to test whether the treatment effect of the virus is affected by the subsequent command, but it may take some time to see the results.

Then Murphy gave another order to a Group C goblin: "Escape the cage, or die."

At first, the goblin didn't react much, but soon it started to get agitated, shaking the cage frequently. After a few minutes, the goblin went completely mad, desperately trying to get out of the cage, and even using human language to beg.

Murphy watched this scene with a sense of shock, even though he had expected it.

There is no doubt that the virus controlled the goblin's behavior. The virus could not possibly understand his commands, but perhaps through the goblin's brain, it understood and carried out the commands through the goblin.

A few minutes later, the goblin visibly decayed, blood flowing from his mouth and nose. A few minutes later, the goblin died.

Murphy waited a while and extracted some tissue samples from the goblin. He observed its ability to infect animal cells in a culture reagent with a very small amount of dictamnus extract added. Finally, he confirmed that the viruses in the goblin's body had also been inactivated.

Under the influence of the Seed of the Mind, the viruses not only killed the goblins who were their hosts, but also killed themselves!

Murphy breathed a sigh of relief. A virus that can commit suicide is a good virus.

Since it can be guaranteed that the virus can die on its own, then as long as the side effects are not severe enough to be fatal, it is worth trying.

The safety of treatment with this is greatly increased.

His anxiety, which had been hanging over him since his battle with the shaman, eased a little. Although with the highest external anti-aging rate of 30%, this thing could probably only prolong his life temporarily, at least he wouldn't have to worry about suddenly dying.

He immediately relaxed a lot and then became curious about the mechanism by which the Seed of the Mind controlled the virus. How exactly did it understand the command to "leave the cage"?

If it can understand this instruction, can it understand more complex instructions?

Write down a number.

The goblins did not react.

Murphy thought for a moment, then said, "Write down the next 2."

After a while, the goblin convulsed as if he had gone mad, his hands shaking like a leaf, yet he still managed to draw a crooked number 2 on the ground.

Murphy understood. "It didn't understand the instruction; rather, it translated my instruction into an executable state. If my instruction is too vague and lacks the necessary capability to complete it, the instruction will most likely fail."

In other words, the way the instruction to "treat host aging" is accomplished is by the genetically modified virus frantically replicating and releasing metabolic products to repair the host's DNA.

If it weren't for the vampire gene, the adenovirus itself wouldn't have anti-aging capabilities, and this command wouldn't take effect.

The command "write a 2" is, for the virus, a stimulus to the goblin's nervous system, causing it to complete the action of drawing a specific shape on the ground.

Murphy suddenly realized that Funes Bachmann and Omid Abbott had speculated that the Seed of the Mind could enable viruses or bacteria to develop intelligence through the host's brain, which might be a misunderstanding.

These viruses may simply be acting as a whole, becoming the "hardware" and tools controlled by the Seed of the Mind.

They may exhibit certain behavioral patterns that seem to suggest intelligence, but behind these patterns lies the fact that the seeds of the mind are releasing signals that they can understand.

If this is indeed the case, wouldn't these viruses be equivalent to biological nanomachines?

Is there any way to enable them to locate cancer cells in the body and kill them precisely?

If possible, it could replace CAR-T therapy and suppress his cancer to a level that would not affect his life.

In this way, wouldn't his two major symptoms, aging and cancer, be alleviated?

At least, you don't have to worry about dying before you get the magic stone.

So another question arises: how do we get the virus to recognize and locate cancer cells?

(End of this chapter)