Chapter 1748: Genetic Optimization
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Lu Jin came to his laboratory table and took the DNA fragments of Qin Yaoguang and Wen Shouyi for verification and comparison.
Logically speaking, the accuracy of DNA identification when excluding the possibility of not being a parent-child relationship could be 100%.
In other words, when there was no blood relationship between two people, it was 100% accurate.
But to confirm that there was a direct parent-child relationship between the two, the accuracy was only 99.99999%.
The nine after this decimal point could vary according to the number of alleles intercepted.
However, under normal circumstances, when the accuracy of confirming that the two had a direct parent-child relationship was 99.99%, it could be confirmed that the two were direct parent-child relationships.
Lu Jin’s DNA test for Qin Yaoguang and Wen Shouyi was a full sequence.
This was not only a sequence that ordinary people could not afford, but even many people who were worth millions might not be able to afford it. Of course, it was not a big deal for Lu Jin.
He tested the full sequence, and the alleles that he cut off were as diverse as possible. Therefore, the accuracy of the paternity test that he tested was the highest, even if it was not 100%.
Before the test, he had to run electrophoresis. In simple terms, he had to make the DNA double helix “swim” under a certain voltage. The speed of “swimming” of different functional DNA fragments was different, so he could separate different DNA fragments.
Then, he had to intercept the alleles and use software to analyze and compare them.
Lu Jin completed a whole set of procedures, and Gu Nianzhi watched with great interest from the side.
Even though she couldn’t understand the pictures and data at all.
To be accurate, Lu Jin spent half an hour using software to analyze and compare the extracted allele fragments.
Finally, he let out a long sigh, “… They are biological mother and daughter.”
Gu Nianzhi was somewhat at a loss about this result.
She had been mentally prepared, but when this prediction was confirmed, she felt incredulous again.
“… Qin Yaoguang and Wen Shouyi?! Are they, biological mother and daughter?!” Gu Nianzhi was shocked. “Then they must have been surrogates? But why did she put Wen Shouyi in the Qin Orphanage? And then let Wen Dayou and his wife adopt her?!”
Lu Jin nodded, “Surrogates must be the only explanation. But why did Qin Yaoguang put Wen Shouyi in the orphanage? We could only ask Qin Yaoguang.”
“… But do you think she would tell the truth?” Gu Nianzhi asked quietly, her eyes were so dark that they couldn’t see the bottom.
Lu Jin answered seriously, “I don’t think she would. But I think this is her private matter. Do we have to ask?”
“Yes,” Gu Nianzhi nodded seriously. “This concerns the integrity of the court’s evidence chain. Dad, you knew Qin Yaoguang better than I do. Can you reason why she would do this?”
Lu Jin’s eyes began to spin as soon as Gu Nianzhi started speaking in legal terms, just like how Gu Nianzhi had heard high-energy physics terms.
He said in a daze, “Actually, I don’t know much about Qin Yaoguang. But I’ve worked with her on experiments for so many years, so I roughly knew
about her attitude towards genetic research.”
“What attitude?” Gu Nianzhi questioned quickly.
“Genetic research was one of her specialties. She used her egg cells to synthesize fertilized eggs and had other women surrogate them to give birth. It was like catching a lab rat from a cage.”
“Have you ever seen an experimenter pour their love into a lab rat? Or treated them like a human?”
Gu Nianzhi pouted and mumbled, “I was a lab rat too, but if Qin Yaoguang used me for an experiment, she might as well throw me into an orphanage. Why didn’t she use Wen Shouyi as an experiment?”
Lu Jin’s heart ached, and he didn’t know how to comfort her.
In a moment of desperation, he subconsciously said, “… Maybe Wen Shouyi was the product of a failed experiment, so she wasn’t used.”
Even though she wasn’t comforted, it was still a miracle that her mood had improved…
Gu Nianzhi still had a straight face and said seriously, “Looks like I was useful.”
Lu Jin rubbed his hands awkwardly and pleaded, “… Nianzhi, Daddy knows that he was wrong…”
Gu Nianzhi was embarrassed and went forward to hold Lu Jin’s hand. She pulled him to the sofa and sat down, “Daddy, I was just joking. But…”
She rolled her eyes, “You mean, Qin Yaoguang started researching embryo genes long before I was born?”
This question could be answered.
Lu Jin replied academically, “I don’t have any concrete evidence, but since Wen Shouyi was born this way, Qin Yaoguang must have researched this.”
“At that time, she didn’t ask me for advice, so I didn’t know that she had been doing this experiment for a long time.”
In other words, six years before Gu Nianzhi was born, Lu Jin still knew nothing about Qin Yaoguang’s secret experiment.
Gu Nianzhi nodded and continued to ask curiously, “But why would she use her egg cells and Wen Dayou’s sperm to make a fertilized egg and give birth to an embryo? I thought she would use someone else’s egg cells for research.”
Lu Jin smiled and responded casually, “If she already had such an experiment, it wouldn’t be her first time doing it, and it wouldn’t be her last.”
“What do you mean?” Gu Nianzhi’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Could it be that she had done many research experiments in this area, and even used other people’s egg cells?”
“From a scientific point of view, that’s for sure.”
Lu Jin patiently explained to her, “This kind of human embryo experiment takes a long time. Generally, from fertilization to the birth of the fetus, it takes at least seven months, including premature babies.”
“Normally, it takes nine months. Together with the preparation before and after, the process of screening the pregnant men and women would take a year.”
“When an experiment takes a year from preparation to the result, the person experimenting would not only do one experiment at a time. Do you understand what I meant?”
Gu Nianzhi carefully digested Lu Jin’s words in her mind. After a while, she replied thoughtfully, “You meant to say that doing such an experiment was no different from doing other biological experiments. We need to do a large number of experiments to screen out the effective results.”
“She would prepare many of these fertilized eggs and transplant them into the pregnant woman’s stomach to get pregnant and then observe the results.”
Lu Jin nodded heavily, “Exactly. The failure rate of experiments on biological genes was quite high. Therefore, she needed to accumulate the number of eggs to achieve a qualitative change from a quantitative change.”
“Qin Yaoguang couldn’t just use her egg cells for so many experiments,” Lu Jin used a scientific tone to explain the common sense of egg cells to Gu Nianzhi.
“All mammalian females have immature egg cells in their ovaries when they were born.”
“The number of female eggs was fixed at birth. It won’t increase, only gradually decrease.”
“So it was impossible for Qin Yaoguang to conduct such a large-scale experiment using only her eggs. She must have used other people’s eggs before.”
Gu Nianzhi finally understood. She covered her mouth with her hand and gasped, “Oh my god! How many embryo experiments did Qin Yaoguang conduct?! And how many Wen Shouyi and Gu Nianzhi were born this way?!”
Lu Jin smiled wryly, “Nianzhi, did you think that such experiment would succeed easily?”
“Did you think it’s grafting?”
She thought so!
“Was it… Harder?” Gu Nianzhi’s long black eyelashes fluttered, and her big eyes were full of curiosity.
“Not just harder, it is very difficult,” Lu Jin didn’t know how to explain it to Gu Nianzhi. “I just checked Wen Shouyi’s DNA sequence. I could see that Qin Yaoguang tried to genetically edit her, but it didn’t work.”
Gu Nianzhi frowned, “That means she started to genetically edit the embryo before she gave birth to me, or was it because of… He Zhichu’s illness?”
“I was not sure if she wanted Wen Shouyi to be born because of He Zhichu’s illness, but that could be the prototype of her idea. From then on, she started experimenting with this method.”
“But you have to know that the human body’s genes are very complicated and huge. Decades ago, our understanding of genes was not as comprehensive as it is now, and the equipment and technology were not as advanced as they are now.”
“In that kind of situation, there were very few fertilized eggs that could successfully get into the bed. It could be said that out of a thousand fertilized eggs that had been genetically edited, only one could successfully get into the bed and impregnate the mother.”
“And after these fertilized eggs developed into embryos, it would be amazing if one out of a hundred could be born successfully.”
Gu Nianzhi was very confused, “Did you mean, those embryos that were pregnant would miscarry?”
“Of course, and the probability of miscarriage would be very high,” Lu Jin sighed. “Because these embryos were genetically edited, many of them had genetic defects.”
“The human body has the function of self-selection. Embryos with genetic defects are called congenital defects. In a natural state, they would miscarry unless you use unconventional methods to preserve the fetus.”
“For scientific experiments, we would not preserve the fetus of embryos with congenital defects. Did you understand what I mean? Very, very few children were successfully born and survived through genetic editing. I suspect that in Qin Yaoguang’s experiments, Wen Shouyi was probably the only embryo that was born and survived.”
Gu Nianzhi nodded slowly. She understood a little, but she had a new question.
“… You mentioned that embryos that had been genetically edited all had congenital genetic defects. So… am I the same as Wen Shouyi?”
Lu Jin shook his head first, then nodded and answered, “You’re not. Wen Shouyi is.”
“Why am I not?” Gu Nianzhi was very suspicious. “Dad, don’t say things like that just to comfort me.”
“I was not comforting you. You were questioning my professionalism!” Lu Jin’s eyes widened. “I edited your genes!”
“My method was completely different from Qin Yaoguang’s. She was disrupting the sequence of the original gene fragments and only nurturing the genes with He Zhichu’s flaws.”
“On the other hand, I was excluding those non-human viral genes based on your original genes, and then using your genes to expand and express them before adding them in.”
“As a result of this, your genes had not been altered. Instead, it had been optimized to the greatest extent on the original basis.”
Lu Jin couldn’t help feeling smug, “As it turned out, I succeeded. You own the first perfect set of genes in human history! And it’s based on not changing your original genes!”
She was slowly getting confused in the conversation.
She knew every word Lu Jin said, but she couldn’t understand it when they were put together.
