Chapter 32: Probiotics (2)
“Doctor Ryu Young-Joon obtained his doctorate from Jungyoon University and is working at A-Gen,” Song Ji-Hyun explained.
“A-Gen...”
Choi Yeon-Ho thought about the name for a while.
“Right, he said A-Gen in his interview, too. Ugh, why does it have to be A-Gen again...”
Choi Yeon-Ho covered his face with his hands. Celligener had a traumatic memory of A-Gen. Even right now, their management was being swayed by A-Gen because of their investment.
“Doctor Song, if we collaborate with this person, will we be able to solve the problems with the probiotic we are working on?” Choi Yeon-Ho asked.
Song Ji-Hyun thought for a little bit. When she first met Young-Joon, he said that there was no point in digging deeper into bifidobacterium when he was looking at Roche’s probiotics, and that proved to be true. He was someone who worked on stem cells, but he knew how to suppress the parvovirus in animals as well. He shook Science, the best scientific journal in the world by making induced pluripotent stem cells. He was a mysterious person, and Song Ji-Hyun could not figure out his specialization. She could not determine the depth of his knowledge. That was the kind of scientist he was.
And Young-Joon said that they were going to make a product that would dominate the probiotics market.
“I think it will be good if we collaborate. I think he will be of great help.”
“What about his personality? I want to work with someone who keeps their research ethics. We suffered a lot with the new liver cancer drug, right?”
If it was Gil Hyun-Joon or Kim Hyun-Taek that Choi Yeon-Ho was asking, they would have been furious and would have said that he was clinically insane when it came to research ethics.
But the image that popped up in Song Ji-Hyun’s head was not Young-Joon cursing at Kim Hyun-Taek or insisting that he could not give a penny of royalties to Gil Hyung-Joon. She thought about how Young-Joon revealed a company secret in front of a scientist of a competitor in order to save her golden retriever.
It wasn’t enough to judge a person’s character, but that incident was deeply embedded in her head.
“I think he is an amazing person.”
“Good. Then let’s set up a meeting. Please contact them and get a date,” Choi Yeon-Ho said.
* * *
Celligener’s existence depended on this probiotic product. If this product’s process development went well, they were thinking of getting a lot of money and escaping the hands of A-Gen.
There was a reason they chose probiotics. First of all, the market had a huge growth potential; they could maintain the company through a stable source of income if they established themselves there. Second, even though A-Gen was dominating the Korean pharmaceutical and healthcare market, they had a weak spot in probiotics because ActiveBio, Roche’s product, was quickly taking over the international market.
In this situation, A-Gen would not be able to scream about making them close doors like they did with their new liver cancer drug because if Celligener held out engaged in a legal dispute, Roche would seize the opportunity of the scandal and take the Korean market.
As such, they developed a new capsule coating technology, and based on that, they tried to make the best probiotics.
But they had a problem. Could they find the solution in this meeting?
As Celligener’s representatives, Choi Yeon-Ho, Song Ji-Hyun, and Principal Scientist Gu Dong-Ho went to A-Gen to visit Lab Six.
“They definitely have a big lab because they are a big company,” Song Ji-Hyun said with a little admiration.
“To be honest, I’m a little jealous that they have six of these.”
Choi Yeon-Ho let out a sigh inside.
‘Celligener should be this big, too.’
If A-Gen didn’t steal the new liver cancer drug from them, they would be a much bigger company by now. A successful and huge company like A-Gen stole from a start-up pharmaceutical company that was the size of their palm. To be honest, it was unfair and infuriating.
Choi Yeon-Ho, Song Ji-Hyun, and Gu Dong-Ho received their visitor passes at the Lab Six entrance and went inside. They looked for the meeting room in Ward One, but they could not find it; it was hard to navigate because the building was so big.
“I’ll try calling him.”
Song Ji-Hyun called Young-Joon, but all she heard was the dial tone.
“I guess he’s busy,” Gu Dong-Ho said.
“Maybe he’s preparing for the meeting since it’s soon.”
Song Ji-Hyun looked a little worried.
That was when two women wearing lab coats appeared at the end of the hallway with excited faces. They could hear them talk as they walked in their direction.
“Wasn’t that Doctor Ryu Young-Joon in front of the washroom?”
“Right? I saw him, too. It’s crazy. He even seems handsome now that he’s successful.”
“I should have asked for his autograph or something.”
“You’re right. My colleague from Lab Two asked me to get Doctor Ryu Young-Joon’s autograph if I ever run into him... I heard that his name is on the Nobel Prize waitlist.”
“Excuse me! Wait!”
Song Ji-Hyun ran in front of them.
“Do you happen to know where Room 104 is? The small meeting room for visitors.”
“If you go down to that corner, you’ll see a poster of someone named Doctor Ryu Young-Joon. If you look to the left from there, you’ll see the room.”
‘A poster of Ryu Young-Joon?’
They really did see a poster of him as they turned the corner in puzzlement.
[The supernova of the scientific community that Lab Six created. Ryu Young-Joon’s Special Work Seminar]
The Research Support team had put it up as ordered by Gil Hyung-Joon. They had put a huge picture of someone’s face on it and listed the schedule for the seminar. Also, someone had crossed out the word “created” and doodled below it.
[Did Korea University create Kim Yuna?][1]
[Ryu Young-Joon’s mom created Ryu Young-Joon]
“We’re going to the meeting room to meet this person right now?” Choi Yeon-Ho asked in puzzlement.
He predicted that Young-Joon would have become a huge star now that he had released an incredible paper and interview, but he didn’t expect it to be this big. Young-Joon was probably extremely busy after gaining this much fame, so didn’t the fact that he was the one who asked for this meeting about probiotics first mean that there was something to look forward to?
When the three people entered the small meeting room, they met Young-Joon.
“Hello. You’re alone?” Song Ji-Hyun asked.
“Next time, let’s have a meeting with all the department members that work on probiotics. You’ll just have a short meeting with me today.”
First, Choi Yeon-Ho, the CEO of Celligener, presented the capsule coating technology. As he went through the slides, he explained the capsule coating technology of Roche and A-Gen, and did a comparative analysis of Celligener’s technology with the others.
“... And so, we selected the strategy of using microcapsules overlaid with Alginate, a natural polymer material. If you use this to coat microorganisms along with prebiotics that contain a few types of amino acids, it can be stored for a very long period of time,” Choi Yeon-Ho said.
“You’re packaging prebiotics in the same capsule?” Young-Joon asked.
Prebiotics generally referred to nutrients that promoted the growth and activity of intestinal microorganisms. Recently, a technology where the composition of intestinal microorganisms could be changed with specific prebiotics and without introducing new microorganisms.
‘But packaging probiotics with prebiotics in one capsule?’
“Yes. We have done that for the capsule coating technology we developed. We discovered that the viability and storage time increases greatly.”
“I see.”
It was great technology and very advanced as well. The viability of the microorganisms that were sent to the body was much higher than the capsule coating that A-Gen or Roche used.
Probiotics usually went through four steps to enter the human body.
1. The growth of microorganisms.
2. Downstream process.
3. Storage.
4. Consumption through the stomach.
The probability of a microorganism surviving the four steps and landing in the intestine was quite low, so the key to probiotic products was to increase that probability.
First of all, it was necessary to cultivate it from the beginning of the growth process with high efficiency and to highly concentrate the living cells with equipment such as a giant centrifuge. A-Gen’s probiotics team was good at this, and Choi Myung-Joon specialized in this.
And as of now, Celligener had the world’s best technology for the downstream process and storage steps.
“How much does the viability of the microorganisms introduced to the body increase compared to Roche or A-Gen?” Young-Joon asked.
“It increases by about eight percent,” Choi Yeon-Ho replied.
Young-Joon was satisfied. He smiled on the inside as eight percent was quite a significant value.
“But we have a problem,” Song Ji-Hyun spoke all of a sudden.
“A problem?” Young-Joon asked as he turned to face her.
“It’s not so much a problem... as it is a point for improvement, but I thought we should tell you this in advance if we work together.”
“What is it?”
“When the alginate hydrogel capsule is introduced, the cross-link is undone through a cation exchange reaction and dissolves. If this happens in the beginning, the viability of the microorganisms decreases greatly.”
“Hm...”
Young-Joon thought for a bit, then said, “Do you happen to have a prototype or something like that of your probiotic product?”
“Our product?” Choi Yeon-Ho asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s not really a product yet, but...”
They did bring something that was packaged like a real product to appeal to Young-Joon. It was a small blue stick that looked like Lemona.[2]
“This is our product prototype.”
Choi Yeon-Ho handed him something. Young-Joon ripped the end off and examined the inside.
[Synchronization Mode: Would you like to gain insight into probiotics? Fitness consumption rate: 0.2/second]
Click.
Young-Joon pressed the synchronization button.
[Bifidobacterium lactis, Bifidobacterium bifidum, Bifidobacterium...]
This time as well, the names of the microorganisms and information about their processes appeared at once.
‘It would be nice if she could give me a hint about capsule coating... Huh?’
A message popped up above Synchronization Mode.
[Rosaline’s synchronization level has increased due to the frequent usage of Synchronization Mode.]
[Rosaline has leveled up.]
[The Rosaline cells in your brain are able to exchange electrical signals more systematically with the synapses in your cerebral cortex. As a result, you are able to ask Rosaline for conscious advice from now on.]
[You were able to have short conversations with Rosaline when choosing options consuming more than one fitness point, but it was limited to the explanation of the option itself. However, Advice allows Rosaline to find the information you want as the almighty presence in the microworld.]
[This option consumes a large amount of fitness as it requires Rosaline to form new neurons and multidimensional electrical signals from your cerebral cortex.]
“...”
[Advice: About capsule coating. Fitness consumption rate: 2/second]
This option consumed two points of fitness per second. It was a large amount, but Young-Joon could use it. As Rosaline leveled up, Young-Joon’s fitness was recovered, and the maximum amount was increased as well.
Right now, Young-Joon had 2.2 points of fitness, meaning that Rosaline could teach him about capsule coating for one second. However, this information was not explained, absorbed, and understood through communication media such as speech or text; it was the forced injection of knowledge that created new long-term memory neurons in the brain. He would be able to absorb quite a lot of knowledge in one second.
Click.
Young-Joon pressed the [Advice] button, and powerful knowledge began coming into his head.
[Put a layer of chitosan on the inside of the alginate to create a two-layer coating.]
[Create an aqueous solution of 0.4% chitosan, remove insoluble impurities by permeating it through nylon, then add 0.1M of CaCl2. Then follow Celligener’s standard producing methods, but include a step to add the sodium alginate solution to the sterile chitosan solution. Keep at -20 degrees Celsius with the strain protectant.]
“...”
As Young-Joon stared blankly at the message window, Song Ji-Hyun tapped his shoulder.
“Doctor Ryu?”
“Oh, I solved it,” Young-Joon replied.
“Solve what?”
“The capsule coating problem you just talked about, Doctor Song. You have to add chitosan. I’ll tell you how.”
The three of them were frozen, unable to say anything. Young-Joon was now used to this atmosphere.
“Trust me and test it once.”
* * *
‘This is insane.’
Rosaline, who leveled up, didn’t just help Young-Joon gain insight and find the answer, but it could generate answers that did not exist.
‘Wait.’
Young-Joon, who was returning to the lab, stopped in his tracks.
Clorotonis limuvitus was also a strain that Rosaline recommended when she was still at a low level.
‘Maybe I could get more information if I inspect it with Advice?’
As soon as Young-Joon returned to the lab, he waited for his fitness to recover as if he had bought a lottery ticket and was waiting for the numbers to be announced. He even injected ATP into his veins. After he had enough fitness, he gained insight into Clorotonis limuvitus, the microorganism strain, and gained advice.
[Clorotonis limuvitus is a mucus-dissolving bacteria that can live in the mucus layer of the intestines. They are more efficient than Akkermansia muciniphila and are excellent at settling in the intestine. However, they are less efficient in creating vesicles than Akkermansia muciniphila, so overexpress the following genes: ATak711, YJ2, mCAL...]
‘What is she talking about? Why is Akkermansia muciniphila coming up?’
Akkermansia was also the name of a microorganism. It was the main focus of a paper published in Nature in 2013. It was a species that was excellent in preventing obesity when it was in the intestines. Furthermore, the paper stated that it had a small effect on type 2 diabetes.
[If you overexpress the genes above in Clorotonis and transplant it into the intestines, it is predicted that it will be one thousand times more efficient than Akkermansia muciniphila.]
[If this microorganism is orally administered, you can cure 74% of existing type 2 diabetes patients.]
[No more fitness remaining.]
1. Kim Yuna used to attend Korea University, and the university used her for marketing and advertising the school, saying that they created Kim Yuna. ?
2. Lemona is a packaged vitamin C powder stick. It’s a skinny rectangle that contains vitamin C powder in it. ?