The "big sister" who loves hot dry noodles took the time to publish a top magazine and refreshed history

Recently, the international top journal Cell published online a research paper on ovarian cancer treatment by Professor Gao Qinglei and her team from Tongji Hospital affiliated to Huazhong University of Science and Technology, titled "Ovarian cancer neoadjuvant PARP inhibitors or chemotherapy reveal a new target for homologous recombination-deficient tumor treatment - eTreg cells". It is reported that this is the first time that a Chinese gynecological oncologist has "topped the list" of Cell, breaking the history of my country's gynecological oncology discipline without a top journal paper. The innovative breakthrough has brought new hope and direction to the treatment of ovarian cancer.

Gao Qinglei

Bringing new hope to patients

Even though she is used to seeing life and death, Gao Qinglei still feels sad when a critically ill patient passes away. An incident a few years ago has left her with a long-lasting ache. A mother developed drug resistance due to repeated recurrences of ovarian cancer and repeated chemotherapy, and her condition was very bad. The mother's greatest wish was to see her daughter, who was in her third year of high school, go to college. However, she did not make it to that day.

"We must find a new way as soon as possible. We can't just watch the patient's family invest money, time and expectations, but still be dragged into the bottomless abyss by ovarian cancer!" The separation of life and death in the ward strengthened Gao Qinglei's determination to fight ovarian cancer to the end.

Ovarian cancer has long been ranked among the top 10 female malignancies and is known as the "silent killer." Clinically, this cancer is late-stage and 70% of patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage, 70% of patients will relapse after treatment, and 70% of patients will not survive more than 5 years after diagnosis. Ovarian cancer is difficult to cure, easy to resist drugs, and easy to relapse, which increases the difficulty of treatment and the mortality rate of patients.

Is there any way to make the treatment of ovarian cancer more precise and effective, and reduce the drug resistance of patients? Gao Qinglei paid attention to a safe, effective and low-toxic oral drug - the PARP inhibitor niraparib. She tried to conduct a clinical trial of the neoadjuvant PARP inhibitor niraparib oral monotherapy for high-grade serous ovarian cancer.

After experimental analysis, Gao Qinglei found that immunotherapy can only work if eTreg cells are cleared and immune cells are released. For the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer, the traditional approach is to first perform adjuvant chemotherapy, then surgery, and then chemotherapy. The disadvantage of this approach is that repeated chemotherapy is prone to drug resistance. Gao Qinglei's team has found a new way to take drugs first to control tumor development, then perform surgery, and finally chemotherapy, thereby reducing patients' resistance to chemotherapy.

Many people have raised questions: For a tumor that is difficult to completely remove, can medication be effective? If it is ineffective, won't it delay the patient's treatment? In this case, Gao Qinglei's team needs to find an effective population and obtain more data. The team selected hundreds of samples and conducted single-cell and multimodal analysis studies on 127 high-grade plasma ovarian cancer samples. They found antibody drugs that clear eTreg cells and innovatively discovered treatments for advanced tumors with homologous recombination repair defects. This new idea for precision treatment has brought new hope to patients with ovarian cancer.

Gao Qinglei (second from right) and team members

From the start of the research in 2022 and the acquisition of the first sample to the official publication of the paper in Cell, in just over two years, Gao Qinglei's team completed the massive sample testing that many people would find difficult to do in four or five years. Gao Qinglei attributed the experience to the "three basic principles" of research: work hard, seize time, and make corrections quickly.

Gao Qinglei's team also applied the "three basic principles" of scientific research to the revision of the paper. Faced with the revision comments, the research team of more than 30 people worked non-stop for 7 months from May 2023, working more than 12 hours a day. In the revised manuscript, the team answered the reviewers' questions word by word, compiling an 84-page, 22,000-word response.

It was Gao Qinglei and her team's persistence and seriousness in scientific research that enabled them to overcome numerous difficulties and ultimately achieve the first breakthrough in the top journal of gynecological oncology in China.

Race against time with the disease

Many people may not know that basic research is just Gao Qinglei's "side job". Her main job is a clinical doctor. As the director of a tertiary hospital, she is not only responsible for the management of the department, but also sees patients four and a half days a week and performs more than 800 operations every year. She is one of the doctors with the most operating tables and the longest operation time in the hospital.

How did a seemingly weak female doctor complete so many difficult and high-intensity operations? Gao Qinglei has two experiences. First, she relied on the belief of doctors to save lives and heal the wounded - it is the doctor's duty to try to give patients more chances of survival and recovery; second, she needed to eat a big bowl of hot dry noodles in Wuhan every day - a bowl of hot dry noodles can ensure that she will not feel hungry for six or seven hours.

Gao Qinglei leads students on ward rounds

From the records of the past few years, most of Gao Qinglei's surgeries were tumor surgeries. Because of this, in the selection of the "Hospital Core Human Resources Award" which comprehensively evaluates the duration and difficulty of surgery, Gao Qinglei was ranked first in the hospital for two years. Therefore, the time outside of seeing patients, making rounds and performing surgeries is her time for scientific research.

"Although we cannot have a large amount of continuous research time like researchers who specialize in basic research, we have been in the clinical frontline for a long time, and we have a more specific grasp of the situation and more reliable data. We have certain advantages from clinical practice to basic research and then to clinical practice," said Gao Qinglei. "The main purpose of clinical doctors doing research is not to publish papers, but to solve practical problems in clinical practice, find more effective ways to treat diseases, and save more lives. Combining clinical and basic research, the process of constantly switching between the two identities is often an important catalytic process for the birth of innovative results."

Gao Qinglei is the first doctoral student of Martin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Tongji Hospital affiliated to Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology. As the "senior sister", her juniors often ask her a question - you have to see patients and perform a large number of surgeries, be responsible for department management, go out for lectures and exchanges, do research, guide students, and produce results. How can you find enough time? Her answer - first, talk, walk, eat, and do things faster; second, don't go home before 11 o'clock every night.

In order to win the race against the disease, Gao Qinglei has been racing against time.