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Text | Han You
Edit | Han You
"If you go back in time, give me another 10 years to kill ALS. ”
This year is the fifth year that Cai Lei has been fighting ALS, and since he was diagnosed, he has been fighting ALS tenaciously in his own way.
After graduating from the University of Finance and Economics, he knew nothing about disease research, but because of this disease, he resigned from the position of vice president of JD.com without hesitation to challenge a new field - life sciences.
He spent almost all his savings on the research of ALS, and invested more than 1 billion yuan in three years on the road of antifreeze research, during which he failed more than 30 times.
On April 23, during the interview, his condition deteriorated severely, with "a crooked spine", "atrophied tongue and lower lip", and he had difficulty speaking in a wheelchair......
Even though his physical condition has become like this, he still does not give up and insists on waiting for hope to come.
Race against time to create hope
"Is one percent considered hope, is one in 10,000 a hope, is one in a billion a hope?"
Faced with what his wife said to him, such as "meaningless" and "impossible to succeed", Cai Lei retorted like this.
Although his wife said something like that, Cai Lei knew better than anyone else that his wife had been supporting him without complaint, both in her heart and in action.
They all knew in each other's hearts that these words were their wife's distress and unbearability for Cai Lei to work so hard when he was sick.
How hard does Cai Lei work?
Even though he suffers from such a disease, he still insists on working every day, reading literature, making funds, and promoting research and development with his team.
It is said that the scientific research team he set up to develop drugs works more than 16 hours a day, which means that 24 hours a day, leaving only a short 8 hours for himself to eat, sleep, and deal with daily things.
"There are at least seven or eight key colleagues who fight with me every day until 10 or 11 o'clock in the evening. This is almost Cai Lei's daily work state.
Cai Lei with his desperate spirit, as soon as he got up to work, he reached the realm of selflessness, once the most, he met pharmaceutical companies to meet scientists, met scientists and then met investment institutions, and participated in more than a dozen meetings a day.
It's a real race against time to do as much as you can in your limited time.
But it was he who worked so hard and worked so disregard for his own body, which also accelerated the deterioration of his condition, and his wife couldn't bear it, so she said such things.
If you want to ask Cai Lei why he works so hard, his answer is "I am used to hard work".
Since he was a child, Cai Lei's education has taught him to work hard and struggle, and those who have the ability should challenge those things that seem impossible.
Therefore, on this road, he never gave up easily, not only for himself, but also for those patients suffering from ALS.
Cai Lei has always firmly believed: as long as you do it and stick to it, there will be hope.
But at the same time, he also knows the difficulties he and his team are facing, and these difficulties are huge challenges for everyone.
Rise to the challenge
You must know that the incidence rate of ALS is only about 4 to 6 in 100,000, and the cure rate of ALS is almost zero at the current medical level.
To conduct research, there must be a large amount of data to analyze, and where these data come from can only be obtained from a small number of ALS patients, but the current number of ALS pathological samples is far from enough to support this research.
So Cai Lei called on patients across the country to do their best to contribute to this research, and even took the lead in signing an agreement to donate their bodies, even if it really came to that point, he would make a final contribution to this research.
In his words, it was "to make the last bullet with your own life".
Perhaps because Cai Lei himself has the same experience, he has a strong appeal among the ALS population.
Under his active advocacy, many patients joined in, and thousands of patients, including the "People's Hero Zhang Dingyu", actively responded to his call.
Cai Lei's recruitment speed can even be measured in hours, and he has successfully built a pathological research sample bank for ALS, which has played a huge role in promoting research.
Not only that, in the early stage of the disease, Cai Lei found that ALS patients seemed to be a group that was "forgotten" by many people, and if it weren't for the people around them, few people would pay attention to this kind of people.
Perhaps when it comes to ALS, many people can only think of "Hawking", but few people understand the characteristics of ALS, its prevention and intervention.
As a result, Cai Lei launched the second "Ice Bucket Challenge" in Beijing.
The challenge was first launched by Americans in 2014 and required participants to experience what ALS patients feel like by dousing them with ice water, and donating $100 to people who are resistant to ALS.
This challenge will not only allow more people to know about ALS, a rare disease, but also raise funds for ALS.
On the streets of Beijing in 2021, Cai Lei also launched this challenge, and he personally took the lead in donating 1 million yuan in the event.
His goal is to use this challenge to raise the attention of people from all walks of life to ALS patients and donate to drug research and development.
In addition, Cai Lei has also carried out more than 200 financing roadshows, but the series of measures he has taken to raise funds have not achieved good results.
Later, he and his wife also embarked on the road of live broadcasting......
Silently supported his wife
"Why did you come up with the idea of going live?"
"Because of lack of money".
Although Cai Lei has made great efforts, scientific research requires a lot of financial support, and it will not last long just by relying on the existing income of his family.
So, Cai Lei and his wife joined the live broadcast outlet.
"The founder of Cai Lei's icebreaker station", this is the profile of Cai Lei's wife Duan Rui (pseudonym) Weibo homepage.
Anyone who knows anything about Cai Lei should know that "Cai Lei Icebreaker Station" is the name of their live broadcast room.
In their windows, there are some affordable daily necessities: potted gardenias for nine yuan, more than 20 boxes of pumping paper, spices, kitchen knives, and garbage bags.
clicked into the live broadcast room, Cai Lei was sitting on a stool, and on the table in front of him was the book "Believe" he wrote, and next to him was Duan Rui, who was explaining the goods to everyone.
Today, the account has more than 4.6 million followers, and the number of online viewers in the live broadcast room is also tens of thousands at each broadcast, which is much faster than when you were looking for financing everywhere.
But when the live broadcast room was first established, it also faced great difficulties.
They have never really been exposed to the live broadcast industry, and every step of the way has been difficult at first.
At the beginning, they did all the big and small things in the construction, selection, and operation of the live broadcast room.
But they have little experience, and they also suffered huge losses at the beginning, and the live broadcast room has been in a state of losing money for a long time.
Seeing that Cai Lei's live broadcast room was "precarious" with all his might, Duan Rui resolutely gave up his job as a partner of an accounting firm and devoted himself to the live broadcast room.
Duan Rui's accounting firm is the result of her first entrepreneurship, and no one will easily give up the hard-won results if it is put on others, but Duan Rui decisively became an anchor for the sake of her husband Cai Lei and the entire anti-frost research.
At the beginning, she would also worry about the live broadcast for several hours, she had no talent, let alone skills, how to attract everyone to the live broadcast room?
Duan Rui often feels sad about some things, but fortunately, Cai Lei, who is emotionally stable, has always influenced and encouraged her, and the two accompany and support each other in this way.
A few months ago, Cai Lei and his wife jointly donated 100 million yuan to the anti-freeze research project, and they invested almost all of their hard-earned money in research.
Cai Lei's deeds have touched many people, and he has also become a spiritual pillar for many people, as former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon personally wrote to Cai Lei:
"I have deep respect for you for setting an inspiring example for the world. ”
With the change of Cai Lei's physical condition, more and more people have begun to shift their attention to Duan Rui, on April 25, Duan Rui was interviewed in response to the outside world's question of "whether he will relay her husband", she said: "It's a bit far away now, but it may be a try." ”
I hope that one day, a miracle will appear in Cai Lei's body and realize his greatest wish - to get rid of ALS!
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Sources of information:
1. Baidu Encyclopedia profile: Cai Lei, Duan Rui
2. CCTV News: Theory of Relativity|Cai Lei: Born against "freezing".
3. CCTV: Will you take over her husband? Cai Lei's wife responded