Cancer Victim Invents Radio Frequency Generator That Could Replace Chemotherapy
by Joan Trombetti, Writer | November 20, 2007
John Kanzius is a
former radio station
owner.
former radio station
owner.
John Kanzius, entrepreneur and leukemia five-year survivor has invented a machine that could replace traditional chemotherapy for the treatment of cancer.
Kanzius is a former radio station owner, and he presented the idea to a research team at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Rice University. The researchers took on the project and found that cancer cells treated with carbon nanotubes can be destroyed by non-invasive radio waves that heat up the nanotubes while sparing untreated tissue. Carbon nanotubes are hollow cylinders of pure carbon that measure about a billionth of a meter, or one nanometer across. In theory the machine could well replace traditional chemotherapy for the treatment of the disease.
Professor Steven Curley who led the research team stated that the technique completely destroyed liver cancer tumors in rabbits with no side effects other than some healthy liver tissue that was very close to the tumors did sustain some heat damage from nanotube leakage. Still, Professor Curley said that the results are very promising and exciting, and the team will now look at ways to more precisely target the nanotubes so they attach to and are taken up by the cancer cells -- avoiding normal tissue. The researchers say targeting the nanotubes only at cancer cells is the next major challenge and they are looking at ways of binding the nanotube to antibodies, peptides or other agents that will target molecules expressed on cancer cells. Curley said that this will be a complex endeavor, as such molecules are also expressed in normal tissue. The clinical trials are at least three to four years down the road.
The research was supported by an American Association of Cancer Research Littlefield Grant, NASA and the Houston-based Alliance for NanoHealth, the National Science Foundation, the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology and the Fulbright Foundation and is published in the journal, Cancer.
Kanzius is a former radio station owner, and he presented the idea to a research team at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Rice University. The researchers took on the project and found that cancer cells treated with carbon nanotubes can be destroyed by non-invasive radio waves that heat up the nanotubes while sparing untreated tissue. Carbon nanotubes are hollow cylinders of pure carbon that measure about a billionth of a meter, or one nanometer across. In theory the machine could well replace traditional chemotherapy for the treatment of the disease.
Professor Steven Curley who led the research team stated that the technique completely destroyed liver cancer tumors in rabbits with no side effects other than some healthy liver tissue that was very close to the tumors did sustain some heat damage from nanotube leakage. Still, Professor Curley said that the results are very promising and exciting, and the team will now look at ways to more precisely target the nanotubes so they attach to and are taken up by the cancer cells -- avoiding normal tissue. The researchers say targeting the nanotubes only at cancer cells is the next major challenge and they are looking at ways of binding the nanotube to antibodies, peptides or other agents that will target molecules expressed on cancer cells. Curley said that this will be a complex endeavor, as such molecules are also expressed in normal tissue. The clinical trials are at least three to four years down the road.
The research was supported by an American Association of Cancer Research Littlefield Grant, NASA and the Houston-based Alliance for NanoHealth, the National Science Foundation, the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology and the Fulbright Foundation and is published in the journal, Cancer.
