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View Full Version : Cancer gets another bitch-slappin'?


Insp. Clue!So?
02-27-2007, 09:31 PM
No major study or Nature article, but with the understanding that this is just a newsdroid story, it sounds pretty promising.

We'll see.


http://www.fox5vegas.com/health/11125917/detail.html

SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. -- A Florida man with no medical training has invented a machine that he believes may lead to a cure for cancer.

John Kanzius, who turns 63 on March 1, is a former broadcasting executive from Pennsylvania who wondered if his background in physics and radio could come in handy in treating the disease from which he suffers himself.

Inside his Sanibel Island garage, Kanzius invented a machine he believes sits on the brink of a major medical breakthrough.


The machine began to take shape four years ago, when his dreams of retirement were put on hold after he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia, he told West Palm Beach television station WPBF.

Kanzius' invention is not flashy, and it looks like a piece of 20th-century hardware. It doesn't even have a name.

"It's a kick-ass cancer cell generator," Kanzius said.

After 24 rounds of chemotherapy, the former broadcaster decided that he did not want to see others suffer trying to cure the disease.

Kanzius said it was watching kids being treated that affected him the most.

"Particularly young children walk in with smiles, and then you'd see them three weeks later and their smiles had disappeared. I said to myself, 'We're in a barbaric type of medicine,'" Kanzius told WPBF.

He began tinkering with pie plates and hot dogs, trying to use his broadcasting background to kill the cancerous cells.

Kanzius said his machine basically makes cells act like antennae to pick up a signal and self-destruct.

Unlike current cancer treatment, Kanzius' machine does not use radiation. Unlike today's radio-frequency treatments, it's noninvasive.

Now, some of the nation's most prominent doctors and scientists are using Kanzius' machines in their research. In January, researchers said they performed a breakthrough at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

"The complete killing of pancreatic cells in laboratory conditions is encouraging," Dr. Steve Curley said.

Curley is currently testing whether cancerous tumors can be wiped out in animals.

"We've got a lot more work to do, but this is very interesting preliminary work," Curley told WPBF.

Kanzius explained that his machine uses a solution filled with nanoparticles, which measure no more than one-billionth of a meter. A test subject would be injected with either gold or carbon nanoparticles, which would make their way through the body and attach to the cancerous cells. The test subject would then enter the machine and receive a dose of radio frequency waves, theoretically heating and killing the cancerous cells in moments and leaving nearby cells untouched.

"That is the holy grail ... Research has shown that they're able to kill them once they attach to the cancer cells," Kanzius said.

Kanzius said he hopes to begin human testing with his machine within the next two years.

"The results look too phenomenal for anyone to stop at this point in time. I don't think the largest research center in the world would put time and effort and their name on a project if they did not think it would work," Kanzius told WPBF.

Kanzius told WPBF he does not want to try and build up false hope, but he mentioned that there could be some major announcements coming from researchers in the next coming months.

BluffTHIS!
02-27-2007, 10:15 PM
Yes it really is OK to excerpt an entire copyrighted story in a post here instead of just providing an abstract and link. Excercise your right to copy anything you want and thumb your nose at the DMCA act on a site that also publishes copyrighted works.

Insp. Clue!So?
02-27-2007, 10:24 PM
Hmmmm, over 9,000 instances of mental pooftery. Looks like that brain tumor has finally metastasized.

I'd suggest a quick trip to Florida.

kevin017
02-27-2007, 10:42 PM
Quote BlulffThis:
http://www.azcentral.com/ent/pop/pics/0302downer-autosized141.jpg



And, yes it sounds promising. nanotechnology is in its infancy though, and i think a useful result from this is many years out. It is very much outside the box though, and could potentially skirt a lot of the issues chemotherapy has. I don't exactly understand how we would get this stuff to bind exclusively to cancer cells any better than we can with current chemotherapy, but i don't know anything about nanotechnology.

Insp. Clue!So?
02-27-2007, 11:04 PM
You may be right, but if some character in a garage can do it just imagine what might be possible with real money etc. behind the effort.

Anyway if it proved to be just as efficacious as chemo but w/o the side effects, that alone would be tremendous news. It'd be nice if those kids could keep on smiling.

holland3r
02-28-2007, 05:05 PM
Yes, but 1000:1 it won't.

arahant
02-28-2007, 06:14 PM
[ QUOTE ]

You may be right, but if some character in a garage can do it just imagine what might be possible with real money etc. behind the effort.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah. If only someone could spend some real money on cancer research...

arahant
02-28-2007, 06:16 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Yes, but 1000:1 it won't.

[/ QUOTE ]
Is that an offer for a prop bet? Because I'm willing to go to 10,000:1. (I'd go higher, but i've only got so much....)

This is grossly irresponsible reporting, btw...

neuroman
02-28-2007, 06:33 PM
[ QUOTE ]
He began tinkering with pie plates and hot dogs, trying to use his broadcasting background to kill the cancerous cells.

[/ QUOTE ]
Ooooookay

Neuge
02-28-2007, 06:35 PM
[ QUOTE ]
I don't exactly understand how we would get this stuff to bind exclusively to cancer cells any better than we can with current chemotherapy, but i don't know anything about nanotechnology.

[/ QUOTE ]

Synthesis of 1 nanometer particles is extremely difficult, especially if size and binding affinity are to be strictly controlled. Designing a nanoparticle, or any molecule for that matter, to bind specifically to any type of cell is very difficult and has been a focus of tremendous amounts of legitimate research. These are by far the important problems of this proposed research and they haven't proposed how to do them, other than "we need to figure out how."

Also, this comes from my somewhat limited knowledge on the subject but: Traditional chemotherapy doesn't "bind" to cancer cells, at least not specifically. Most chemotherapy drugs block mitosis during eukaryotic cell division. Since cancer cells typically divide faster than normal cells, this limits tumor growth and shrinks them. Perhaps someone can straighten me out on the finer points, but I believe that's the gist of what happens.

arahant
02-28-2007, 07:22 PM
[ QUOTE ]


Synthesis of 1 nanometer particles is extremely difficult, especially if size and binding affinity are to be strictly controlled. Designing a nanoparticle, or any molecule for that matter, to bind specifically to any type of cell is very difficult and has been a focus of tremendous amounts of legitimate research.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but how much of that research used pie plates and hot dogs? Sometimes, the obvious solution eludes the best-trained minds...

vhawk01
02-28-2007, 08:08 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't exactly understand how we would get this stuff to bind exclusively to cancer cells any better than we can with current chemotherapy, but i don't know anything about nanotechnology.

[/ QUOTE ]

Synthesis of 1 nanometer particles is extremely difficult, especially if size and binding affinity are to be strictly controlled. Designing a nanoparticle, or any molecule for that matter, to bind specifically to any type of cell is very difficult and has been a focus of tremendous amounts of legitimate research. These are by far the important problems of this proposed research and they haven't proposed how to do them, other than "we need to figure out how."

Also, this comes from my somewhat limited knowledge on the subject but: Traditional chemotherapy doesn't "bind" to cancer cells, at least not specifically. Most chemotherapy drugs block mitosis during eukaryotic cell division. Since cancer cells typically divide faster than normal cells, this limits tumor growth and shrinks them. Perhaps someone can straighten me out on the finer points, but I believe that's the gist of what happens.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, thats basically it. Chemotheraputic agents are usually cytotoxic chemicals that target rapidly proliferating cells. They do this in a few different ways, but the main point is that cancer cells aren't extremely different from bone marrow cells, hair cells, skin cells, and fetal cells. This is why specificity is so brutal...any cell type that is continually entering the cell cycle is going to be disrupted by chemotheraputic agents.

Targeting the surface of tumor cells is more difficult, in theory although perhaps not in practice, than targeting the DNA of tumor cells. For a large number of cancers, specific mutations of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes are the direct cause of the proliferation. Targeting these sequences is where most of the research is these days, I think.

Neuge
02-28-2007, 08:59 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Targeting the surface of tumor cells is more difficult, in theory although perhaps not in practice, than targeting the DNA of tumor cells. For a large number of cancers, specific mutations of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes are the direct cause of the proliferation. Targeting these sequences is where most of the research is these days, I think.

[/ QUOTE ]
As I understand it, targeting the glycoprotein markers on the cell membrane is difficult because 1) It's difficult to find or determine markers that are unique to a specific type of cell and 2) engineering a particle or molecule to bind specifically to said marker is also difficult. Whereas targeting the DNA of cancer cells involves engineering retroviruses specific to those cells. Am I off base here? I'm not a biology/med student.

TimWillTell
02-28-2007, 09:59 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
He began tinkering with pie plates and hot dogs, trying to use his broadcasting background to kill the cancerous cells.

[/ QUOTE ]
Ooooookay

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed, never before did I encounter such a convincing statement!

vhawk01
03-01-2007, 01:19 AM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Targeting the surface of tumor cells is more difficult, in theory although perhaps not in practice, than targeting the DNA of tumor cells. For a large number of cancers, specific mutations of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes are the direct cause of the proliferation. Targeting these sequences is where most of the research is these days, I think.

[/ QUOTE ]
As I understand it, targeting the glycoprotein markers on the cell membrane is difficult because 1) It's difficult to find or determine markers that are unique to a specific type of cell and 2) engineering a particle or molecule to bind specifically to said marker is also difficult. Whereas targeting the DNA of cancer cells involves engineering retroviruses specific to those cells. Am I off base here? I'm not a biology/med student.

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem is, I'm a med student but I'm not a med researcher! But yeah, that seems in line with what I said earlier, and with my understanding.