Posted on 08/20/2007 8:23:48 PM PDT by Paved Paradise
Inventor from Erie, P.A. teams up with leading cancer center. The work has been quietly been going on for the last three years in a no-frills laboratory in Erie, Pennsylvania. Inventor, John Kanzius, working with Jim and Charlie Rutkowski, have been perfecting a device that will kill cancer cells with a radio frequency.
This humble workspace could soon become the epicenter of one of the most stunning scientific breakthroughs in cancer treatment in years.
Using the Kanzius RF machine and special nanoparticles, it appears that cancer cells can be targeted and killed without harming the rest of the body.
This is a deeply personal mission for John Kanzius. He is struggling to beat leaukemia. And he knows firsthand how tough standard treatments like chemotherapy and radiation can be on the body.
Kanzius told Channel 3's Mike O'Mara that, "If this ends up working they way it looks, it really could be the holy grail of cancer research."
The entire city of Erie is buzzing about John's invention. Two weekends ago, thousands turned out for a motorcycle rally called "Roar On The Shore". All the money is going to help John's cancer research.
Ralph Pontillo is the head of the Erie Manufacturers Association. He is proud that his city can help the Kanzius project.
"It's amazing, said Ralph, "that in the very near future someone is going to stick a pin on a map and say this is where cancer was cured. And that pin is going to be Erie, Pennsylvania. That blows your mind and that is inconceivable."
Former Erie Mayor, Joyce Savocchio, said "there are nights that I think about it and I can't go to sleep. It just enfolds you that you are on the brink of history and something so enormous that you can't imagine it."
The excitement is not limited to Erie, Pennsylvania. In Houston, Texas at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, a team of scientists believe that John Kanzius has the key to something extraordinary.
MD Anderson is one of the most respected cancer centers in the world. 79 thousand cancer patients were treated at the huge campus in Houston last year.
Doctor Steven Curley is leading the research team at MD Anderson. Dr. Curley is the author of over 110 publications and 30 book chapters, many dealing with the treatment of patients with hepotocellular cancer, gallbladder cancer, bile duct cancer, or liver metastases.
Curley is brimming with cautious optimism.
"If we can come up with ways of delivering these particles to the cancer cells, but not to normal cells," Curley said, "this treatment will work. There's not a doubt in my mind. Any kind of cancer, anywhere in the body!"
Doctor Curley's team is ready to publish their first results using laboratory animals. So far, the targeted nanoparticles and the Kanzius RF machine have passed every test.
"There is a great deal of work that has to be done", said Curley. "However, I suspect once the manuscripts are published, there's going to be a real rush of excitement about this whole process. I've already warned John to get ready because the floodgates are about to open."
Kanzius wants to make sure his invention does not get sidelined by an unsympathetic corporation that might not want see an effective treatment on the market.
Said Kanzius, "venture capitalists, big pharmaceuticals that might want to buy this to tempt me and stop the research, not going to happen. There is no amount of money that can buy me off. You can not put a price on a human life."
When the revolutionary treatment is ready for human clinical trials, you can bet that Erie, Pennsylvania will go to the front of the line. And why not, since the inventor lives just a few miles away.
Assuming they "tag" a cancer cell, (I gather) the cell would be essentially cooked to death by the RF, and then swept out of the body with other dead cells. So hopefully the nanos would still be attached somewhere to the former cell & excreted along with dead cells.
I'm basically just guessing here though.
I will pray for both this guy and for your mom. May she get good news.
I've been a patient there for 3 years for Sarcoma in the thigh. This is one of the two finest cancer research facilities in the world--along with Sloan-Kettering in NYC. And by far the most patient-oriented, uplifting hospital I've ever seen.
The principles of radiation therapy and chemo are balanced approaches that find the weakness of cancer cells (their need to constantly grow and multiply) and hurts those cells worse than the normal cells around them. It is true that all cells suffer in this, but the normal cells can survive while high numbers of cancer cells die.
The concept of putting nanoparticles that are attracted to the higher blood flow and faster cell division in cancer cells does not sound all that far-fetched. If a radio-pulse then explodes these nano-particles in the focused path to the tumor, then the peripheral damage could be quite small.
Let's all pray that this treatment gets approval quickly if it works. To have such a major research player as MD Anderson behind you is a powerful indicator that this stuff is for real.
In the long run, you cannot suppress innovation. If this man did indeed have a complete cure for all types of cancer, it’s value would exceed the value of all current remedies. Even if he was in it only for the money, no company producing today’s cancer drugs would have even close to the amount of money needed to buy him off. VC’s would be counting their previous cancer cure investments as sunk costs and pursuing the development of his ideas. The second to last paragraph raised my suspicions also.
I hope you will find tomorrow that the cancer has not spread.
I lost my father to cancer this year. He would still be with us if his surgery had gone well. We've lost many family members to cancer, too. But it is beatable with the right doctors. My father had the wrong doctors.
I know nothing of this man and his invention. But, in desperation, we searched and came across so many promising treatments that we realized later were scams. But there was one treatment that I believe might've helped - intravenous Vitamin C. Local doctors as well as a medical center associated with a well-respected university hospital is now trying IVC, so it is sounding more and more credibile as a treatment. Not much money to be made from Vit C, though, which explains the lack of interest in it.
You’re a doll. Thanks so much.
BTW, it would be just like God to have the person coming up with the cure to be just some regular “joe doe” from a little town and in PA yet. Gotta joke a little bit since they’re our great neighbor next door.
Thanks again!
Thanks. I hold out great hope always. I am sorry about your loss.
You may be an MD so this info could be old hat for you, but for others....here’s is a reference to the practice of radiopharmacology. The practice of “tagging” has been around a long time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiopharmacology
Big pharmaceuticals wouldn’t want to stop the research, just control how fast and in what directions it goes.
I think there's a middle ground here.
You have a point, I can see VC's or Big Pharm (or Big Radiation or Big Chemo or whoever) wanting to buy it out if it's promising research. But not to "squelch" it, to profit from it!
Once they bought it, why wouldn't they go ahead and develop it (if it really works)? they'd be the only firm doing it instead of just one among N firms doing radiation equipment (or whatever).
Or if it doesn't really have a chance of working, why would they fear it in the first place? let it lie in the dustbin of history along with cold fusion.
That's what smells sort of paranoid about the concern. It's like saying that companies both want profits and don't want them: they want profits so much they'd buy him out to squelch his super-advanced super-promising technique so they could keep profiting less off their outdated technique.
Huh??!
I don’t think that’s lunacy. Lots of money in cancer. Find a cure and a LOT of people are going to be out a LOT of MONEY, especially drug companies.
Sounds like it could happen very soon.
Praying that this works as I pray for ladyinred.
Thanks, Paved Paradise.
You actually sound like you know more about the proposed technique than the article describes... are you looking at a better article? If so, pass along the link, I'd like to read it :)
I'm concerned about the "higher blood flow" statement you cite as being the mechanism for the nanos to tag cancer cells... as I recall there are some cancerous situations in which the cancer cells actually get *less* blood flow, as the capillaries become constricted. Does this mean the nanos would sort of miss those cancer cells or not reach them as effectively? and thus the RF treatment would fail on such formations?
This kind of detail is why I need a better article to read :)
But I'm just not familiar with the notion that you can make a thing that could "tag" the category "all cancer cells". :-)
That's probably not really what is contemplated or proposed, of course. It's just that the article is written for a pop audience and doesn't go into detail there... a detail that's very interesting...
==> “If we can come up with ways of delivering these particles to the cancer cells, but not to normal cells,” Curley said, “this treatment will work. There’s not a doubt in my mind. Any kind of cancer, anywhere in the body!” <==
And if I had some bread, we would have everything necessary for a baloney sandwich.
Attaching a marker to cancer cells - ONLY cancer cells - is the holy grail of cancer research. The real researchers are trying to find external surface molecules unique to cancer cells and create antibodies that will attach to them, thus marking them for destruction and removal by existing natural processes in the body.
But cancer cells are defective in their reproductive machinery, so their character changes rapidly through generations, and the markers change as well. NOTHING in this article describes how these particles will associate with a majority of cancer cells while avoiding all normal cells in the body. This article is an act of cruelty.
You might be able to use it on chloresterol as well.
You might be able to use it on chloresterol as well.
Unless the lesions are in some place like the heart valves or the brain. I wonder if anyone is pursuing using a meson gun on cancer cells?
Stuttering Trigger-Finger.
No I wasn’t doubting him, but it seems a bit strange that the writer didn’t take the opportunity to explain WHY everyone thinks this procedure holds so much promise.
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