Posted on 04/04/2013 10:48:56 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Cancer painfully ends more than 500,000 lives in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The scientific crusade against cancer recently achieved a victory under the leadership of University of Missouri Curators’ Professor M. Frederick Hawthorne. Hawthorne’s team has developed a new form of radiation therapy that successfully put cancer into remission in mice. This innovative treatment produced none of the harmful side-effects of conventional chemo and radiation cancer therapies. Clinical trials in humans could begin soon after Hawthorne secures funding.
“Since the 1930s, scientists have sought success with a cancer treatment known as boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT),” said Hawthorne, a recent winner of the National Medal of Science awarded by President Obama in the White House. “Our team at MU’s International Institute of Nano and Molecular Medicine finally found the way to make BNCT work by taking advantage of a cancer cell’s biology with nanochemistry.”
Cancer cells grow faster than normal cells and in the process absorb more materials than normal cells. Hawthorne’s team took advantage of that fact by getting cancer cells to take in and store a boron chemical designed by Hawthorne. When those boron-infused cancer cells were exposed to neutrons, a subatomic particle, the boron atom shattered and selectively tore apart the cancer cells, sparing neighboring healthy cells.
The physical properties of boron made Hawthorne’s technique possible. A particular form of boron will split when it captures a neutron and release lithium, helium and energy. Like pool balls careening around a billiards table, the helium and lithium atoms penetrate the cancer cell and destroy it from the inside without harming the surrounding tissues.
“A wide variety of cancers can be attacked with our BNCT technique,” Hawthorne said. “The technique worked excellently in mice. We are ready to move on to trials in larger animals, then people. However, before we can start treating humans, we will need to build suitable equipment and facilities. When it is built, MU will have the first radiation therapy of this kind in the world.”
Hawthorne believes that his discovery was possible only at the University of Missouri because MU has three features that separate it from other universities in the nation, the reason Hawthorne came to MU from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2006.
“First, it is an example of a small number of universities in the United States with a large number of science and engineering disciplines on the same campus,” said Hawthorne. “Second, the largest university research nuclear reactor is located at MU. Finally, it has strong, collegial biomedicine departments. This combination is unique.”
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) recently published the study, entitled “Boron neutron capture therapy demonstrated in mice bearing EMT 6 tumors following selective delivery of boron by rationally designed liposomes.” http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/03/27/1303437110
Ping...
Will the big corps get hold of this and squash it? Imagine what this does to the industry that supports cancer if this is true. I hate to be cynical but there is too much money in cancer research an the drugs...
I doubt it. If this really does work, there is no reason not to use it. After all, anyone who would want to ban it may die of cancer someday.
Oh wait... that’s Minnesota.
Skeptical of anything Obama rewards with an award myself.... Pray it works. Cancer is THE bitch !
Stay Safe Joe !
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Do the cancer cells take in more of the Boron than normal cells? Or is there some reason that only the cancer cells take up the Boron.
If it’s the former, then normal cells are going to be damaged too. Though perhaps not as bad.
Isn’t this how the movie “I Am Legend” began?
Looks like a win-win situation.
If it’s the former, then normal cells are going to be damaged too. Though perhaps not as bad.
The cancer cells grow faster than normal cells, meaning they have to consume more material. Like many cancer therapies, this one is based on the differential growth rate between normal and cancer cells. I'll speculate a bit here and say that the researchers probably fine-tune the amount of radiation, so that normal cells with n amount of boron are not affected, while cancer cells with 2n quantity of boron are.
Why would they do that? The company that could secure licensing and sales rights on a treatment system that actually cures cancer would find itself *very* profitable.
I should mention, too, that researchers won’t be left without work even if a cure for most cancers is developed. Believe me, we have *plenty* of things to research. I do not see us running out of research topics any time soon... or ever.
I speak as an insider on this. I’m a medical researcher, and I’ve never done cancer research. Yet I manage to remain busy.
“I hate to be cynical but there is too much money in cancer research an the drugs...”
Paranoid fantasy. The one that makes the cure will be rich beyond imagination. They don’t act in concert; they hate each other.
>> “Paranoid fantasy. The one that makes the cure will be rich beyond imagination.” <<
.
You’re completely insullated from reality.
Cancer is easy to cure with mild non-invasive modalities, but all that do it are crushed quickly.
Royal Rife was curing all cancers in mass production in the early 1930s and the feds raided his facility, destroyed his equipment, and burned down an entire professional office building to stamp him out.
Others since habve gotten similar treatment since, such as Dr. Brudzinsky, Dr. Schulze, and many more lesser practitioners.
If cancer curing is allowed, the hospitals, insurance companies, and Pharma giants would be without their massive cash cow.
I’m skeptical of anything Duh Won praises, too. I hope to see the day we find a cure, though (other than hacking and zapping and the chemical war of attrition). You stay safe, too!
Thanks for the ping!
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