Posted on 07/15/2021 12:20:12 PM PDT by Red Badger
When X-rays are irradiated onto tumor tissue containing iodine-carrying nanoparticles, the iodine releases electrons that break DNA and kill the cancer cells. Credit: Mindy Takamiya/Kyoto University iCeMS
Researchers have found a way to enhance radiation therapy using novel iodine nanoparticles.
Cancer cell death is triggered within three days when X-rays are shone onto tumor tissue containing iodine-carrying nanoparticles. The iodine releases electrons that break the tumor’s DNA, leading to cell death. The findings, by scientists at Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) and colleagues in Japan and the US, were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“Exposing a metal to light leads to the release of electrons, a phenomenon called the photoelectric effect. An explanation of this phenomenon by Albert Einstein in 1905 heralded the birth of quantum physics,” says iCeMS molecular biologist Fuyuhiko Tamanoi, who led the study. “Our research provides evidence that suggests it is possible to reproduce this effect inside cancer cells.”
A long-standing problem with cancer radiation therapy is that it is not effective at the center of tumors where oxygen levels are low due to the lack of blood vessels penetrating deeply into the tissue. X-ray irradiation needs oxygen to generate DNA-damaging reactive oxygen when the rays hit molecules inside the cell.
Tamanoi, together with Kotaro Matsumoto and colleagues have been trying to overcome this issue by finding more direct ways to damage cancer DNA. In earlier work, they showed that gadolinium-loaded nanoparticles could kill cancer cells when irradiated with 50.25 kiloelectron volts of synchrotron-generated X-rays.
In the current study, they designed porous, iodine-carrying organosilica nanoparticles. Iodine is cheaper than gadolinium and releases electrons at lower energy levels.
The researchers dispersed their nanoparticles through tumor spheroids, 3D tissue containing multiple cancer cells. Irradiating the spheroids for 30 minutes with 33.2 keV of X-rays led to their complete destruction within three days. By systematically changing energy levels, they were able to demonstrate that the optimum effect of tumor destruction occurs with 33.2 keV X-ray.
Further analyses showed that the nanoparticles were taken up by the tumor cells, localizing just outside their nuclei. Shining just the right amount of X-ray energy onto the tissue prompted iodine to release electrons, which then caused double-strand breaks in the nuclear DNA, triggering cell death.
“Our study represents an important example of employing a quantum physics phenomenon inside a cancer cell,” says Matsumoto. “It appears that a cloud of low-energy electrons is generated close to DNA, causing double strand breaks that are difficult to repair, eventually leading to programmed cell death.”
The team next wants to understand how electrons are released from iodine atoms when they are exposed to X-rays. They are also working on placing iodine on DNA rather than near it to increase efficacy, and to test the nanoparticles on mouse models of cancer.
Reference: 14 July 2021, Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-93429-9
Key contributors to this work are Yuya Higashi (iCeMS), Hiroyuki Saitoh (QST) and Toshiki Tajima (UC Irvine, Dept. of Physics & Astronomy) in addition to Tamanoi and Matsumoto.
You’ve got to deliver the nanoparticles selectively to the cancer cells rather than to all cells. I hope they’re working on that.
Quantum physics doesn’t do anything. The physical and natural/biological world behaves as it does, explainable on the phenomenological level through a narrow construct called ‘quantum physics’, but why everything is as it is remains a complete mystery.
GOD.....................
GOD.....................
Hurry up, how about using this type of stuff on people going to die soon anyway? They can experiment for a virus that has a 1% chance of killing us, but not for one that kills just under 100% in a large number of cases.
I have always just injected silver nano particles into tumors,
put the patients in the microwave for 15 seconds, and they lived happily ever after, with minimal cost
Some people would be upset if I did that to humans though
Joke? Tongue in cheek? Inside joke?
I know people who use silver freely for antibiotics, infections etc. I used silver cream for a very bad burn. It healed without a scar. By a bad burn, I mean my engine shut down in the tractor portion of tractor trailer. I popped up the cab and climbed behind the front tire. I slipped and my arm landed on the exhaust and the only way to get off was to push my forearm against the exhaust. My buddys wife was a nurse, she had a silver based burn med. It worked so well, then I found out they don’t give it to patients. They may use it at clinics or ER’s, I don’t know. She called it Silvadene.
What you are describing is the dichotomy of what Immanuel Kant described as the 'Noumenon', 'the thing unto itself', as opposed to what quantum theory is, which constitutes the 'phenomenon', or our descriptions of the world (in physics, mathematics).
An example of this (I think I got this from a book by Heinz Pagels, can't recall) is the motion of the planets as they revolve around the sun are very accurately and precisely described by differential equations. However, the planets are no more solving math problems then they are hanging from strings from some celestial hand -- the are simply moving.
The former is phenomenon, the latter the noumenon. I do not know how these can be reconciled and neither did Mr. Kant, as far as I can tell.
I have pinged long-standing FReeper noumenon to this post, who has liklely forgotten more than I will know about this subject. $:-)
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