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Gold Beads Can Fight Cancer, Too
descil writes "In addition to the Reovirus story posted earlier, Health Central reports that nanoscopic gold-coated beads can be used to kill cancerous cells, while leaving other tissues undamaged. The researchers tested their technique on human breast cancer cells and on cancerous tumors grown on mice. In each case, the combination of nanoshells and near-infrared light caused irreversible heat damage to tumor cells while leaving surrounding tissue unharmed."
Looks like the two methods are about the same effectiveness (though the reovirus has been tested in more types of cancer) - but which one is cheaper? I'd wager the one that doesn't involve gold, and is self-replicating.
...will never be the same.
Colloquially, the phrase "cure for cancer" is meant to say "he/she can do the impossible". Conversely, the phrase "if we can go to the moon, why can't we do 'x'..." is meant to imply that we can do anything, because what's more impossible than a man walking on the moon? Well, today there may be cause to celebrate what may be the medical equivalent of "walking on the moon".
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
The article makes it sound like IR-illuminated nanoshells in normal tissue would not cause damage. But this is untrue. The nanoshells must somehow be delivered to the tumor where IR-illumination makes them hot and kills all the neighboring cells.
The nanoshells are a good idea, but they do rely on some antibody/target/delivery mechanism to get the nanoshells into the right place. If the nanoshells migrate into the wrong location, they will kill healthy tissue.
BTW, there are other cancer therapies based on migrate-and-kill strategies. Some use chemicals that are preferentially taken up by cancer cells that can be made extremely toxic when exposed to light.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
my original comment to the ealier story
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit smoking.
Since tumors are lumps of fairly uncontrolled and uncordinated growth, and are also highly angioneogenic (blood vessel formation promoting) the capillary formations within tomors are also highly uncontrolled and uncordinated, which leads to different circulatory/flow patterns inside these tissue masses than normal healthy tissue.
There has already been a fair amount of research to exploit this principle, i think in the past with toxins such as cyanide derivitives and the like, although i question the actual clinical usage of such approaches, probably a worthwhile therapy, but no panacea nor cure by any means.
The main problem with cancer (and i use the term cancer very loosly) is that tumor biology and selection are intricate as well as extreme, if we develop a therapy that targets a certain trait (such as capillary formations in 'normal' tumors) it generally doesn't take a whole lot of time for the cancers to change in ways rendering them unaffected by therapies which target this trait. In this case possibly differing tumor characteristics (size, morphology, et al)...
Unfortunately we've still got a long way to go with cancer...
-tid242
With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science. --Carl Sagan
i can think of quite a few drugs off the top of my head that cost (i'd say 'worth' but that's relative) a hell of a lot more than gold by weight, most of these are biotech/monoclonal_antibody type compounds, you might have heard of some of them, venomous snake antivenons are probably the most well known.
It's also probably a lot easier to get an ounce of gold from the depths of South African hell than it is to conduct all of the necessary bench science, phase I,II, and III clinical trials, and navigate the US FDA regulatory process. Probably a lot cheaper too.
-tid242
With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science. --Carl Sagan
Mr. T is safe from lung cancer.
I think I would prefer this to the virus "cure" that was reported earlier. Virii make me nervous, it seems to me that a stray bit of radiation or chemo (since they are cancer patients) could cause the virii to mutate into something harmful and then propagate throughout the body, possibly destroying healthy cells. And if these "beads" went places they weren't supposed to go then you could simpily not point the IR gun any where else. Perhaps I am just jumping at shadows but I don't claim to know much biology.
I don't see why this is flamebait. There is a lot of money to be made by selling pseudo-scientific alternative medicine crap to people, including in bracelet form. The first link sells bracelets with "a minimum of six neodymium north facing unipole & permanent (1500 gauss) magnets." The second link is almost what the parent describes - it has two quarter-inch gold-plated balls ("terminals") and sells for $80 to $130. The point is, there's no limit to what you can sell to stupid people, and it's a pity this can get in the way of real research.
Litigious bastards
I don't see why this is flamebait.
Agreed. It's really just a joke in somewhat poor taste, although those are usually the best ones.
While I'm here, you left out my favorite crank: Alex Chiu!
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
This is a serious note.
This family is running out of insurance money :-(