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Nanomedicine Kills Brain Cancer Cells
destinyland writes "Scientists from the University of Chicago and the US Department of Energy have developed the first nanoparticles that seek out and destroy GMB brain cancer cells. Nanoparticles killed up to 80% of the brain cancer cells after just five minutes of exposure to white light, showing the promise of nanomedicine — highly-specific intervention at the molecular scale. Because nanomedicine could repair brain cells or damaged nerve and muscle tissue, the NIH has established eight Nanomedicine Development Centers around the country for their Nanomedicine Roadmap Initiative. Researchers have also used gold nanospheres to search out and 'cook' skin cancer cells with light — 'It's basically like putting a cancer cell in hot water and boiling it to death,' says one researcher. And the NIH Roadmap ultimately predicts 'novel tiny sensors ... that search for, and destroy, infectious agents.'"
Nanoparticles killed up to 80% of the brain cancer cells after just five minutes of exposure to white light
Side effects may include death of 80% of non-cancer cells.
Why bother with using advanced technology like this when the school system already does that? :)
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
It's starting to look more and more like it's going to be my generations plastic.
I, too, look forward to the giant raft of entangled nanoparticles polluting the middle of the Pacific.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The article states that "cultured human GMB cells" were "killed up to 80 percent... after 5 minutes of exposure to focused white light".
How exactly are you going to expose a malignant tumor that has diffusely infiltrated the parenchyma of the brain to focused white light? You can't surgically resect a GBM unless you are willing to remove an entire cerebral hemisphere. If you scooped out part of it and exposed the remaining cavity to white light you would barely effect any of the remaining tumor.
Now if brain tumors only occurred in petri dishes then this treatment would result in a brief remission.
Wish they had things like this when my wife was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme four years ago. One afternoon, six weeks after diagnosis, she said she was sleepy. We said "I love you" and shared a kiss before she fell asleep. Later that afternoon, swelling around the tumor herniated her brain stem. She never woke up and died in my arms one week later. Twenty years together. I miss her every day and I don't think I'll ever recover.
Love the people in your life like there's no tomorrow. (We were lucky.)
P.S. For you Googlers, the more common abbreviation is GBM.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
This is so true it's not funny.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that no one can predict one's reaction to mortality, whether one's own or someone else's. Some can pick up and go on, others can't, and there's no way to tell who is wired which way, until the reality hits.
Hopefully, you can come to understand this before you need others to understand this of you.
Preliminary trials performed on cartoon characters were mostly non-invasive, though results were mixed:
In late 2008, subject W. E. Coyote was admitted suffering from chronic headaches. MRIs of the patient's brain revealed several cancerous growths on surface of the cortex, likely caused by the subject's attempts to induce "X-ray vision" by applying ACME® 3-in-1 Shampoo & Conditioner & Radium to his scalp.
Researchers injected Mr. Coyote with the nano solution, then showed him a series of videos featuring a common ground-foraging bird simply running in circles at the top of a tall mesa.
After the videos, Mr. Coyote was presented with "gifts" from various charities: a hang glider, a butterfly net, and a gross of ACME® Brand Long-Distance Bottle Rockets. A moment after opening the last of the gifts, the subject raised one eyebrow, smirked, then clutched his temples and shrieked in pain before falling unconscious. MRI indicated that the glow of the patient's "idea light bulb" had been bright enough to activate the nano-solution. 70% of the tumor mass had been destroyed.
Unfortunately, soon after regaining consciousness the subject disappeared with his gifts, an electric wheelchair, and a half dozen bottles of Oxycontin.
Chemists do it with moles.
As someone that lost a brother and a sister to brain cancer, I hope it will become as simple as a video game. Even though we lost my sibs back in the early 60's, the ways to fight the disease haven't really advanced as much as I would expect. I hope this tech will be the one that brings humanity beyond this horrible disease.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Actually, another approach to this is to activate the particles is by way of low-level and non-invasive radio frequency energy.
This man was the one that started a lot of the research into this kind of stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kanzius
As a cancer survivor myself, and somebody that has undergone Chemo, I am very intrigued and hopeful about this type of research. Lets hope it all pans out as we all hope.
I've been taught to find this offensive, treasonous, and politically incorrect.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.