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17-Year-Old Wins $100K For Creating Cancer Killing Nanoparticle
An anonymous reader writes "17-year-old Angeloa Zhang was recently awarded the $100,000 Grand Prize in the Individual category of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. Her project was entitled 'Design of Image-guided, Photo-thermal Controlled Drug Releasing Multifunctional Nanosystem for the Treatment of Cancer Stem Cells.' The creation is the so-called 'Swiss army knife of cancer treatment,' which allows a nanoparticle to be delivered to a tumor where it proceeds to kills cancer stem cells."
Colitis and Crohn's disease are autoimmune, so yes, they're going to be very difficult to cure. Cancer and AIDS at least have well identified targets. Wipe out all the cancerous cells or virus particles and you're done. Most autoimmune diseases have the complication that you're still not sure exactly what's wrong, and even if you did know, the cells that are causing the problems are usually also necessary for staying alive.
you're right, but I did find the siemens announcement here http://www.siemens-foundation.org/en/competition/2011_winners.htm#2
Because cancer actually refers to a huge group of different diseases. They share the common characteristic of unregulated cell growth but they are distinct diseases nevertheless. Each specific type of cancer don't actually receive disproportionate "newstime and general attention".
This guy did this already in a way I think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kanzius But she had the brains to deliver it via the drug (not sure if his particles would be dilviered via the drug but dont see why not). Also he wanted to kill the cancer with radio waves heating the particles, her particels on the worthless biography says nothing about how the particles perform the function (at least that I saw)
Crohn is not an autoimmine disease, it's a bacterial infection, if you wish to call it anything you can say it's an autoinflammatory disease.
The fact that there is still this level of confusion means there needs to be more research.
The fact that there is still this level of confusion means there needs to be more research.
They identified the MAP bacteria a few years back, but are still discovering SNP's that contribute to the inability to fight it off.
Killing MAP takes a cocktail of antibiotic drugs still. Nasty buggers.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
While this is technically not a lie, it's at least a very misleading statement that obfuscates the underlying problem. Crohn is a disease of the immune system. Newer research indicates that it might be a deficiency in some immune cells' ability to produce immuno-modulating agents that are needed for a coordinated response to bacteria occuring inside the colon. This allows those bacteria to stage an attack on the colon's tissue. The bacterial infection itself is, however, just a symptom of the immune defect.
Yes they do, and in exactly the way that the grandparent said. Antibiotics (and antiseptics before them) made a massive change to medicine. The discovery of penicillin turned a large number diseases from always-fatal to mildly irritating. A broad-spectrum antiviral would have a similarly huge impact.
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From TFA http://www.siemens-foundation.org/en/competition/2011_winners.htm#7 linked to by TFA:
Angela Zhang
$100,000
Monta Vista High School, Cupertino, California
MENTOR: Dr. Zhen Cheng, Stanford University
Both of which were in the US last time I looked...
blindly antisocialist = antisocial