Radio Waves and Nanoparticles
There are many unique possibilities for cancer therapy that are not being seriously considered and tested. A recent discovery developed from a seemingly coincidental merging of particular people and situations. John Kanzius is not a doctor or scientist. He is a retired radio station owner who knows something about radio technology. A cancer patient who suffered through extensive chemotherapy, Kanzius built a radio wave machine in his kitchen. He was convinced that the machine had the potential of targeting cancer cells and destroying them with microscopic precision. A garage-based laboratory and a personal $200,000 investment supported complex experiments that involved injecting hot dogs with copper sulfate as the catalyst to super-heat a cell-sized area. Temperature would rise sharply in the area where the metal solution was without affecting the surrounding area.
Dr. Steven Curley, Kanzius’ doctor at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, teamed with Kanzius to research the concept with various materials and techniques of heating cells laden with metals by radio waves. Dr. Curley told Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutesthat this was the most exciting thing that he had seen in his 20 years of research. As research progressed, it became apparent that space-age nanoparticles would have to be used in the cells that received the heat, and they would have to discriminate between tumor cells and healthy cells. Enter Rick Smalley, Nobel Prize winner for the discovery of carbon nanotubes, hollow cylinders of pure carbon measuring about a billionth of a meter. Smalley was also a patient of Dr. Curley. Using this therapy on tumor injected rats and rabbits has proven it very effective. Rice University and M. D. Anderson are presently collaborating in the development of the technique.
Clinical trials for this technique are said to be three or four years away. The clinical trial process in our country is much too slow, especially for more exotic concepts like radio waves and nanoparticles. In a medical environment where improvements in conventional treatments are the priority, anything outside the mainstream is extremely difficult to gain momentum. A new strategy in the cancer war is needed where ideas outside the box are as seriously pursued as those that fit the paradigm of the 20th century. The American approach to cancer must be refocused.