Man builds machine to treat his own leukemia

Hot Topics:

By Gareth Branwyn
Posted 2009/10/20 @ 3:53 pm
Category General, Makers, Science

Jim Stogdill sent this to the O’Reilly Radar mailing list:

I caught this on 60 Minutes the other night and it struck me as the ultimate MAKE challenge. Guy designs his own RF therapy and machine to try to battle his leukemia. He didn’t win, but looks like the tech holds real promise and is being pursued as a real and viable cancer treatment using RF to stimulate tumor-seeking gold nano particles.

[Thanks, Jim!]

The Kanzius Machine

In the Maker Shed

Cube 3D Printer

BeagleBoard BeagleBone Black

Make: Getting Started with Soldering Kit

MAKE Rovera 4WD Arduino Robot Kit

6 Responses to Man builds machine to treat his own leukemia

withallduerespect on October 20th, 2009 at 7:16 pm said:

there’s no real use for this, you have to inject the gold particles into each individual cancer cell. At this point why not just use poison to kill that cell? This is a real round about way of doing it.

Reply ↓
- swild on October 20th, 2009 at 7:51 pm said:
  
  A treatment that requires spot injections would be rather slow, however the advantage over chemotherapy and even radiation is reduced collateral damage. Chemo itself is very harmful.
  
  Some science magazine or another highlighted this treatment, and described a process in which nanoparticles were injected into circulation and would build up only on their target tumors. Then RF would heat the particles, killing the tumors.
  
  Reply ↓
Deektec on October 20th, 2009 at 10:24 pm said:

They did not explain it very well in the story, but they are actually manufacturing the gold nanoparticles bonded with a molecule that the cancer cells recognize and allow to enter through the cell wall.

Think of it kind of like when you go through a door that requires you to swipe an electronic badge before the door will open. If you don’t have a badge, you can’t get in because it does not recognize you. Give you a keycard, a specially desinged molecule in this case, and the door swings wide open for you.

By specifically engineering these gold nanoparticle/key molecule combinations to only be recognized by cancer cells you can simply inject the particles into the blood stream where they will circulate and be shut out of healthy cells and absorbed by only the cancerous cells they have a key to. You just make the gold particles “taste” good to only the cancer cells and set them loose in the blood stream for the cancer cells to “eat” while they are ignored by the healthy cells.

Once they collect enough gold in them, ZAP! You have the cellular equivalent of a polish sausage left too long in the microwave with only the cancer cells that absorbed the gold particles dying.

Reply ↓
Anonymous on October 21st, 2009 at 1:40 am said:

One thing I didn’t understand is what happens to the gold particles after the treatment? Do they scatter around the body? Do they exit the body in some way? Is there a danger of them accumulating some place else?

Reply ↓
- jeff-o on October 21st, 2009 at 5:05 am said:
  
  Hopefully, your body filters out the gold after a while. Otherwise you might get heavy metal poisoning…
  
  Reply ↓
  
  Eric on October 21st, 2009 at 8:33 am said:
  
  Gold is completely inert and does no harm to your body, especially in these small amounts. You can even eat gold leaf and it will do absolutely no harm to you (your wallet may feel the pain though).
  
  Reply ↓