A loaded question Julie44....Here Goes Nothing

snommintj

1) PET/CT
If you haven't noticed, cancer needs much higher levels of glucose than the average cell. Simply attaching a gold nanoparticle to a glucose binding agent would work. But there is a catch. You would have to monitor surrounding tissue for signs of damage. This could easily be done by inserting a small RTD into local tissue and monitor the temperature. When the surrounding temp gets elevated it's time to end the treatment. This would work in 65-75% of tumors and microscopic METS. It would be more difficult to treat areas of the body whose cells also require higher levels off glucose, ie, the brain, kidneys, a few others. Keep in mind these cells require 2 to 3 times the level as most cells whereas cancer cells require 20-25 times the concentration. Levels of glucose are freakishly high in cancer cells. This should make them easy pickins' . To date, I haven't been able to find a single study that tries to diminish, utilize, or exploit this chemistry. This is truly sad. There are companies that have developed nanorobots that seek out high levels of glucose and administer tiny amounts of insulin within the cell. These nanorobots have been tested and proven to be effective in treating diabetes at the cellular level. Moreover, these robots can be programmed to release their payload into a very narrow window of concentrations. This sound like the perfect delivery mechanism. I've e-mailed, phoned, and faxed all this to Dr. Curley. No Response. If they don't have have rights to it they probably aren't gonna mess with it.
2)Geometric targeting.
Gold nanoparticles can be made into different sizes and shapes. MIT has already proven that certain shapes are retained in cancer cells much longer than healthy cells. This could be approved for trials tomorrow. Radio waves are FDA approved, gold is approved. Put the two together and they should be approved. Unfortunately, there is no real money in it. It would be almost impossible to patent a profitable treatment regimen.
3)Protein-chemical Overexpression
There are several proteins that are overexpressed in cancer cells. Some are cancer type specific and some are cancer specific. I think the easiest is telomerase. It's been found to be overexpressed in almost every cancer. It's fairly active and we already have drugs that can bind to it. Simply bind a gold nanoparticle to it. This is easy chemistry. Once again very little money in it.
4)Gene specific targeting-This is what we are waiting on.
The doctor will isolate your specific cancer, build an antibody, bind it to the gold nanoparticle and inject it. The antibody will then seek out and kill only the cancer cell. Very profitable and labor intensive.

Targeting mechanisms 1-3 would be 90-100% effective in killing all cancer cells, a small percentage of healthy cells would be killed in the process. But I think the amount of healthy cells affected would be marginal in light of surgery, chemo, ablation, and death. None of these mechanisms is particularly profitable.

Mechanism 4 is more lucrative than the first 3 and is far more intricate to work out. But this will be the future.

I've read that the cancer industry is a 50 billion dollar a year business in the US alone. I think that number is higher considering all the lost labor. If you factor in the loss of revenue for 1 million people and the Social Security paid out to those folks, thats another 20 billion out. That's 90 billion going out. If we were healthy we could consider that a positive number. If we were all working at the poverty level that's +50 billion. Cancer is a 140 billion dollar drain on the economy, not to mention loss of life. I would like to present that number to Obama, and tell him this is how we help with health care reform. Some things are to big for private industry to fix, cancer is one of them. Spend 2 billion dollars, fix it and reap the benefits to the tune of 150 billion a year.

Kathleen808

Wow!
You have a great brain... I really think that is cool.
There was an article I believe on Sunday in the New York Times about how the funding for cancer research goes to the "safe research" and that there is not funding for truly new and innovative ideas. Things really do need to change. So much money being spent, you'd think they'd break some loose for truly new ideas.
Aloha
Kathleen

kmygil

I think you should send it in
Honey, I really think you should send this posting in as a contribution to your newspaper. It is well written, well researched and will raise awareness of several huge issues. Also, send it in to the Surgeon General. The worst that could happen is no response.

Hugs,
Kirsten

Julie 44

kmygil said:

I think you should send it in
Honey, I really think you should send this posting in as a contribution to your newspaper. It is well written, well researched and will raise awareness of several huge issues. Also, send it in to the Surgeon General. The worst that could happen is no response.

Hugs,
Kirsten

SAD
John,
It is just so sad that Cancer doesn't get the funding it needs to further research..I tell everyone if possible to leave some money in their will toward cancer research...This research needs to be funded so many of us have more options and a better chance of survival.....Thanks for the explanation you did make it more clear for me....I am resaerching this also and the Kanzius Project too...THANKS JULIE

PamPam2

e-mail the president
Mr OBama does have a blackberry. And he does read his e-mails,or at least he was during the elections. He has his own website and you can post questions/comments to him there, his e-mail is there. He is the most accessable president we have had in this respect. It sure can't hurt!
Pam

pascale

PamPam2 said:

e-mail the president
Mr OBama does have a blackberry. And he does read his e-mails,or at least he was during the elections. He has his own website and you can post questions/comments to him there, his e-mail is there. He is the most accessable president we have had in this respect. It sure can't hurt!
Pam

gold nanoparticles
This is great! You've obviously researched the topic extensively and what you're saying makes so much sense. But isn't Steven Curley working on this combination of gold nanoparticles and radio waves? It has occurred to me that Kanzius never got much funding, probably because it won't be such a lucrative treatment. But could it actually be ignored completely with so many cancer patients out there waiting and holding on for it?

snommintj

pascale said:

gold nanoparticles
This is great! You've obviously researched the topic extensively and what you're saying makes so much sense. But isn't Steven Curley working on this combination of gold nanoparticles and radio waves? It has occurred to me that Kanzius never got much funding, probably because it won't be such a lucrative treatment. But could it actually be ignored completely with so many cancer patients out there waiting and holding on for it?

Curley and Kanzius
I have e-mailed until I'm blue in the face. I'm basically swimming up a 50 billion dollar stream. Dr. Curley is working on the Gold antibody technique. I was thinking about a way to make it very lucrative while cutting down on research time. Rather than using gold nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes could be used. You would have to grow these tubes in particular geometric shapes. You could patent the shape, the technique for growing them, the specific length, tube wall inside and outside diameters, tube wall thickness. It's not easy to duplicate and would require boat loads of work to guarantee a uniform and consistent product.

Everybody copy my post, e-mailit to every local paper, every doctor, every cancer patient, every politician. Tell them that with a relatively small investment we could cure this thing once and for all. Tell them that it's less than one year away with proper motivation. Tell them you could get diagnosed and treated for the most aggressive and advanced cancer the same day for the same cost as a nice refrigerator. Imagine that. Cancer as an afterthought. It's not science fiction, it's here, right now. The question is whose gonna get us there and who can get the most money for it.

snommintj

snommintj said:

Curley and Kanzius
I have e-mailed until I'm blue in the face. I'm basically swimming up a 50 billion dollar stream. Dr. Curley is working on the Gold antibody technique. I was thinking about a way to make it very lucrative while cutting down on research time. Rather than using gold nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes could be used. You would have to grow these tubes in particular geometric shapes. You could patent the shape, the technique for growing them, the specific length, tube wall inside and outside diameters, tube wall thickness. It's not easy to duplicate and would require boat loads of work to guarantee a uniform and consistent product.

Everybody copy my post, e-mailit to every local paper, every doctor, every cancer patient, every politician. Tell them that with a relatively small investment we could cure this thing once and for all. Tell them that it's less than one year away with proper motivation. Tell them you could get diagnosed and treated for the most aggressive and advanced cancer the same day for the same cost as a nice refrigerator. Imagine that. Cancer as an afterthought. It's not science fiction, it's here, right now. The question is whose gonna get us there and who can get the most money for it.

Another Thought
Those of you that have Dr Curley as your surgeon. Take a copy directly to him. I have sent e-mails offering to move to Texas and work on the Kanzius machine for free. I e-mailed the offer to everyone I think is associated with the project. Not a single response was sent. Tell him in person that you know someone willing to work for free, even at the smallest level.

pascale

snommintj said:

Another Thought
Those of you that have Dr Curley as your surgeon. Take a copy directly to him. I have sent e-mails offering to move to Texas and work on the Kanzius machine for free. I e-mailed the offer to everyone I think is associated with the project. Not a single response was sent. Tell him in person that you know someone willing to work for free, even at the smallest level.

suggestion
Hey,
Good to know you're feeling really good! That's the most anyone can hope for, however long or little it lasts. Enjoy...

I was just thinking of a couple of things I came across when I was researching options for my mom. There's a brilliant woman called Naomi Halas at Rice University who seems to be doing very promising work with nanotechnology. I can provide links if you need them. You might be able to contact her (I had written to her about my mother but she never answered; then again, she's a researcher, not a physician, so maybe that's why). There's also an Egyptian scientist at Georgia Tech doing very interesting work with nanoparticles:
http://www.nano.gatech.edu/faculty-staff/profiles/elsayed.php

Anyway, you might want to contact them since you could clearly contribute your knowledge and experience to their research...

From what I've been reading, and I think John said this too, they're supposed to start large-animal trials with the Kanzius machine by the end of this year. Human trials shouldn't be too far behind.

By the way, whoever said to contact Heinz-Josef Lenz at USC is spot on -- thank you! I wrote to him and he answered immediately with suggestions of further treatment options for my mother. She is not doing so well (developed a deep-vein thrombosis last week), but if we manage to get her strength up I am optimistic there will be some more weapons in the anti-CRC arsenal... Anyway, Dr. Lenz is clearly a very dedicated and caring man.

shmurciakova

snommintj said:

Another Thought
Those of you that have Dr Curley as your surgeon. Take a copy directly to him. I have sent e-mails offering to move to Texas and work on the Kanzius machine for free. I e-mailed the offer to everyone I think is associated with the project. Not a single response was sent. Tell him in person that you know someone willing to work for free, even at the smallest level.

MD e-mail addresses..
first initial, last name, at mdanderson.org.
Dr. Curley usually responds that day, if not the next.
He is my surgical onc, but I have not been back to see him in several years, he turned me loose after 2 years NED and now I have all of my followups here locally.
Good work!
Susan H.

Fight for my love

Hi John,I think your
Hi John,I think your academic level is good enough to publish papers on those prestigious medical journals or magazines,why not give a try?I work in science field and I am a phd,I think if you can publish the papers in journals may get more attention.

Paula G.

If only
John, This sounds so possible to me and I haven't done the research that you have done. You did hit on an unfortunate part and why it isn't getting the attention. It is the Money. Not just money for the research. It sounds like the research is going on. It is the money that the pharmaceutical ( huge backers of stuff like this) can't see themselves making from it.
Our system does need to change and it needs to change soon. There are a lot of drugs out there for many illnesses including cancer that could help people. Sadly alot of them have been studied for other illnesses and then have to go through all the studies and trials again to meet FDA approval and it takes years. Then the big boys (Pharmaceutical Companies) buy into the research to help fund it and then it all changes. If they have something like it they will change it so it doesn't compete with drugs they may have on the market.Some if they are BIG enough can put drugs and things like this on a fast track for FDA approval. They do it if they will make money not save lives or make the quality of life better for the sick.
I would send this to Obama if I were you. You are right some things and this is to big for the private industry to fix. It has got to out of control.It can be fixed and it can turn a profit but not the way the system works right now.