Source: Cancer.org.
What a time to be alive. Scientists have developed nanomachines that can kill cancer in 60 seconds! The way they work is by little molecules that are driven by light that make their way through the cell lining then activate. A test done at Durham University took about one to three minutes to totally kill prostate cancer!
Dr. Robert Pal of the University of Durham stated, “We are moving towards realizing our ambition to be able to use light-activated nanomachines to target cancer cells such as those in breast tumors and skin melanomas, including those that are resistant to existing chemotherapy.”
“Once developed, this approach could provide a potential step
change in non-invasive cancer treatment and greatly improve survival rates
and patient welfare globally.” – Dr. Pal
In order for this to work the nanomachines need to spin about two to three million times per second, and to assure it works smoothly. The molecules being transferred are a therapeutic agent, or a killer that opens tumor membranes. These nanomachines are so tiny it would take about 50,000 of them to make up one strand of hair.
Dr. James Tour a member of Rice University in Houston stated, “These nanomachines are so small that we could park 50,000 of them across the diameter of a human hair, yet they have the targeting and actuating components combined in that diminutive package to make molecular machines a reality for treating disease.”
“For many years I never had envisioned the nanomachines being used medically, I thought they were way too small, because they are much much smaller than a cell, but now this work has really changed my thoughts on this and I think therapeutically this will be a whole new way to treat patients, it’s going to be an excellent application for cancer treatment, not just for killing of cells but for the treatment of cells, interacting with the human body using molecular machines.”
This is a huge breakthrough in the world of modern medicine. If perfected this could be use to kill all sorts of cancer! It may also be used to deliver other medications faster and more effectively.
Are you looking forward to more medical breakthroughs? Let Nerdbot know in the comments!
