I can see a whole new wave of miracle-cures coming again from the
colloidal-gold alternative healing communities.

Regards/Roger, in Bangkok


On 6/22/07, Russell McMahon <apptech@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>
> GOLD-coated glass "nanoshells" can reveal the location of tumours and
> then destroy them minutes later in a burst of heat.
>
> Using these particles to detect and destroy tumours could speed up
> cancer treatment and reduce the use of potentially toxic drugs. It
> could also make treatment cheaper, says Andre Gobin of Rice University
> in Houston, Texas, who helped to create the particles.
>
>
>        Presently only works extremely close to body surface.
>        Work being done to extend depth.
>
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426096.500?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19426096.500
>
>
> In 2003 Gobin's supervisor Jennifer West showed that gold-coated
> silica nanospheres could destroy tumours in mice, while leaving normal
> tissue intact. The blood vessels surrounding tumours are leakier than
> those in healthy tissue, so spheres injected into the bloodstream tend
> to accumulate at tumour sites. Illuminating the tumour with a
> near-infrared laser then excites a "sea" of loose electrons around the
> gold atoms via a process called plasmon resonance. This creates heat,
> killing all the nearby cells.
>
> However, before this can happen doctors first have to make sure they
> find all the tumour sites, which requires an MRI or CT scan. This
> extra stage can mean multiple hospital visits and more drugs for the
> patient.
>
> Now the team has shown how to tweak the size of the nanoshells so that
> they also scatter some of the radiation. That means any cancer sites
> will "light up" under low-intensity infrared, so they can then be
> zapped with the laser. "We can use one single particle to accomplish
> two tasks and neither feature is diminished greatly," says Gobin.
>
> To achieve this, the team had to carry out a delicate balancing act.
> Smaller spheres convert more radiation to heat, which makes them
> better at destroying tumours, but larger ones scatter more radiation,
> which is vital for the imaging stage. Previously, the spheres were 120
> nanometres in diameter, which meant they only scattered 15 per cent of
> the light shone on them, and converted the rest to heat. West's team
> increased their size to 140 nanometres, causing them to convert 67 per
> cent of the light to heat, and to scatter the remaining 33 per cent.
>
> The team injected the new particles into mice with colon carcinoma
> tumours and used a technique called optical coherence tomography to
> test their ability to act as an imaging agent. This involves shining
> low-power near-infrared light onto the tissue and then measuring where
> the scattered light bounces back. They found that the nanoparticles
> caused tumour tissue to light up 56 per cent more strongly than
> healthy tissue.
>
> The team then applied a higher-power infrared laser to each tumour
> site for 3 minutes to heat the tissue. After a few weeks, they found
> the tumours had been almost completely destroyed. Eighty per cent of
> the mice treated survived for more than seven weeks, while all the
> control mice, who did not receive the nanoshells, died after three
> weeks.
>
> "Using one particle to detect and destroy tumours could cut treatment
> length"
> Since optical coherence tomography only penetrates up to 2
> millimetres, the imaging step will only be useful for locating tumours
> near the surface, such as cervical, mouth and skin cancers, says
> Gobin. However, the team plans to modify the nanoshells so that they
> work with more deeply penetrating radiation, such as X-rays.
> Houston-based Nanospectra Biosciences, which West co-founded, will
> begin trials of the spheres in humans in the next two months.
>
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