(Second of two parts)
Robocops
Our immune system also guards the body by detecting unusual changes in cells brought about by infection or signs of emerging cancer. This system is like a police force which dispatches patrol cars, putting the body under surveillance for suspicious elements. The immune system’s antibodies and T cells are mean cops who are on a shoot to kill mission! Cancer cells, however, are crafty rogues which have skillfully succeeded in evading these cops. This urgent situation calls for an extraordinary type of a police force. Brilliant bioengineers thus have created nanoshells — the Robocops in nanocity to exterminate cancer cells!
A tumor mass is angiogenic, which means it has rapidly formed many blood vessels to persist like a mafia trafficking drugs and blood money. These pipelines, however, which supply nutrients and oxygen are usually defective. They have leaks! It is this bad plumbing that experts have exploited to wipe out the menace! During treatment, nanoshells are injected and circulate into the bloodstream; they are small enough to slip into the leaks and eventually accumulate in tumor sites. Near infrared light from a handheld laser is then beamed on the skin radiating down into the tumor site or by fiber-optic probes inserted through catheters. Nanoshells absorb the near infrared light and convert it to heat as high as 131 degrees Fahrenheit, killing the tumor cells in a matter of minutes! Tests done in mice showed that after such quick and simple treatment, the tumors were seriously injured by the Robocops that none recovered and were completely annihilated by the end of 10 to 14 days. Take note, there were zero civilian casualties. No healthy cells were destroyed!
Lights, camera, destruction!
What is infrared light? The name means “below red,” from the Latin infra, “below.” The rainbow colors, abbreviated as roy-g-biv as taught to us during grade school to remember them in order in the spectrum, are obviously visible lights. They actually possess different levels of heat in succeeding order, the red having the highest and the violet the lowest. Beyond the red light there exist lights which are invisible with higher levels of heat. One of these invisible lights is infrared light. Infrared technology is now used in military surveillance, meteorology, medical imaging as diagnostic tools and many other applications. Nanoshells are essentially made out of glass cores covered with gold. The gold coat captures near infrared light (this is the light energy located near or just outside the visible spectrum) and focuses the light around them, pinpointing the location, size and shape of tumors through a program installed in a laptop. That means one can see the outline and boundaries of a tumor on the computer screen. It is this same kind of light set at higher energies that destroys the tumor. Now that’s a cool kind of heat! This technique replaces complicated surgical removal of tumors located in sensitive locations like the brain. Nanotechnologists can fine-tune nanoshells, which means they can change the size of the core and the color on the surface by adding or lessening the gold coating, thereby affecting the level of heat absorbed. One of the main elegant innovations therefore of this treatment is the ease of control.
Remission impossible?
Although the concept of nanoshells began during the early 50s, the tremendous potential of nanoshells for cancer treatment as tested in laboratory-cultured breast cancer cells and mice tumors was first demonstrated by the team of brilliant scientists like Naomi Halas and Jennifer West of Rice University in Texas. Their results published in 2003 yielded 100 percent tumor remission from such a quick treatment! We just have to hold our breaths as human clinical trials are undertaken. If everything goes smoothly, just imagine getting rid of cancer as ordinary as removing a dental plaque!
Brave heart
For now, cancer may seem like an insurmountable problem. When hopelessness rears its ugly head just think out of the box. Remember that when it was first perceived that the Earth was round, it was considered sheer lunacy and so was when the Wright brothers dreamed of flying. Today, perceiving that the world is flat is flat-out moronic and man can travel the skies faster than the speed of sound. Both cavemen and great thinkers of the past may faint in amazement if they see our space travel, Martian rovers, space stations and satellites, airbuses, bullet and magnetic levitating trains, Imax movies, Wi-Fi gadgets, Internet, iPods and countless other technologies we enjoy they never imagined possible. So when cancer strikes, it’s not game over my friend. If your hope has shrunk to nano-size scale, somewhere around the world, groups of people are seriously brainstorming and diligently devising small things to enlarge your hope.
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References:
Hirch LR, Stafford RJ, Bankson JA, Sershen SR, Rivera B, Price RE, Hazle JD, Halas NJ and West JL. Nanoshell-mediated near-infrared thermal therapy of tumors under magnetic resonance guidance. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA Nov 11;100(23):13549-54. Epub 2003 Nov 3.
Hanahan, D Weinberg RA. The hallmarks of cancer. Cell. 2000 Jan 7;100(1):57-70.
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Dr. Ronie J. Calugay obtained his PhD in Life Sciences and Biotechnology at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. He is currently exploring exotic places in the Philippines which he has not done before and is writing travel and science articles. E-mail him at ronix5@yahoo.com.