17-Year-Old Girl Creates Nanoparticle That Kills Cancer, Wins $100,000

Thought some of you may be interested in this. Pretty amazing the things that some young people are up to today. This girl is 17 years old... Imagine the prospects for the future.

I thought this was particularly interesting,

The nanoparticle Zhang created is already being referred to as something of a “swiss army knife” in the area of cancer treatment

...

the nanoparticle is delivered to tumors via the drug salinomycin where it kills cancer cells and deposits gold and iron-oxide materials to help with MRI imaging.
www.geekosystem.com...

oh, gold, is there anything you cant do?

reply to post by ClydeFrog42

to help with MRI imaging.

Sounds like a step in the wrong direction. We know very well what causes cancer yet we do nothing about the cause and seek to cure rather then prevent, simply because it costs more.

Interesting this article is the only thing on the interwebs about this. I was searching for some of the studies involved. DId she work on cells in a petri dish, rats, people? Sounds incredible, and the fact that it has been released to the public may be a sign of a true transcending moment in medicine.... if ya can afford it.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist

She didn't work on any cells. She designed a delivery device for salinomycin. The article in the OP has it backwards.
www.siemens-foundation.org...

Originally posted by ThrowCatsAtCacti
reply to post by ClydeFrog42

 

to help with MRI imaging.

Sounds like a step in the wrong direction. We know very well what causes cancer yet we do nothing about the cause and seek to cure rather then prevent, simply because it costs more.

Could you link to this ground breaking revelation?

What causes cancer?

Thanks...

reply to post by Phage


Thanks, Phage.

Theres more information on the website for the Siemens Foundation, who host and fund the 'Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology'.

www.siemens-foundation.org...

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are responsible for initiating and driving tumor growth yet are often resistant to current cancer therapies. In her research, Angela Zhang aimed to design a CSC-targeted, gold and iron oxide-based nanoparticle with a potential to eradicate these cells through a controlled delivery of the drug salinomycin to the site of the tumor. The multifunctional nanoparticle combines therapy and imaging into a single platform, with the gold and iron-oxide components allowing for both MRI and Photoacoustic imaging. This nanosystem could potentially help overcome cancer resistance, minimize undesirable side effects, and allow for real-time monitoring of treatment efficacy.

another, perhaps better link here, too:

www.mercurynews.com...

Despite all that, its still remarkable research for such a young girl. Gives me a shimmer of hope.

Bad foods, radioactivity, frustrated emotions, smoking, asbestos, diet drinks with aspartame, sugar and white flour, too much alcohol, the body's energies going haywire, a cancer history in the family - there is a plethora of things u could heal by alternative medicine. Plus there are electric treatments developed by a Turkish doctor working in Italy - but the establishment does not want to look there. Your choice. But I do applaud her invention, since what do you do when none of these are working with a given individual? Go to Western medicine. Do they have anything better than chemo now? No...no...! except for heating with an infra lamp which you can do at home.

100k? For battling and killing cancer cells without harm to the person??

That lil girl should be the richest scientist in our nation right now. Screw college, that girl should be funded with a team of 'know hows' at her choosing to finish this thing and get those crackpot druggests to walk the way of the dinosaur.

reply to post by Phage


Thanks Phage
I wonder what rate this medicine could work at once adequately delivered?
Has nano-anything been approved for the human body at this point?

Originally posted by ThrowCatsAtCacti
reply to post by ClydeFrog42

 

to help with MRI imaging.

Sounds like a step in the wrong direction. We know very well what causes cancer yet we do nothing about the cause and seek to cure rather then prevent, simply because it costs more.

You are very misguided. We definitely need to cure as well as prevent. What about the millions of people out there that have already contracted cancer?

Sure, we need to prevent, but we also need to help out those already infected.

Originally posted by theRhenn
100k? For battling and killing cancer cells without harm to the person??

That lil girl should be the richest scientist in our nation right now. Screw college, that girl should be funded with a team of 'know hows' at her choosing to finish this thing and get those crackpot druggests to walk the way of the dinosaur.

Yes she should be!!! It certainly makes one think...

Then there are people who are hired to fire people, and they make more than that in a week!!!

reply to post by Kokatsi


Actually for several types of cancer there are better therapies avaliable than Chemo, radiation, and hormone therapy. There are what are known as synthetic lethals that can be exploited to "kill" the mutated cells and leave the normal ones alone. It's early years, but it works. I know this, as I've just been working this last year in identiying these "synthetic lethal" combinations for breast cancer.

reply to post by Noinden

now this i like sounds very interesting can you give more detail or some links

Originally posted by nilrem
reply to post by Noinden

 

now this i like sounds very interesting can you give more detail or some links

I will post some links, the one most likely to reach market is one for breast cancer (www.nature.com...) though to be fair my research showed some better target genes to silence.

www.tdi.ox.ac.uk...

The idea is to identify any genes (using mircoarray assays (en.wikipedia.org...)) "missing" which are tumor suppressors , and another gene (the oncogene) which also is "absent". In reality they are not absent but mutated genes (thus not working properly), if you target either gene (the faulty one) it causes the cane cell to die, and normal ones are left alone.

It's early years but it is showing promise (a couple of drugs are in Phase II or III testing)

If she really found a cure, she'll either end up dead, or vanish, and her cure will never be spoken of again.

Originally posted by MrUncreated
If she really found a cure, she'll either end up dead, or vanish, and her cure will never be spoken of again.

you're probably right. i don't think they're interested in finding a cure since the business is so profitable.