Kanzius to start testing his cancer machine on human blood!
If you haven't already heard about John Kanzius, you really should check him out. He himself is battling Leukemia. He invented a machine that beams radiowaves at nano particles that attach to cancer cells. He's not a scientist but basically spent his life in the broadcasting industry. These nano particles (gold or carbon) act like little antennas and absorb the energy from the radio waves, thereby heating up and killing the cancer cells, but not surrounding healthy human cells. Researchers all over the world are excited about this technology. There's a whole team at MD Anderson pushing this research.
Something to note is that the late Richard Smalley (widely credited with creating the buckyball and whose research won him the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), was very optimistic it would work, even on his death bed.
This 60 minutes interview gives a very good idea of what it's all about:
Watch these two videos for a quick primer:
Then check out more at http://www.kanziuscancerresearch.com/
There's also an Erie-focussed blog that talks a bit about the financial aspect.
Update Aug 22, 2010:
Looks like there's an update on their website. Specifically, they seem to have shown that pancreatic carcinoma cells are susceptible to their gold nanoparticles (tested in-vitro).