More on the Nanotech attack on Cancer

At the Mprize website section on Rejuvenation Engineering News I have reported several times before on the use of nanoparticles to reach deep within the body and specifically target individual cancer cells killing g them before enough of them propagate to cause harm and leaving healthy tissue well alone. The following blog article I found and excerpted below goes into much greater detail. Be sure to visit here for the whole interesting article. Don't forget to visit the Mprize website to donate to end the disease we call aging.

Nanoparticles, Nanoshells, Nanotubes: How Tiny Specks May Provide Powerful Tools Against Cancer

November 17, 2005

PHILADELPHIA -– They're but a tiny speck, existing in a variety of forms: particles, tubes, shells, even a soccerball-like shape. They also share a common prefix: "nano",” connoting their size, a billionth of a meter or roughly 25-millionth of an inch.

Today, cancer researchers are exploring the potential of such nanostructures to exquisitely target cancer cells without harming surrounding tissue, and to image the formation of tumors long before they have a chance to become life-threatening.

While diagnostics and approved therapies are years away, several are nearing clinical studies, while a few already are being tested in patients.

A press conference on "“Advances in Nanotechnology for Cancer Diagnostics and Treatment" ” is being featured at the "“Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics" International Conference here.

Research highlights from this session include:

• A nanotube, combined with monoclonal antibodies, is detecting cancer cells, offering a potential cost-effective way to diagnose whether cells are cancerous or not in a matter of minutes versus hour or days with current methods.
• Nanoshells, filled with gold particles, are destroying tumor cells when heated with laser light. What'’s more, these nanoshells interact with light in specific ways, and can be "“tuned" to discrete destructive wavelengths by varying the size of the core and the shell.
• A nanoparticle combined with a hormone and cell-killing peptide is being tested to image, target and destroy primary and metastatic breast cancer cells.
• A novel kind of "“nanocomplex" consisting of a microscopic, lipid-based liposome and an antibody along with gene therapy is entering clinical studies, in an approach that scientists hope will both detect and target metastatic cancer cells for destruction.

As you can see there's a plethora of valuable information available from that article. Each one of the above bullet points is expanded and delt with in greater detail in the original article.

Drugstore Cancer Tests

This will fit well with the last article I posted about my friend's blog article lauding the National Cancer Institute's foray into Nanotechnology for cures for cancer. In the following excerpted article , from MIT's nationally recognized magazine Technology Review, we learn about new nanotech powered devices that could empower everyone to test early for cancer. It would mean testing early enough to prevent health degradation. They would be cheap and readily available from your local drugstore. That is the goal.

Drugstore Cancer Tests

A new nano-device could eventually find its way to a pharmacy aisle near you.

By Kevin Bullis

October 31, 2005

Biomedical researchers have been discovering more and more proteins that reveal the presence of a cancer before its symptoms appear -- and while its treatment success rate is still high. Yet turning these findings into quick, accurate, and inexpensive diagnostic tests has proven difficult.

Recent advances in nanotech devices, however, point to new ways for developing inexpensive and effective cancer-screening devices.

One of the most promising of these new detectors is being built by Charles Lieber, a chemist at Harvard University. In an article this month in Nature Biotechnology, he announced a highly-sensitive detector that can simultaneously find multiple cancer markers.

According to Lieber, the device, which uses nanowires to detect telltale cancer proteins, could lead to inexpensive and highly-accurate tests -- people could even buy them in a local drugstore and perform the testing themselves. "We can take a very small amount of blood and with a very simple filtration step get an answer within five minutes," Lieber says, adding that the device has "a sensitivity a thousand times better" than in a lab.

Well that is only a taste so be sure to follow this link to see the rest.

Won't it be great to be able to head off cancer well before it can even effect your health? Think of how many lives that will save! It will mean more people surviving long enough to reach escape velocity as put forth in the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) approach to curing aging by Aubrey de Grey and so be able to take full advantage of the soon coming cures for aging and more.

Check out my friend Jan-Willem's blog

My Dutch friend Jan-Willem Bats recently posted an excellent article on his blog about the National Cancer Institute's projects with Nanotechnology seeking actual cures, not just treatments, for cancer... all cancers. He notes that NCI claims it could end cancer by 2015, I think he's right. I won't steal his thunder so go see why he thinks this audacious claim is true!

But stop by the NCI and see this video first and get it straight from the folks that support those working on it directly.

Of course I have posted news articles about NCI's use of nanotech some time ago on the Rejuvenation Engineering News section at the Mprize website. But it is good to know work has progressed since those articles and what were once only hoped for's are now sure of's. Enjoy the empowerment this information provides and share the hope with your loved ones that suffer the insults to life cancer causes. I know I am not going to stop bugging my uncle Carlos until he gets his doctors to put him in touch with someone that can get him involved with the early trials.

Welcome to the Rejuvenation Engineering News Adjunct blog for Mprize.org

This blog is meant to be a supplement to the Rejuvenation Engineering News section at the Mprize website for the Methuselah Fondation. The Methuselah Fondation is a non profit organization created to promote the science and technology of engineering the human body for agelessness and robust health. The Methuselah Fondation's chief vehicle for promoting such science for now is the Methuselah Mouse Prize or Mprize for short. Here you will find all the stuff that is coming down the pike for rejuvenation strategies for engineering the human body away from aging and decrepitude, sickness and yes even death, that doesn't quite meet the parameters for posting at the Mprize website. There the breakthroughs for Rejuvenation Engineering News must be available within 2 years for at least Phase III human trials.

Here I'll be a little less restricted and talk about the hope given us by really cool science and tech stuff coming down the pike in a farther flung future timeline useful for creating a world where human aging is nil and death rare for those that choose to take part in the science and technologies involved.

Individual choice is a big thing to the advocates of these technologies. Most take a laissez faire position towards government, life, society and interactions between individuals, a basically "live and let live" approach, allowing people to make their own choices about what to do with their own bodies and lives. Few, and I dare say probably none, would ever advocate refusing people their choice in availing themselves or not of Physical Immortality science.

Now what do we mean by Physical Immortality? We mean non magical extreme robustness of physical life spans. We mean you won't survive a ground zero bomb or being flattened by a pavement roller or some such extreme violence, but aging will soon be cured and most diseases will have been someday soon cured and/or some means, which I'll explain later, will have been designed to make any insult to the molecular integrity of human cells rapidly repairable invivo... on the hoof, so to speak.

In other words we aren't saying that if you take advantage of these sciences and technologies that you can never ever die. So we aren't competing with religion, although sometimes it's difficult to convince some folks of that. The question, "what comes after final death", will ever be a question that each and every individual someday must find the answer to completely on their own when all attempts to dodge such an event ultimately fail. The foolish say in complete seriousness, "I'll live forever", for on the day the universe ends they'll discover how wrong they were.

Could we individually or as a species live to see that end? Well that will be a topic of discussion for a later time, I don't wish to play all my cards in this intro. However, in very practical terms, notwithstanding discussion of exotic extreme solutions, the scientist that leads the Mprize and that developed the theory for how to re-engineer the human body for agelessness, Aubrey de Grey, developer of SENS -- Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senesence, believes mishap will statistically limit ageless life spans to about 5000 years.

Well, I'll take what I can get!, how about you? And when the year 7005ce rolls around maybe we'll have developed something really exotic for living another 5k or beyond! I often say to those that just don't quite get it right away, "Do you like taking that next breath and what the taking of that breath allows you to do, chiefly be with loved ones, appreciate art, beauty, watch grand children develop, etc., etc., ...all life offers?", and then follow with, "So if yes, then if you have a perpetual physical health of a 25-30 year old, what would make you wish not to take that next breath?". Folks then often get it when put that way.

Ok well that's basically it in a nutshell so I'll get to posting some neat things that science is on the cusp of soon and we'll get this party started!! Oh, by the way, I forgot to introduce myself, my name is James Swayze, and if you see a picture of me when I was a little younger than nowadays you'll probably be compelled given my name to ask, "are you related to...?", and I'll say, yes we're distant cousins! Anyway, I have been a volunteer for the Mprize since about when it started and I administrate the Rejuvenation Engineering News portion of the website there. I decided there was a need for some public interactivity and discussion of what might be possible so here we are. -- James

Welcome to the Rejuvenation Engineering News Adjunct blog for Mprize.org

This blog is meant to be a supplement to the Rejuvenation Engineering News section at the Mprize website for the Methuselah Fondation. The Methuselah Fondation is a non profit organization created to promote the science and technology of engineering the human body for agelessness and robust health. The Methuselah Fondation's chief vehicle for promoting such science for now is the Methuselah Mouse Prize or Mprize for short. Here you will find all the stuff that is coming down the pike for rejuvenation strategies for engineering the human body away from aging and decrepitude, sickness and yes even death, that doesn't quite meet the parameters for posting at the Mprize website. There the breakthroughs for Rejuvenation Engineering News must be available within 2 years for at least Phase III human trials.

Here I'll be a little less restricted and talk about the hope given us by really cool science and tech stuff coming down the pike in a farther flung future timeline useful for creating a world where human aging is nil and death rare for those that choose to take part in the science and technologies involved.

Individual choice is a big thing to the advocates of these technologies. Most take a laissez faire position towards government, life, society and interactions between individuals, a basically "live and let live" approach, allowing people to make their own choices about what to do with their own bodies and lives. Few, and I dare say probably none, would ever advocate refusing people their choice in availing themselves or not of Physical Immortality science.

Now what do we mean by Physical Immortality? We mean non magical extreme robustness of physical life spans. We mean you won't survive a ground zero bomb or being flattened by a pavement roller or some such extreme violence, but aging will soon be cured and most diseases will have been someday soon cured and/or some means, which I'll explain later, will have been designed to make any insult to the molecular integrity of human cells rapidly repairable invivo... on the hoof, so to speak.

In other words we aren't saying that if you take advantage of these sciences and technologies that you can never ever die. So we aren't competing with religion, although sometimes it's difficult to convince some folks of that. The question, "what comes after final death", will ever be a question that each and every individual someday must find the answer to completely on their own when all attempts to dodge such an event ultimately fail. The foolish say in complete seriousness, "I'll live forever", for on the day the universe ends they'll discover how wrong they were.

Could we individually or as a species live to see that end? Well that will be a topic of discussion for a later time, I don't wish to play all my cards in this intro. However, in very practical terms, notwithstanding discussion of exotic extreme solutions, the scientist that leads the Mprize and that developed the theory for how to re-engineer the human body for agelessness, Aubrey de Grey, developer of SENS -- Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senesence, believes mishap will statistically limit ageless life spans to about 5000 years.

Well, I'll take what I can get!, how about you? And when the year 7005ce rolls around maybe we'll have developed something really exotic for living another 5k or beyond! I often say to those that just don't quite get it right away, "Do you like taking that next breath and what the taking of that breath allows you to do, chiefly be with loved ones, appreciate art, beauty, watch grand chilkdren develop, etc., etc., ...all life offers?", and then follow with, "So if yes, then if you have a perpetual physical health of a 25-30 year old, what would make you wish not to take that next breath?". Folks then often get it when put that way.

Ok well that's basically it in a nutshell so I'll get to posting some neat things that science is on the cusp of soon and we'll get this party started!! Oh, by the way, I forgot to introduce myself, my name is James Swayze, and if you see a picture of me when I was a little younger than nowadays you'll probably be compelled given my name to ask, "are you related to...?", and I'll say, yes we're distant cousins! Anyway, I have been a volunteer for the Mprize since about when it started and I administrate the Rejuvenation Engineering News portion of the website there. I decided there was a need for some public interactivity and discussion of what might be possible so here we are. -- James