Posted on 01/13/2012 5:23:41 PM PST by Brandonmark
If you ever worry about the future of America, there is no need: it is in good hands. A high school student named Angela is proof of that. We think you'll agree she is nothing short of amazing. CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman met her on the road.
Born to Chinese immigrants, 17-year-old Angela Zhang of Cupertino, California is a typical American teenager. She's really into shoes and is just learning how to drive.
But there is one thing that separates her from every other student at Monta Vista High School, something she first shared with her chemistry teacher, Kavita Gupta.
It's a research paper Angela wrote in her spare time -- and it is advanced, to say the least. Gupta says all she knows is its recipe -- for curing cancer.
"Cure for cancer -- a high school student," said Gupta. "It's just so mind-boggling. I just cannot even begin to comprehend how she even thought about it or did this."
"I just thought, 'Why not?' 'What is there to lose?'" said Angela.
When she was a freshman, she started reading doctorate level papers on bio-engineering.
"At first it was a little bit overwhelming," said Angela, "but I found that it almost became like a puzzle, being able to decode something."
By sophomore year she'd talked her way into the lab at Stanford, and by junior year was doing her own research.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
There have been two doctors that cured cancer - I know because I saw it happen to a friend - cancer gone! But, they hounded the guy out of this country (went to Canada) that came up with the cure.
The second guy that cured literally hundreds was also ran out of the country (went to Mexico.)
If this little gal gets too good at it, the medical interests will go after her just like they always do.
No real idea, I suspect there is a difference in proteins or some such that is exploited to mark the correct cells.
decimon, did you see this yet?
“Does anyone really believe this student found something that billions of dollars of research hasn’t found?”
Bingo! That’s what I thought. Nothing new under the sun.
CA #1
Good for her!
Probably not, but she got up to speed on her own. That gives her a head-start on making further progress if she decides to make a career of it.
This is why there should be less restrictions on any medical care or research. Let curiosity, ambition, and the market place take care of everything. Every cure is already here; Gd just wants us to find them all.
Here’a a link to a story from 3/10/2010 about similar research at Cornell...
http://www.nanotech-now.com/news.cgi?story_id=37153
Nanotech has been around for years, the idea of using cell-level identification and destruction has been for quite a while.
I’m not sure where this HS student’s work fits in.
Is CBS just babbling ? I don’t know.
Is the healthcare industry maximizing revenue ? I’m sure it is.
Will we get a very effective and low-cost complete cure someday ? Yes, I guess “someday”, though, of course, the healthcare industry would prefer to do the initial rollout of the cure in an extremely high-cost fashion.
Is there any chance we might see drastic improvements soon ? I guess there’s a chance, but the “complete cure” is at odds with the structure and dynamics of the healthcare marketplace. Consequently, the “complete cure” approach is not the primary focus of R & D.
If somehow the healthcare industry had it’s profitability aligned with both solution effectiveness and cost would scientific advances increase and costs decrease at astoundingly fast rates ? Yes, but first someone has to develop a working industry model that would achieve this alignment along with a transition plan, and then the industry would have to be incentivized in such a way that they would opt to make the transition.
IMHO.
I don't think so. I have read about the John Kanzius invention, where carbon nanotubes are heated with RF energy to kill cancer cells. The nanoparticles don't find their own way from systemic administration, they have to be manually placed on target - so that remains the challenge. Others are experimenting with things like particle shaping, antibody coating, etc. to attain the self targeting objective. That would be BIG.
Still, both of these methods (from self taught individuals no less) hold a lot of promise.
I don't think so. I have read about the John Kanzius invention, where carbon nanotubes are heated with RF energy to kill cancer cells. The nanoparticles don't find their own way from systemic administration, they have to be manually placed on target - so that remains the challenge. Others are experimenting with things like particle shaping, antibody coating, etc. to attain the self targeting objective. That would be BIG.
Still, both of these methods (from self taught individuals no less) hold a lot of promise.
ping
It really is ridiculous that it cures mice now but will take years to know if it works in humans. People who are dying will line up around the block to try something that could cause them to live. They will take the risk, especially if it works in mice and other mammals. I am so very tired of this kind of thinking.
If it were their life or the the life of a close family member and they were told they only had a short time to live you can be sure they wouldn't wait for years if they thought it would make a difference. In the mean time how many people die horrible deaths? If it isn't going to make them a ton of money will they ever let it out or expect people to forget after these years before it is suppose to come out?
Maybe it has to do with the fact that cancer gobbles iron. It is the part of the working principle involving artemisinin as a cure for cancer. They load patients up with iron before they take it. Artemisinin is attracted to the excess iron in the cancer cells and kills them.
Below is an excerpt from an article about studies done on artemisinin as a cancer cure involving iron out of the University of Washington.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/UW-scientists-report-success-in-herb-enhanced-to-1288147.php
The herb, artemisinin, or sweet wormwood, is an ancient Chinese medicinal herb already commonly used to treat malaria worldwide. Because its effect in the body is relatively brief, it is often used in a pharmaceutical combination with other routine anti-malarial drugs -- an approach known as ACT, artemisinin-based combination therapy.
"It's quite effective against cancer cells as well," said Tomikazu Sasaki, a chemistry professor at the University of Washington and lead author of a report on this in the current online issue of Cancer Letters.
Sasaki said his co-authors, UW bioengineers Henry Lai and Narendra Singh, began looking into the possibility of using this herb as an anti-cancer drug in the mid-1990s. Since then, he said, others have done studies on artemisinin's ability in laboratory cell cultures to kill cancer cells. But there wasn't much understanding exactly how this happened or how to improve upon the herb's ability to target cancer and avoid healthy cells.
"The connection here is iron," explained Sasaki.
Artemisinin is good at killing malaria parasites because it reacts and becomes highly toxic in the presence of iron, he said. Malaria parasites cause illness in humans by consuming red blood cells, which contain iron in the hemoglobin protein that carries oxygen in the blood. Similarly, cancer cells use lots of iron as they proliferate in tumors.
Recognizing this connection, Lai and Singh in the 1990s began exploring the possibility of using this Chinese herb as a cancer drug. They continued to publish about it, and the UW patented the idea. Sasaki joined the team in 2000, and the scientists formed a local company, Artemisia Biomedical Inc., to explore how to turn this into a commercial drug therapy.
In the report published this month, the UW trio describe how they have created their own kind of artemisinin compound to enhance the herb's cancer-killing abilities. Basically, the scientists manipulated the herb's protein surface and boosted it with iron. When the cancer cells consume the compound, it releases toxic chemicals that kill the cells.
"The compound is like a little bomb-carrying monkey riding on the back of a Trojan horse," Lai said in a statement accompanying the report. Lai, who is perhaps best known publicly for his controversial studies linking cancer and cell phone use, is not afraid to mix humor with science, let alone metaphors.
Most chemotherapy drugs today have serious side effects, Sasaki said, because they generally kill one healthy cell for every 10 cancer cells. The UW's artemisinin compound used in cell cultures and in rats with breast cancer showed much better targeting and less collateral damage -- killing about 12,000 cancer cells for every healthy cell killed. Even regular artemisinin, without the UW alteration, only kills one good cell for every 100 cancer cells, he said.
"Normal cells don't use iron very often," Sasaki said. "When we deliver this artemisinin-iron package to cancer cells, we have much higher selectivity and much less toxic side effects."
Given that the herb is in wide use and readily available for only a few dollars a dose, why wouldn't someone with cancer just go out and take the drug?
"We see patients doing all kind of things based on findings in animal tests," said Dr. Daniel Labriola, a naturopathic physician in Ballard who is also medical director for naturopathic care at the Swedish Cancer Institute and Seattle Children's hospital. "There are a lot of people using this already."
I think it's a portent ~ that this is the only good thing that is going to happen to a Romney all this year.
He's a LOSER
Be ware Sheldon....... she’s coming for you
There is a whole lot of negatives here about this research being squashed because it would jeopardize profits and grants if it ever worked.
Only thing is everyone here is thinking this is being watched only by US interests. Plenty of other countries could give a crap about whether or not we develop this treatment, but they sure a hell will. This is especially true in countries with single payer healthcare who could see huge reductions in expenditures if it worked.
Sometimes that which puts one bottom line in the red puts another heavy in the black.
Exactly. It has always seemed to me a noninvasive way to target the cure, thoroughly and accurately on the disease, would be an answer. The nanotech solutions described upthread seem to bear little or no risk of side effects and should be available now to those folks who want them. Likewise this thing with iron and artemisinin (and if I read this right, it looks as though it may be - just not by way of the normal gatekeepers in the establishment medical community).
It does seem at times that moneyed interests and government conspire to slow the progress of such things.
There are examples in nature of successful therapies developed from toxic plants and substances, so don’t get me wrong here, I’m not advocating against it so much as urging caution. Foxglove is one notable example.
But, artemisinin, wormwood, is quite toxic in it’s own right and pursuing it as a potential therapy for cancer is also potentially life threatening. Yes, it shows some promise, but it’s heavy duty stuff, not to be trifled with.
It really sucks the people of California continue to do great things!
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