WPBF-TVupdated 10:18 a.m. MT, Tues., Nov. 6, 2007

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - New research reports posted on the American Cancer Society's Web site late Tuesday suggest that a Florida man with no medical training may have invented a machine that could lead to a cure for cancer. "It gives me goose bumps that there might be a better way to do this and it looks like it's happening," said John Kanzius, inventor of the machine.

Kanzius, 63, is a former broadcast executive from Pennsylvania who wondered if his background in physics and radio could come in handy in treating the disease from which he suffers himself.

Created in his Sanibel Island, Fla., garage, Kanzius' contraption kills cancer cells using non-invasive radio waves, WPBF News 25 reported.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21568150/

I've heard hopes for a technology resembling this one for years now, though I'd never heard of a prototype.

Like all cancer treatments, it would not be a cure, but it could be an effective treatment - like radiation therapy but without the nasty side-effects. The idea is that you coat these metal nanoparticles with antibodies or other molecules that ensure they attach to cancerous cells rather than normal ones, and bombard the area with radio waves, and the particles will heat up and kill the tissue around them. If they stick to cancerous cells, they will kill cancer cells. The radio waves are harmless and penetrate tissue well, and the particles can transform this harmless energy into localized deadly heat.

Of course it won't be perfect... you can't guarantee a perfect saturation of the tumor with them, so some cells will always escape each individual treatment... but thats where combining it with other treatments and the person's own immune system comes in.

Basically radiation therapy without the radiation poisoning. I like it.

Gene therapy and drugs that target genetic defects serve our best hope in the future. See how far the drug Gleevec has gotten us?

And hopefully, RNAi...

The story doesn't mention why the nanoparticles would attach to cancer cells but not to normal cells.