The Kanzius Machine

Guy Invents Potential Cancer Cure With Radio Machine Built Out of Pie Pans... and Hot Dogs

John Kanzius, a businessman and radio technician diagnosed with leukemia, came up with what some call "the most promising breakthroughs in cancer." His "radio wave machine" is discussed in the following segment from CBS' 60 Minutes:

You know, I really love it when (sorta) average guys out-innovate mega-corporate profit machines, like that homemade MRI machine. But this is more amazing: John Kanzius has no background in cancer research but might have invented a real cure. He was diagnosed with leukemia, and struck by the idea that radio waves could kill cancer cells. So he built a prototype machine using pie pans and conducted tests on hot dogs injected with copper sulfate—the radio waves only heat up metal spots, for tactical nuking without nasty side effects. It's now being tested at the University of Pittsburgh and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where the lead doc says that it "may allow us to treat just about any kind of cancer you can imagine."

So how to get metal bits to cancer cells? This is where the big corporate research comes in: nanotechnology. Thousands of nano-particles composed of metal bits can fit in a cancer cell. So far, they've conducted successful cancer extermination trials using the Kanzius machine and metal nano-particles at both M.D. Anderson and Pittsburgh. The catch is that it's only been tested on solid tumors—hitting cancer that's spread around the body is what they're working toward, and if they can't hunt down the individual cancer cells with the nano-particles, this will only have limited applications.

Human trials are also still four years away, which unfortunately might not be in time for the machine's inventor to cure himself. [CBS via Medgadget]