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10 years before the new era: quantum medicine against cancer.
A new technology based on modulating quantum processes inside human cells could revolutionize the treatment of a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma. Scientists from the University of Nottingham have joined forces and demonstrated that electrical stimulation transmitted through bio-nanoantennas can initiate quantum biological tunneling to transfer electrons in cancer cells, which causes them to die. In lab experiments, the team used this technique to kill glioblastoma cancer cells, while keeping healthy cells intact.
Bio-nanoantennas consist of gold nanoparticles coated with cytochrome c, a protein that plays a key role in initiating apoptosis – the natural process of cell self-destruction. When cytochrome c is oxidized, losing an electron through quantum tunneling, it sends signals that instruct the cell's genes to change in such a way that the cell dies.
One of the things that makes glioblastoma so difficult to treat is the tendency of glioblastoma cells to spread throughout the brain. This new quantum biological therapy has the potential to essentially eliminate these scattered cells.
Frankie Rawson, the lead researcher, emphasizes that more research is needed to determine the long-term effects of treatment. Rawson expressed hope for clinical trials of the treatment to be conducted on patients within the next decade.
Rawson expressed confidence that with its ability to target any type of cancer cell, the technique could lay the groundwork for a range of quantum medical procedures. "This work has many implications in the field of quantum biology and quantum therapeutics. This is potentially a whole new paradigm in medicine."
A new technology based on modulating quantum processes inside human cells could revolutionize the treatment of a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma. Scientists from the University of Nottingham have joined forces and demonstrated that electrical stimulation transmitted through bio-nanoantennas can initiate quantum biological tunneling to transfer electrons in cancer cells, which causes them to die. In lab experiments, the team used this technique to kill glioblastoma cancer cells, while keeping healthy cells intact.
Bio-nanoantennas consist of gold nanoparticles coated with cytochrome c, a protein that plays a key role in initiating apoptosis – the natural process of cell self-destruction. When cytochrome c is oxidized, losing an electron through quantum tunneling, it sends signals that instruct the cell's genes to change in such a way that the cell dies.
One of the things that makes glioblastoma so difficult to treat is the tendency of glioblastoma cells to spread throughout the brain. This new quantum biological therapy has the potential to essentially eliminate these scattered cells.
Frankie Rawson, the lead researcher, emphasizes that more research is needed to determine the long-term effects of treatment. Rawson expressed hope for clinical trials of the treatment to be conducted on patients within the next decade.
Rawson expressed confidence that with its ability to target any type of cancer cell, the technique could lay the groundwork for a range of quantum medical procedures. "This work has many implications in the field of quantum biology and quantum therapeutics. This is potentially a whole new paradigm in medicine."
