He said it matter-of-factly. Then he slid a sideways glance at me to see if what he said had sunk in.
And because I was live on television at the moment I wasn’t about to say, “Excuse me. What was that?”
“We found the targeting molecule for prostate cancer.”
The speaker was John Kanzius, the inventor who used his wife’s pie pans and hot dogs to prove that tiny bits of metal could heat and kill cancer cells in a directed field of radio waves.
Two separate research projects, one in Houston and one in Pittsburgh, both proved that the theory was no fluke.
Tiny nano particles, bits of metal blasted down to the atomic level, could embed in cancer cells if coated in the right proteins.
When later zapped with radio waves, the cells would be destroyed from the inside out, without harming nearby healthy tissue.
It raised the prospect of the Holy Grail in the fight against cancer, a powerful treatment without side effects; no anemia, no loss of hair, no lethargy.
But different cancers act differently, so researchers have begun the process of identifying which proteins would be absorbed by which cancers.
The identified list has now grown to six, including liver and pancreatic cancers, but to date little progress was made in identifying the right targeting device for a cancer that affects 186,000 men each year.
Caught early, the survival rate is more than 90%, but many men do not go through the screening process and, if allowed to grow, prostate cancer can become an unerring killer.
I interviewed John as part of a telethon simulcast on WSEE and WICU as well as the CW network.
It raised more than $100,000 that will be used to help shorten the distance until some of these targeters and nano particles can be used in human beings.
It’s not the first time Kanzius told me something and then watched me to gauge the impact.
He did it when the papers were released proving his theory worked.
He did it when estimates on the manufacturing of his machine reached 100 billion dollars, 25 times the current impact of GE Transportation on Erie.
I hope I’m sitting there the first time he tells someone, that the idea that started with pie pans in a garage worked on a real live human being.