Dying of Leukemia, With No Scientific Credentials, John Kanzius Invents an Exciting New Approach to Treating Cancer

CBS show 60 Minutes profiled John Kanzius--retired broadcast executive, dying leukemia patient, and self-taught inventor. Kanzius has invented a new approach to cancer therapy. In his Florida garage, he has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money, to improve his focused RF thermal therapy for cancer.

In collaboration with surgical oncologist Steven Curley at MD Anderson Medical Center in Texas, Kanzius has worked against time--his own slow losing battle with leukemia--to develop a safe and effective therapy that could start saving lives.Kanzius suspected that nano-particles of metal might work particularly well for receiving the heat from the RF energy, and heating tumours. So oncologist Curley contacted nanotechnolgist Richard Smalley--Nobel Prize winning discoverer of the buckyball--to request a vial of Smalley's nanoparticles to test Kanzius' theory in mice. Although Smalley was highly skeptical of Kanzius' intuition--he said the idea "wouldn't work"--Curley and Kanzius proceeded to test Smalley's nanoparticles in the mice. The RF + nanoparticle approach worked brilliantly.

So we have yet another example where experts are proven wrong by amateur scientists and inventors!

Richard Smalley initially thought that the radiowave to heat up metal nanoparticle technique to cook cancer tumors would not work. Richard's scientific intuition was that this would completely fail. He was converted into being a believer when proven wrong with successful experimentation. __NextBigFuture

And sadly, Richard Smalley himself died of lymphoma not long after changing his mind about Kanzius RF cancer tx.

Kanzius himself expects no personal benefit to ever come to him from his hard work and years of toil on RF thermal cancer therapy. But he hopes to live long enough to see the first patient successfully treated by his device.

But if this one does work, it most likely won't be developed in time to help the man who invented it. John Kanzius may have the option of a bone marrow transplant that could buy him more time, but after six years of chemo it would be another grueling ordeal.

"Did you ever say, 'I’m not going to do this anymore. I’m not going to put myself through it,'?" Stahl asked.

"Yes. I said that-only about a year and a half ago," Kanzius replied. "I changed my mind because I think with all the research that’s going on with the institutions, that maybe, I'd like to be around for the first patient to get treated and just have a smile."

"Oh my God," Stahl said.

"And then I don't care anymore," Kanzius replied. __60Minutes

CBS News web story on Kanzius