• Question: are u finding a cure for cancer

    Asked by mussy to Andrew, Daniel, Hayley, Natalia, Peta on 14 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Daniel Scully

      Daniel Scully answered on 14 Nov 2011:

      No. But particle physics is contributing to cancer treatments.

      Cancer is often treated with x-rays, but this gives radiation doses to all the healthy body near the tumour, not just the cancer.

      But using high precision particle accelerators to use protons instead can target the radiation more accurately at the tumour and less at healthy bits.

    • Photo: Hayley Smith

      Hayley Smith answered on 14 Nov 2011:

      Not directly myself but I do like to think that the place I work at (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory – RAL) and similar technology to that that I work on are making a difference – so indirectly, I am?!

      At RAL there’s are particle physicist working on cancer treatments, there are specific committees looking specifically at how certain areas of science can be used for this.

      I work on a particle accelerator. The one I work on is used for testing samples (some of which may be being used in the design of anti-cancer drugs, I don’t know…) but there are many other accelerators world wide used for proton or heavy ion (like Carbon) therapy which are increasingly being used to treat cancer patients. These are not only kept in research labs, but many companies such as Siemens are heavily involved.

    • Photo: Andrew Cairns

      Andrew Cairns answered on 14 Nov 2011:

      No, although there are a lot of scientists both directly and indirectly working on this major challenge in medical sciences. A lot of my own department, biochemistry and medicine work on cancer full time. There are, however, sadly, no quick answers.

      As Hayley says there are also people working on the problem by using many different techniques and in interesting ways. Major breakthroughs on these issues relies on everyone working together and looking out for the answer in unexpected places!

    • Photo: Peta Foster

      Peta Foster answered on 14 Nov 2011:

      Well… I am working on laser-accelerated beams of ions (charged particles) which could be used for treating cancer, like the others have mentioned.

      At the moment we are not producing high enough energy ions. To kill a cancer cell in the middle of the body you need a proton energy of around 300MeV (Mega-electron-volts) which is pretty high. So far we have managed to get up to 60MeV on a really good day. We have plans though which we will be trying in February next year to see if we can get the energy up much much higher.

      There are other ways of accelerating these ions which achieve the right energy but which involve very large machines. I am not sure if the research will make it to the point of treating cancer, but often you never know what exciting things will come out of a line of research you just have to explore and find out 😀

      Thanks for the question,
      Peta

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