Pregnancy Life Line of Stone County announced today it will open a Galena center to better serve north Stone County clients.
Pregnancy Life Line is a nonprofit entity that helps those facing unplanned pregnancies. The Galena office is tentatively scheduled to open Oct. 15 at 103A N. Main St.
The additional center was needed because some clients had trouble attending sessions because of high gasoline prices.
The Galena office will offer services from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday until anticipated growth requires additional hours.
Pregnancy Life Line also has a Kimberling City location.
www.news-leader.com
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Teen pregnancy higher than normal
The teen pregnancy rate in Nanaimo is in decline, but still higher than the provincial and national averages, a possible indicator that health care, social services and education for young women are lagging, according to a researcher.
In 2003, the most recent data available, a rate of 44 pregnancies for every 1,000 girls between ages 15 and 19 was reported.
While that’s down from 76 in 1994, it’s still higher than the 2003 national rate of 32 or the B.C. rate of 30 per 1,000.
Alexander McKay, research coordinator at the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada in Toronto, has studied teen pregnancy rates across the country.
He said research shows that higher teen pregnancy rates generally occur in communities where girls lack a sense of empowerment over their health and future.
“What it really boils down to is that young women who have hope and confidence for their own futures are much more likely to take conscious actions to control their own sexual and reproductive health,” he said.
But, he noted, the factors that influence teens can also be highly individual, and cultural factors can play a role.
Younger pregnancies are considered normal, and even healthy, in some aboriginal communities, where parenting is shared by the extended family, he said.
Noella Rickaby, clinic supervisor at Options for Sexual Health Nanaimo (formerly known as Planned Parenthood), said that while sex educators are in Nanaimo public schools from Grade 5, the curriculum only covers the basics.
“When I would go in to do one class, like one session for a Grade 8 class, it’s not enough. It’s just not enough. Because there’s so much more to sexual health education than knowing about birth control methods and STIs and STDs,” she said.
“That’s definitely a part of it, but there’s also knowing what a healthy relationship looks like, knowing about how to evaluate your own values and beliefs, knowing how to communicate, knowing how to think these things through.
“There’s so much that surrounds it, because really it’s all about healthy relationships.”
www.nanaimobulletin.com
In 2003, the most recent data available, a rate of 44 pregnancies for every 1,000 girls between ages 15 and 19 was reported.
While that’s down from 76 in 1994, it’s still higher than the 2003 national rate of 32 or the B.C. rate of 30 per 1,000.
Alexander McKay, research coordinator at the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada in Toronto, has studied teen pregnancy rates across the country.
He said research shows that higher teen pregnancy rates generally occur in communities where girls lack a sense of empowerment over their health and future.
“What it really boils down to is that young women who have hope and confidence for their own futures are much more likely to take conscious actions to control their own sexual and reproductive health,” he said.
But, he noted, the factors that influence teens can also be highly individual, and cultural factors can play a role.
Younger pregnancies are considered normal, and even healthy, in some aboriginal communities, where parenting is shared by the extended family, he said.
Noella Rickaby, clinic supervisor at Options for Sexual Health Nanaimo (formerly known as Planned Parenthood), said that while sex educators are in Nanaimo public schools from Grade 5, the curriculum only covers the basics.
“When I would go in to do one class, like one session for a Grade 8 class, it’s not enough. It’s just not enough. Because there’s so much more to sexual health education than knowing about birth control methods and STIs and STDs,” she said.
“That’s definitely a part of it, but there’s also knowing what a healthy relationship looks like, knowing about how to evaluate your own values and beliefs, knowing how to communicate, knowing how to think these things through.
“There’s so much that surrounds it, because really it’s all about healthy relationships.”
www.nanaimobulletin.com
Hilarious pregnancy jest
CONGRATULATIONS Judd Apatow, you have brought into the world a newborn lead comic actor who will have cinemagoers wailing with laughter for years to come.
His name is Seth Rogen. Who? If you saw The 40 Year Old Virgin, he was the stockroom guy, Cal.
He has “man boobs”, is Canadian and has a wonderful wry line in self-deprecating wit. Rogen’s side-splitting performance as a weed-smoking loser who gets a beautiful blonde pregnant after a drunken one-night stand is what makes Knocked Up a delight.
Director Apatow, who also made The 40 Year Old Virgin, clearly has an eye for talent. A lot of Knocked Up was filmed off the cuff, providing a dangerous edge missing in rom-coms.
The morning after Rogen’s character Ben Stone bedded television presenter Alison Scott, played by Katherine Heigl (from Grey’s Anatomy) the pair go for breakfast. Ben tries to explain that the website he is planning to launch finds nude scenes in movies and boasts: “I’ll show you Meg Ryan’s b***.”
It is risque humour for Hollywood.
Apatow cast Rogen’s real-life best friends as his cannabis-smoking mates. This creates a natural banter, which again pushes the boundaries of good taste.
So what’s not to like? Well, at two hours nine minutes Knocked Up is a bit long for a comedy. Inevitably, the cast struggle to keep up the laugh count over such a period.
The film comes to a close with probably the funniest birth scene ever.
The Sneak left the cinema looking forward to Apatow’s next creation, and hoping the wonderfully immature Rogen doesn’t grow up.
BEST LINE: There are too many to choose from, but the scene where Alison’s bosses are telling her she doesn’t need to lose weight, just to “tighten” was very funny.
The Sneak at the Movies
Pregnant pause ... Ben and Alison visit docs
Pregnant pause ... Ben and Alison visit docs
RELATED STORIES
• Top DVDs of the week
FULL MOVIES INDEX ››
Hilarious pregnancy jest
August 24, 2007
Knocked Up
(15) 129mins
CONGRATULATIONS Judd Apatow, you have brought into the world a newborn lead comic actor who will have cinemagoers wailing with laughter for years to come.
His name is Seth Rogen. Who? If you saw The 40 Year Old Virgin, he was the stockroom guy, Cal.
He has “man boobs”, is Canadian and has a wonderful wry line in self-deprecating wit. Rogen’s side-splitting performance as a weed-smoking loser who gets a beautiful blonde pregnant after a drunken one-night stand is what makes Knocked Up a delight.
Director Apatow, who also made The 40 Year Old Virgin, clearly has an eye for talent. A lot of Knocked Up was filmed off the cuff, providing a dangerous edge missing in rom-coms.
The morning after Rogen’s character Ben Stone bedded television presenter Alison Scott, played by Katherine Heigl (from Grey’s Anatomy) the pair go for breakfast. Ben tries to explain that the website he is planning to launch finds nude scenes in movies and boasts: “I’ll show you Meg Ryan’s b***.”
It is risque humour for Hollywood.
Apatow cast Rogen’s real-life best friends as his cannabis-smoking mates. This creates a natural banter, which again pushes the boundaries of good taste.
House about that then ... Ben Stone plays for laughs
House about that then ... Ben Stone plays for laughs
His friend Martin has agreed not to shave or cut his hair for a year as a bet and this results in the others referring to him as shoe bomber Richard Reid and saying he looks like a “woman’s vagina”.
The Sneak is not normally a huge fan of such puerile humour but in Knocked Up it seems to work.
Visits to various gynaecologists, clumsy sex and plenty of embarrassing fumbling make this movie a hysterical reflection of reality. And beneath all the sexual gags is a film with heart. Despite being mismatched, Alison and Ben decide to keep the baby.
Over seven months Ben slowly wakes from his stoned haze and learns enough life lessons to become a great future dad.
Stone me ... Rogen's real-life friends star alongside him as cannabis-smoking mates
Stone me ... Rogen's real-life friends star alongside him as cannabis-smoking mates
So what’s not to like? Well, at two hours nine minutes Knocked Up is a bit long for a comedy. Inevitably, the cast struggle to keep up the laugh count over such a period.
The film comes to a close with probably the funniest birth scene ever.
The Sneak left the cinema looking forward to Apatow’s next creation, and hoping the wonderfully immature Rogen doesn’t grow up.
BEST LINE: There are too many to choose from, but the scene where Alison’s bosses are telling her she doesn’t need to lose weight, just to “tighten” was very funny.
BEST CHARACTER: Ben Stone is the perfect slacker.
FAMILY RATING: Too much sex, drugs and bad language for all the family.
BUM NUMBNESS: It should have been 15 minutes shorter.
Beret good
Finish it ... you just want this movie to end
Finish it ... you just want this movie to end
Seraphim Falls
(15) 112mins
NEAR the end of this Western Liam Neeson’s character Colonel Morsman Carver lays on the floor unarmed and tells Pierce Brosnan’s pistol-pointing Gideon to “go on, finish it”.
At that moment a critic sitting behind The Sneak said under his breath: “Please . . .”.
It was something that your film reviewer had been thinking for the previous half-hour.
At first, you want Gideon to make good his escape in this chase film.
Especially, after he bravely yanks a bullet out of his arm with his knife. Seeing off an adversary by sitting in a tree and dropping his blade on to his head was a pretty impressive move as well.
But as Gideon misses chance after chance to break free from the posse on his tail, you just want Seraphim Falls to end.
www.thesun.co.uk
His name is Seth Rogen. Who? If you saw The 40 Year Old Virgin, he was the stockroom guy, Cal.
He has “man boobs”, is Canadian and has a wonderful wry line in self-deprecating wit. Rogen’s side-splitting performance as a weed-smoking loser who gets a beautiful blonde pregnant after a drunken one-night stand is what makes Knocked Up a delight.
Director Apatow, who also made The 40 Year Old Virgin, clearly has an eye for talent. A lot of Knocked Up was filmed off the cuff, providing a dangerous edge missing in rom-coms.
The morning after Rogen’s character Ben Stone bedded television presenter Alison Scott, played by Katherine Heigl (from Grey’s Anatomy) the pair go for breakfast. Ben tries to explain that the website he is planning to launch finds nude scenes in movies and boasts: “I’ll show you Meg Ryan’s b***.”
It is risque humour for Hollywood.
Apatow cast Rogen’s real-life best friends as his cannabis-smoking mates. This creates a natural banter, which again pushes the boundaries of good taste.
So what’s not to like? Well, at two hours nine minutes Knocked Up is a bit long for a comedy. Inevitably, the cast struggle to keep up the laugh count over such a period.
The film comes to a close with probably the funniest birth scene ever.
The Sneak left the cinema looking forward to Apatow’s next creation, and hoping the wonderfully immature Rogen doesn’t grow up.
BEST LINE: There are too many to choose from, but the scene where Alison’s bosses are telling her she doesn’t need to lose weight, just to “tighten” was very funny.
The Sneak at the Movies
Pregnant pause ... Ben and Alison visit docs
Pregnant pause ... Ben and Alison visit docs
RELATED STORIES
• Top DVDs of the week
FULL MOVIES INDEX ››
Hilarious pregnancy jest
August 24, 2007
Knocked Up
(15) 129mins
CONGRATULATIONS Judd Apatow, you have brought into the world a newborn lead comic actor who will have cinemagoers wailing with laughter for years to come.
His name is Seth Rogen. Who? If you saw The 40 Year Old Virgin, he was the stockroom guy, Cal.
He has “man boobs”, is Canadian and has a wonderful wry line in self-deprecating wit. Rogen’s side-splitting performance as a weed-smoking loser who gets a beautiful blonde pregnant after a drunken one-night stand is what makes Knocked Up a delight.
Director Apatow, who also made The 40 Year Old Virgin, clearly has an eye for talent. A lot of Knocked Up was filmed off the cuff, providing a dangerous edge missing in rom-coms.
The morning after Rogen’s character Ben Stone bedded television presenter Alison Scott, played by Katherine Heigl (from Grey’s Anatomy) the pair go for breakfast. Ben tries to explain that the website he is planning to launch finds nude scenes in movies and boasts: “I’ll show you Meg Ryan’s b***.”
It is risque humour for Hollywood.
Apatow cast Rogen’s real-life best friends as his cannabis-smoking mates. This creates a natural banter, which again pushes the boundaries of good taste.
House about that then ... Ben Stone plays for laughs
House about that then ... Ben Stone plays for laughs
His friend Martin has agreed not to shave or cut his hair for a year as a bet and this results in the others referring to him as shoe bomber Richard Reid and saying he looks like a “woman’s vagina”.
The Sneak is not normally a huge fan of such puerile humour but in Knocked Up it seems to work.
Visits to various gynaecologists, clumsy sex and plenty of embarrassing fumbling make this movie a hysterical reflection of reality. And beneath all the sexual gags is a film with heart. Despite being mismatched, Alison and Ben decide to keep the baby.
Over seven months Ben slowly wakes from his stoned haze and learns enough life lessons to become a great future dad.
Stone me ... Rogen's real-life friends star alongside him as cannabis-smoking mates
Stone me ... Rogen's real-life friends star alongside him as cannabis-smoking mates
So what’s not to like? Well, at two hours nine minutes Knocked Up is a bit long for a comedy. Inevitably, the cast struggle to keep up the laugh count over such a period.
The film comes to a close with probably the funniest birth scene ever.
The Sneak left the cinema looking forward to Apatow’s next creation, and hoping the wonderfully immature Rogen doesn’t grow up.
BEST LINE: There are too many to choose from, but the scene where Alison’s bosses are telling her she doesn’t need to lose weight, just to “tighten” was very funny.
BEST CHARACTER: Ben Stone is the perfect slacker.
FAMILY RATING: Too much sex, drugs and bad language for all the family.
BUM NUMBNESS: It should have been 15 minutes shorter.
Beret good
Finish it ... you just want this movie to end
Finish it ... you just want this movie to end
Seraphim Falls
(15) 112mins
NEAR the end of this Western Liam Neeson’s character Colonel Morsman Carver lays on the floor unarmed and tells Pierce Brosnan’s pistol-pointing Gideon to “go on, finish it”.
At that moment a critic sitting behind The Sneak said under his breath: “Please . . .”.
It was something that your film reviewer had been thinking for the previous half-hour.
At first, you want Gideon to make good his escape in this chase film.
Especially, after he bravely yanks a bullet out of his arm with his knife. Seeing off an adversary by sitting in a tree and dropping his blade on to his head was a pretty impressive move as well.
But as Gideon misses chance after chance to break free from the posse on his tail, you just want Seraphim Falls to end.
www.thesun.co.uk
Magnitude of teen pregnancy
On Page B-1 of Sunday's paper, there is an article by Tyeesha Dixon declaring the good news that state and national teen-birth rates are decreasing. According to David Landry of Guttmacher Institute, this is because "[Teenagers] are having sex at a later age."
Ironically, Page B-7 that same day contains an article about a 25-year-old man having "consensual" sex with a 13-year-old girl.
The article defines teenagers as ages 15 to 19. At BETA Center, we are seeing pregnant girls younger than ever before -- as young as 11 or 12. The younger the mother, the more likely the pregnancy has come about as a result of non-voluntary sex (including rape and incest) or victimization by older predatory males.
When you include all adolescents -- that is, ages 11 to 19 -- you get a clearer representation of the magnitude of the problem. In Orange County, teen births have increased each year since 2002 -- the greatest increases are in mothers younger than 14 years old. Clearly teen pregnancy remains a critical issue in Central Florida, one that we cannot ignore.
www.orlandosentinel.com
Ironically, Page B-7 that same day contains an article about a 25-year-old man having "consensual" sex with a 13-year-old girl.
The article defines teenagers as ages 15 to 19. At BETA Center, we are seeing pregnant girls younger than ever before -- as young as 11 or 12. The younger the mother, the more likely the pregnancy has come about as a result of non-voluntary sex (including rape and incest) or victimization by older predatory males.
When you include all adolescents -- that is, ages 11 to 19 -- you get a clearer representation of the magnitude of the problem. In Orange County, teen births have increased each year since 2002 -- the greatest increases are in mothers younger than 14 years old. Clearly teen pregnancy remains a critical issue in Central Florida, one that we cannot ignore.
www.orlandosentinel.com
Fake cancer woman sentenced to 28 months jail
A WEST Australian woman who faked vaginal cancer to get thousands of dollars in donations has been sentenced to 28 months in jail.
Mother-of-two Lisa Marie Mackay, 28, of Port Kennedy, was sentenced today in the West Australian District Court after pleading guilty last week to 25 fraud offences from 2004. She was arrested in 2006.
Judge Michael O'Sullivan said Mackay had received donations including $4,100 from the proceeds of the Karratha Police ball and $1,500 from the Karratha Lions club in north-west WA.
He said she also took the last $50 from a woman whose sister had cancer.
"She apologised for the small amount,'' Judge O'Sullivan said.
"It is a measure of your criminality you were undeterred by this and accepted the money,'' he said.
Mackay also accepted $1755 from a 71-year-old man who had asked her how short she was of the target for her medical treatment.
"Not surprisingly I have received a number of victim impact statements,'' the judge said today.
"The writers of them feeling cheated by you.''
Mackay started pretending to friends and family in 2004 that she had vaginal cancer, forging hospital reports to raise funds for special cancer treatment.
She received donations after publicising her faked plight in a national magazine and two regional WA newspapers.
Judge O'Sullivan said she deserved immediate imprisonment for her criminality.
"The harm done to organised charities operating legitimately has potentially been considerable,'' he said.
He sentenced her to 28 months in jail. He made her eligible for parole, but did not say when.
www.news.com.au
Mother-of-two Lisa Marie Mackay, 28, of Port Kennedy, was sentenced today in the West Australian District Court after pleading guilty last week to 25 fraud offences from 2004. She was arrested in 2006.
Judge Michael O'Sullivan said Mackay had received donations including $4,100 from the proceeds of the Karratha Police ball and $1,500 from the Karratha Lions club in north-west WA.
He said she also took the last $50 from a woman whose sister had cancer.
"She apologised for the small amount,'' Judge O'Sullivan said.
"It is a measure of your criminality you were undeterred by this and accepted the money,'' he said.
Mackay also accepted $1755 from a 71-year-old man who had asked her how short she was of the target for her medical treatment.
"Not surprisingly I have received a number of victim impact statements,'' the judge said today.
"The writers of them feeling cheated by you.''
Mackay started pretending to friends and family in 2004 that she had vaginal cancer, forging hospital reports to raise funds for special cancer treatment.
She received donations after publicising her faked plight in a national magazine and two regional WA newspapers.
Judge O'Sullivan said she deserved immediate imprisonment for her criminality.
"The harm done to organised charities operating legitimately has potentially been considerable,'' he said.
He sentenced her to 28 months in jail. He made her eligible for parole, but did not say when.
www.news.com.au
Cancer victim's plight gets action on solariums
BRAVE cancer patient Clare Oliver is heartened by the community's response to her story that has led the State Government to act.
Ms Oliver was too ill to see visitors yesterday and was trying to retain her strength to celebrate her 26th birthday with friends and family tomorrow.
But in a statement she said she was pleased her story had touched so many people and led the Government to act on solariums.
"I am completely and utterly overjoyed at the fact that such a small action from me can cause such a huge chain reaction in the community," Ms Oliver said.
"I also want to thank everyone who has sent messages of love and support.
"These messages have given me strength."
Ms Oliver this week told how excessive solarium use and sunbaking left her with a melanoma and other cancers that will soon kill her.
Health Minister Daniel Andrews said the voluntary code of conduct for the solarium industry would be made mandatory.
The new rules will mean:
# It will be illegal to provide solarium services to children under 16.
# Those aged 16 or 17 must have parental permission.
# Compulsory health warnings.
The rules, which will be made under the Radiation Act, will be enforced from later this year.
Mr Andrews said it was believed 70-80 per cent of solariums complied with the existing voluntary code.
"We will take action. But we need to get it right.
"It is appropriate over the next couple of months we work through some of the detail.
"There are issues about whether staff have to be trained to a certain level.
"Some issues (are) in terms of fines.
"We will effectively licence each of the 500 solariums, and then there will be obviously a proper enforcement process."
Changes were first flagged in May by then health minister Bronwyn Pike, but had been fast-tracked since Ms Oliver's story went public.
Australian Solarium Association public officer Patrick Holly said he was happy with the announcement.
"We stand behind regulation of the industry," he said.
"Unfortunately, the voluntary code has not worked.
"Compliance ... is easy. Unfortunately, too many people got complacent."
Mr Holly said many Melbourne salons had not complied with standards; some had wrongly allowed unlimited use.
"It's a bit like the cigarette industry. A lot of people comply, but one or two do not."
www.news.com.au
Ms Oliver was too ill to see visitors yesterday and was trying to retain her strength to celebrate her 26th birthday with friends and family tomorrow.
But in a statement she said she was pleased her story had touched so many people and led the Government to act on solariums.
"I am completely and utterly overjoyed at the fact that such a small action from me can cause such a huge chain reaction in the community," Ms Oliver said.
"I also want to thank everyone who has sent messages of love and support.
"These messages have given me strength."
Ms Oliver this week told how excessive solarium use and sunbaking left her with a melanoma and other cancers that will soon kill her.
Health Minister Daniel Andrews said the voluntary code of conduct for the solarium industry would be made mandatory.
The new rules will mean:
# It will be illegal to provide solarium services to children under 16.
# Those aged 16 or 17 must have parental permission.
# Compulsory health warnings.
The rules, which will be made under the Radiation Act, will be enforced from later this year.
Mr Andrews said it was believed 70-80 per cent of solariums complied with the existing voluntary code.
"We will take action. But we need to get it right.
"It is appropriate over the next couple of months we work through some of the detail.
"There are issues about whether staff have to be trained to a certain level.
"Some issues (are) in terms of fines.
"We will effectively licence each of the 500 solariums, and then there will be obviously a proper enforcement process."
Changes were first flagged in May by then health minister Bronwyn Pike, but had been fast-tracked since Ms Oliver's story went public.
Australian Solarium Association public officer Patrick Holly said he was happy with the announcement.
"We stand behind regulation of the industry," he said.
"Unfortunately, the voluntary code has not worked.
"Compliance ... is easy. Unfortunately, too many people got complacent."
Mr Holly said many Melbourne salons had not complied with standards; some had wrongly allowed unlimited use.
"It's a bit like the cigarette industry. A lot of people comply, but one or two do not."
www.news.com.au
New Cancer Weapon: Nuclear Nanocapsules
Science Daily — Rice University chemists have found a way to package some of nature's most powerful radioactive particles inside DNA-sized tubes of pure carbon -- a method they hope to use to target tiny tumors and even lone leukemia cells.
"There are no FDA-approved cancer therapies that employ alpha-particle radiation," said lead researcher Lon Wilson, professor of chemistry. "Approved therapies that use beta particles are not well-suited for treating cancer at the single-cell level because it takes thousands of beta particles to kill a lone cell. By contrast, cancer cells can be destroyed with just one direct hit from an alpha particle on a cell nucleus."
In the study, Wilson, Rice graduate student Keith Hartman, University of Washington (UW) radiation oncologist Scott Wilbur and UW research scientist Donald Hamlin, developed and tested a process to load astatine atoms inside short sections of carbon nanotubes. Because astatine is the rarest naturally occurring element on Earth -- with less than a teaspoon estimated to exist in the Earth's crust at any given time -- the research was conducted using astatine created in a UW cyclotron.
Astatine, like radium and uranium, emits alpha particles via radioactive decay. Alpha particles, which contain two protons and two neutrons, are the most massive particles emitted as radiation. They are about 4,000 times more massive than the electrons emitted by beta decay -- the type of radiation most commonly used to treat cancer.
"It's something like the difference between a cannon shell and a BB," Wilson said. "The extra mass increases the amount of damage alpha particles can inflict on cancer cells."
The speed of radioactive particles is also an important factor in medical use. Beta particles travel very fast. This, combined with their small size, gives them significant penetrating power. In cancer treatment, for example, beams of beta particles can be created outside the patient's body and directed at tumors. Alpha particles move much more slowly, and because they are also massive, they have very little penetrating power. They can be stopped by something as flimsy as tissue paper.
"The unique combination of low penetrating power and large particle mass make alpha particle ideal for targeting cancer at the single-cell level," Wilson said. "The difficulty in developing ways to use them to treat cancer has come in finding ways to deliver them quickly and directly to the cancer site."
In prior work, Wilson and colleagues developed techniques to attach antibodies to carbon fullerenes like nanotubes. Antibodies are proteins produced by white blood cells. Each antibody is designed to recognize and bind only with a specific antigen, and doctors have identified a host of cancer-specific antibodies that can be used to kill cancer cells.
In follow-up research, Wilson hopes to test the single-celled cancer targeting approach by attaching cancer-specific antibodies to astatine-loaded nanotubes.
One complicating factor in any astatine-based cancer therapy will be the element's short, 7.5-hour half-life. In radioactive decay, the term half-life refers to the time required for any quantity of a substance to decay by half its initial mass. Due to astatine's brief half-life, any treatment must be delivered in a timely way, before the particles lose their potency.
The study's results are available online and slated to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Small.
The research was funded by the Welch Foundation, Rice's Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology, NASA's Johnson Space Center, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the National Cancer Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health. Carbon nanotubes were provided by Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc.
"There are no FDA-approved cancer therapies that employ alpha-particle radiation," said lead researcher Lon Wilson, professor of chemistry. "Approved therapies that use beta particles are not well-suited for treating cancer at the single-cell level because it takes thousands of beta particles to kill a lone cell. By contrast, cancer cells can be destroyed with just one direct hit from an alpha particle on a cell nucleus."
In the study, Wilson, Rice graduate student Keith Hartman, University of Washington (UW) radiation oncologist Scott Wilbur and UW research scientist Donald Hamlin, developed and tested a process to load astatine atoms inside short sections of carbon nanotubes. Because astatine is the rarest naturally occurring element on Earth -- with less than a teaspoon estimated to exist in the Earth's crust at any given time -- the research was conducted using astatine created in a UW cyclotron.
Astatine, like radium and uranium, emits alpha particles via radioactive decay. Alpha particles, which contain two protons and two neutrons, are the most massive particles emitted as radiation. They are about 4,000 times more massive than the electrons emitted by beta decay -- the type of radiation most commonly used to treat cancer.
"It's something like the difference between a cannon shell and a BB," Wilson said. "The extra mass increases the amount of damage alpha particles can inflict on cancer cells."
The speed of radioactive particles is also an important factor in medical use. Beta particles travel very fast. This, combined with their small size, gives them significant penetrating power. In cancer treatment, for example, beams of beta particles can be created outside the patient's body and directed at tumors. Alpha particles move much more slowly, and because they are also massive, they have very little penetrating power. They can be stopped by something as flimsy as tissue paper.
"The unique combination of low penetrating power and large particle mass make alpha particle ideal for targeting cancer at the single-cell level," Wilson said. "The difficulty in developing ways to use them to treat cancer has come in finding ways to deliver them quickly and directly to the cancer site."
In prior work, Wilson and colleagues developed techniques to attach antibodies to carbon fullerenes like nanotubes. Antibodies are proteins produced by white blood cells. Each antibody is designed to recognize and bind only with a specific antigen, and doctors have identified a host of cancer-specific antibodies that can be used to kill cancer cells.
In follow-up research, Wilson hopes to test the single-celled cancer targeting approach by attaching cancer-specific antibodies to astatine-loaded nanotubes.
One complicating factor in any astatine-based cancer therapy will be the element's short, 7.5-hour half-life. In radioactive decay, the term half-life refers to the time required for any quantity of a substance to decay by half its initial mass. Due to astatine's brief half-life, any treatment must be delivered in a timely way, before the particles lose their potency.
The study's results are available online and slated to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Small.
The research was funded by the Welch Foundation, Rice's Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology, NASA's Johnson Space Center, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the National Cancer Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health. Carbon nanotubes were provided by Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc.
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