In 2022, Gao Min's Huagong Technology research team started clinical trials with a proton knife project.
Li Xin was one of the first patients in the Hefei Proton Knife clinical trial.
He had a rare form of cancer, but after a series of painful surgeries and chemotherapy, the results were not encouraging, and then he heard that the Hefei Ion Medical Center was going to conduct the first clinical trial of a proton therapy system.
He decided to participate in the trial, hoping that this new treatment could fight cancer to the end.
During the treatment, there is no need for injections and medicine, nor anesthetic surgery, but just lie on the treatment table for a while every day to receive irradiation, and the skin does not feel any pain.
After more than a month of treatment, Li Xin was successfully discharged from the hospital. He really managed to get on the road to recovery through proton knife therapy.
So what is Proton Knife therapy? What breakthrough results has scientist Gao Min researched?
First, hardcore scientists do not take the usual path
Gao Min is a direct doctoral student at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, a post-95 female doctor, who has been working on methods and drugs to conquer cancer in the past few years, especially proton radiotherapy experiments, and exploring the role of digital PET on proton radiotherapy.
A proton is a particle of matter that cannot be seen with the naked eye.
The principle of the proton knife is to use this extremely small positively charged proton to accelerate it in the electric field and shoot it into a specific target to release a large amount of energy.
Therapeutic purposes are achieved by destroying cancer cells in specific areas with energy.
When she was still an undergraduate, she led her team alone at the Geneva booth to present their approach to proton therapy and the concept of helmet-mounted PET digitization.
Digital PET is a special glasses for proton knife matching, after all, protons cannot be seen, only through special technology to track while performing proton knife therapy, monitoring the trajectory and action process of proton beam in the human body.
Although it is somewhat difficult to overcome this subject, the pursuit of science always requires not fearing hardship, and Gao Min is happy about overcoming difficulties. She said that she is still young, and she has to fight desperately.
She and her team conceived and experimented with proton beam online detection day after day, and the project of "cancer cure" proton knife precision therapy finally came to fruition, and the digital PET system was completed.
Now we can already see some international cancer hospitals starting to use proton technology.
A medical proton accelerator is used to launch a proton beam, and when it enters the body, the proton beam will irradiate the tumor at a high dose.
The normal tissue surrounding the tumor is then protected and only kills the tumor cells.
This proton knife therapy is suitable for a variety of cancer types, and the wound is small, and the tumor can be removed without surgery, which is very suitable for elderly patients.
2. Scientific and technological innovation to defeat cancer
Therefore, it can be seen that Gao Min's achievements are not only a major contribution to China's scientific research, but also an important progress in global cancer research and treatment.
At the same time, it also brings good news to the majority of cancer patients, that is, cancer can be eliminated without back and forth surgical chemotherapy.
Although this technology is not a panacea, technology and medical care are always advancing.
The possibility of applying gene-editing technology to cancer treatment is also being studied around the world.
Gene editing is a technology that repairs or changes gene function by changing the DNA sequence in cells, and achieves the effect of treating cancer by precisely regulating the expression of cancer-related genes.
Traditional treatments for cancer include radiation and chemotherapy, which kill cancer cells but can also cause damage to healthy cells, leading to many side effects.
This technology acts directly on the genome of cancer cells, requiring only precise modifications to the genome of cancer cells, thereby reducing the impact on healthy cells.
For example, accurate cutting of DNA can successfully inhibit the growth and spread of cancer cells.
There are already foreign research projects in trials, as long as they show good efficacy and safety,
Then this new breakthrough brings new hopes and choices to cancer patients, and will also open up a new path for the application of gene editing technology in the field of cancer treatment.
If successful, such a new gene-editing technology can be effectively developed to treat cancer. That would also be a small step in history, a big step in human genetics.
conclusion
Cancer is a major health challenge worldwide, affecting the lives and families of countless people. Yet there are still some exciting stories and good news in the midst of this disease that plagues the world.
So be hopeful, because every day is a new beginning, and every day is an opportunity to work for recovery.
We don't know which will come sooner tomorrow or the unexpected, but we can know that cancer treatment is not fixed.
We can try different methods and approaches to find the treatment that suits us.
So what other technologies do you know to combat cancer? Or do you see a healthy future in this technology from Gao Min and his team? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area to discuss.