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A death sentence for cancer?
Hampton Roads research center
on cutting edge of promising new treatments
by Doug
Childers
for Virginia Business
May 2006 Picture this: A cancer cell dies after being zapped
with an ultra-short pulse of electricity. Now imagine
eliminating fat cells with another ultra-quick zap.
Sounds like science fiction, doesn’t it?
In fact, it’s happening in research labs today.
And some of the field’s primary research is being
conducted in Norfolk at the Frank Reidy Research Center
for Bioelectrics, which Old Dominion University established
in partnership with Eastern Virginia Medical School
in 2002.
Bioelectrics research shows eye-popping potential for
practical applications, such as a noninvasive way to
fight cancer and eliminate fat tissue, moles and warts.
It may also offer doctors a way to speed up wound recovery.
While the field of bioelectrics traces its roots to the
1960s (when scientists used longer electrical pulses
to decontaminate food and water), research into its medical
potential began about 10 years ago, when researchers
began studying the effects of pulsed electrical fields
on biological cells.
In contemporary bioelectrical
research, scientists use high-voltage electric pulses
that last for less than
one millionth of a second to modify or destroy living-tissue
cells. The duration and amplitude of the electric pulses
determine how the cell is altered, or whether it’s
destroyed. “Life and death are two
different sides of a coin,” says
Dr. Stephen Beebe, associate professor at Eastern Virginia
Medical School and one of the founders of the Frank Reidy
Research Center. “We can trigger the different
conditions and end up with cell death or modify function
for healing.”
The Hampton Roads research center has pioneered the application
of bioelectrics in medicine and biology. Currently, 30
people work in the center on a regular basis.
“Other centers are springing
up in the U.S., Germany and Japan, and there are up
to 100 people working in the
field worldwide,” says Dr. Karl H. Schoenbach,
director of the research center. “It’s
rapidly expanding.”
As Rod Woolard, director of development for the City
of Norfolk, points out, the practical applications derived
from biological research can serve as the technological
driver for simultaneous advances in medicine, engineering
and environment sciences.
That can bode well for the
region’s military and
maritime communities, which have encouraged research
into the science. “Regionally, we are already experiencing
the benefits of bioelectrics collaboration on a global
level as applications for cold plasma have led to an
international agreement between Old Dominion University,
Eastern Virginia Medical School and universities in Japan
and Germany” on fields ranging from the treatment
of cancer to the prevention of environmental contamination,
says Woolard.
Today, two small businesses in the Hampton Roads area,
Bioelectrics Inc. and Bioelectromed Inc., are working
on the development of practical applications of bioelectrics.
The Frank Reidy Research Center
for Bioelectrics is also working with a small, out-of-state
company on the potential
for bioelectrics to address fat reduction. “We
are kind of an interface between research and commercialization,” says
Schoenbach.
In the short term, bioelectrics
is most likely to find practical application in tumor
and fat tissue treatment
because those are the areas being funded for additional
refinement of the research. “Fat and tumors’ first
commercial application could be ready to be used in a
year,” says Schoenbach, although he points out
that because both fat and tumor treatment require FDA
approval, their actual use could be a few years away.
Gene therapy and wound healing
are longer-term goals, but as Schoenbach points out, “If only one leads
to a breakthrough, it’s worth it.”
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