Health, Research - Cancer Left Thunderstruck By Hard Rock Treatment
04 April 2016
It may be too soon to say the rock and roll cures cancer, but scientists at the University of South Australia have used it to make a chemotherapy drug more effective. And the song they used was AC/DC's "Thunderstruck".
The paper on the subject is called "Thunderstruck: Plasma-Polymer-Coated Porous Silicon Microparticles As a Controlled Drug Delivery System". Scientists needed to find a way to apply a thin coating to the drug Camptothecin to prevent it from being released in the body too soon and lose its maximum efficacy.
"Normally we would ignite a plasma onto the surface. The problem with doing that is you only form the coating on one side of the particle, the side that is exposed. But the side of the particle on the surface, the other side, is not going to get coated," said author Professor Nico Voelcker to the Lead South Australia. "That is where we came up with the idea of using a loud speaker that we would play into the system. We would turn that loudspeaker to a song that it would vibrate and the particles would bounce up and down. The chaotic frequencies worked well and gave you a more homogeneous coating."
Guitarist Malcolm Young battled cancer before his retirement in 2014. The band is rumored to be looking for a replacement for long-time singer Brian Johnson, although he is still listed as the lead singer on the band's website.