Use magnets for healing

Scientists at Yonsei University, South Korea are looking to use magnets as a remote control to make metal particles capable of destroying cells. This technology has opened up a new treatment for many diseases, including cancer, a disease that kills seven million people a year.

This method is described by researchers in Nature Materials.

Typically, the body removes old, defective, and diseased cells through pre-programmed cell death. This mechanism is carried out by dead cells (scientific name is apoptosis). When the dead cells cells signal, the old cells and the disease will fragment and the immune cells are responsible for destroying the fragments. When dead cells cannot signal, disease cells divide uncontrollably and develop into tumors. The mechanism of magnet therapy is to activate these dead cells so that they can find and signal cancer cells to self-destruct.

Scientists study magnets for healing

Based on that mechanism, Yonsei field scientists used nanoparticles attached to dead cells (this time cannot function normally). When the magnet magnetic field is activated, iron particles on the dead cells will also be activated and signaled to the dead cells. At this point, the dead cells can take on their previous duties.

In their experiment, the researchers attached a dead cell containing iron nanoparticles on a tray containing colon cancer cells and then activated the magnet magnetic field. As a result, after 24 hours, more than half of cancer cells died.

It is still too early to determine whether magnet therapy can distinguish healthy cells from diseased cells. So the success of this promising treatment depends on how scientists design nanoparticles that can only bind to infected cells.