cancerrod1.jpg

Here's one fishing rod that you're going to want. It is designed to catch and kill cancers before they aggressively attack the brain.

The rod was created from a length of polymer lined with 10 micrometer thick film mimicking the shape of nerves and blood vessels. It tricks glioblastoma cancer cells into following it down the path of destruction.

The rod's top end is a small deposit of gel containing drugs that kill glioblastoma. According to New Scientist, the idea is that tumor cells mistake the rod for a nerve or blood vessel, so it gets tricked and it meets their death at the end.

The device was successful in experiments with rats, and a majority of tumor cells migrated up the rod and residual tumors tend to shrink by almost 90 percent.

Let's put this rod to use, right this instant. [Nature Materials via New Scientist]