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t m c ยป p u l s e | m ay 2 0 1 9 14 Houston news personality Frank Billingsley is part of a clinical trial to treat prostate cancer with gold nanoparticles G old has built fortunes and inspired Olympic dreams, but can it treat cancer? A team of doctors and research- ers aims to find out, with help from patients including local meteorolo- gist Frank Billingsley. "Gold is a safe material and it has been used in humans for hundreds of years," said Steven Canfield, M.D., chief of urology at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. "Think about all of the people who have gold fillings in their teeth for their whole life." Canfield has partnered with researchers at Rice University, med- ical device company Nanospectra Biosciences and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City to perform a small clinical trial using gold nanoparticles to treat prostate cancer. The gold nanoparticles, known commercially as AuroShells, were developed by biomedical engineer- ing professor Naomi Halas, Ph.D., principal investigator for the Halas Research Group at Rice University and Nanospectra. Made of silica glass and wrapped in a thin layer of gold, the AuroShells are about 50 times smaller than a red blood cell and act as tumor-seeking mis- siles when they enter the patient's bloodstream. They are the main component in the AuroLase therapy used on patients in Canfield's clini- cal trial. "The particles naturally find the cancer," Canfield said. "They diffuse throughout the whole body and they deposit in areas that are highly permeable. Anywhere that you have a lot of inflammation, the nanoparti- cles would deposit there." The two Franks Billingsley, chief meteorologist for NBC-affiliated television station KPRC2 in Houston, was the third patient enrolled in the clinical trial in Houston. He announced his can- cer diagnosis on the air and the rest, as they say, is history. "Dr. Naomi Halas, who invented the gold nanoparticles, saw my story on Channel 2 and said, 'Get in touch with Frank. He might be a candidate!' So they did and I was," Billingsley recalled. "Regardless of Left: Steven Canfield, M.D., chief of urology at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, pours liquid containing gold nanoparticles into a beaker. Canfield is leading a clinical trial to treat prostate cancer with the nanoparticles, known commercially as AuroShells, which are made of silica glass and wrapped in a thin layer of gold. Right: Frank Billingsley announced his prostate cancer diagnosis on NBC- affiliated KPRC2 in Houston, where he is chief meteorologist.