Pictured from right: Helge Knudsen and Niels Bassler from the University of Aarhus and the Aarhus University Hospital, respectively, with their American colleague Michael Holzscheiter at the apparatus where the irradiation of cancer cells using antiprotons takes place. The antiprotons come out of the curved metallic film at left, and penetrate the white plastic tube that contains the cancer cells. Following irradiation, the number of surviving cancer cells are observed. This apparatus is set up at the Antiproton Decelerator at CERN.

The results have just been published in the renowned journal Radiotherapy and Oncology.

The mysterious antiparticles have been common knowledge for decades, but the scientists are the first to show the advantage of using antiprotons to destroy cancer cells. The new technique using antiparticles has a number of benefits:

A comparison of damage to the healthy tissue surrounding the tumour shows that antiproton beams destroy cancer cells much more effectively than the beams used to date. This is because the antiprotons have an effect that slightly resembles grenades. They cause most damage to the patient’s cells right at the target point – just as a grenade only explodes when it gets to the end of its trajectory.
Each individual patient therefore requires significantly fewer treatments.
Irradiating cancerous tissue can be carried out with a high degree of spatial precision because it is possible to hit a tumour within areas as small as one cubic millimetre.
An added advantage of antiproton treatment is that it makes it possible to continuously monitor exactly where the irradiation takes place.

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Bees that pollinate snapdragons prefer magenta or yellow coloured flowers to flower colours such as orange. (Photo taken by Annabel Whibley)

In the wild, only the plants with the most attractive flower colours are able to reproduce and thrive because the insects that pollinate them prefer certain colours. The bees that pollinate snapdragon find magenta and yellow flowers the most attractive; they do not find colours such as orange attractive and so flowers of this colour would not flourish in the wild due to lack of pollination. Scientists already know that natural colour variation is controlled by three genes: ROSEA and ELUTA affect the intensity and pattern of the magenta pigment anthocyanin and thirdly SULFUREA affects the distribution of the yellow aurone pigment. The researchers in this study wanted to understand how plants producing magenta or yellow flowers could evolve from a common ancestor without producing in-between non-attractive flower colours such as orange.

"This is a totally different way of looking at evolution and could lead to a better understanding of the rules that govern biodiversity" explains Coen, "If we can comprehend how Antirrhinum genes interact in their natural habitat, it may help us in the future to better preserve genetic diversity".

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