Animal testing set to begin by the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC will determine whether a Washington County native's novel approach to targeting cancer cells and killing them with radio waves will succeed.

John Beale, Post-Gazette John Kanzius, left, a cancer survivor from Erie, watches as Dr. David Geller, a UPMC liver cancer expert, explains the operation of a new radiowave cancer treatment process invented by Kanzius. Geller will oversee animal testing of the treatment using the device. Click photo for larger image.

During a news conference yesterday at UPMC, Dr. David A. Geller said John Kanzius' invention "holds promise" as a new and noninvasive method of treating cancer.

"I don't want to overtly state that this is a cure for cancer," said Geller, co-director of UPMC's Liver Cancer Center. "This is a promising new technology, but one to two years of testing will determine whether this is an important new approach to treating cancer."

Geller said UPMC has hundreds of promising research projects under way, but this one is notable because Kanzius, 61, holds neither a college nor a medical degree. Publicity about Kanzius' unlikely invention helped to put the project on the fast-track for testing, he said.

Kanzius, a 1962 graduate of Trinity Area High School in North Franklin, holds an electronics degree from the Allegheny Institute of Technology. The one-time RCA employee went on to build radio stations and become a partner, then president of Jet Broadcasting Co., an Erie company that owned a string of radio and television stations.

But he sold his last radio station in 2003 after being diagnosed with rare B-cell leukemia. While undergoing chemotherapy and watching the ill effects it had on patients, and particularly children, he began working on a new way to treat cancer with what he knows best -- radio waves.

It took him eight months to create his method of targeting cancer cells with existing technologies and killing them with the thermal power of radio waves, without affecting healthy tissue. He filed for a patent last May, then for three more patents in February and another one last week. The five patents seek protection for more than 180 intellectual properties.

Publicity about his first invention drew the attention of U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. A $200,000 grant for testing the device came from a Senate omnibus spending bill.

In February, Specter was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, cancer of the lymph nodes. Adam Pope, a Specter aide, attended the news conference yesterday.

Kanzius' friend, Bernard Wise, built Kanzius' prototype radio-wave generator at his Energy-Onix Broadcast Equipment Co., an AM and FM radio transmitter manufacturer in Vallatie, N.Y. Wise said he built the equipment for free to benefit humanity.

The 2,000-watt radio-frequency generator, which looks like a squat file cabinet, powers two units on a table in a UPMC lab where testing on rats soon will begin.

"This is the first noninvasive machine of its kind," Geller said. "This has enormous potential to be a new modality of treatment."

Geller isn't alone in praising the potential of Kanzius' inventions.

"This is a leap in technology by being noninvasive and by targeting the tumor," said Dr. Michael Keating, a leukemia and blood-disease expert at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Keating, listed as co-inventor on two Kanzius patent applications, said he served only as a medical consultant.

"I think the concept is sound," he said. "I can't say whether it will work until the first series of tests is conducted, but the framework is right, and I understand that this is very cutting edge."

"He's a very smart man. It's pretty impressive what he has done."

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Correction/Clarification: (Published May 11, 2005) The University of Pittsburgh and UPMC are doing animal testing on an Erie County man's inventions using radiowave technology to treat cancer. No UPMC affiliate hospitals are involved in the research, as was indicated incorrectly in the version of this story originally published on May 10, 2005. Also, the $200,000 grant for testing of the device came from a Senate omnibus spending bill.