Person of Interest

John Kanzius’ therapy invention is awaiting human testing and FDA approval.

Hometown: Pittsburgh

Residences: Sanibel Island and Erie, Pa.

Family: Wife, Marianne; daughters, Toni Palmer and Sherry Kanzius; two grandchildren.

Career: Became engineering director for multiple television and radio stations in Erie in 1966 and company president in 1983.

Late-night epiphany: Kanzius was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia in 2002 and continued traditional chemotherapy while wintering on Sanibel. That’s where he began tinkering
with experiments to transfer energy. "Can I send a signal to a cancer cell? I need metal to conduct it," he says. "I found metal pie pans in the kitchen. You make do with what you have at 2 a.m."

Invention: He created a radio-wave therapy that has had no negative side effects on test animals. It will be tested on humans—some trials planned for the new Regional Cancer Center in Fort Myers—by injecting a patient with tiny metal nano-particles carried through the bloodstream by a targeting molecule that attaches only to cancerous cells. The goal is for a radio-wave energy field to heat the nano-particles and destroy the cancerous host cell, leaving surrounding healthy cells unharmed.

Fast track: "This should move through the FDA more quickly than a drug. Drugs can take 12 years. They think they can get this through in six months to a year."

Facing his fate: "Originally, the researchers said this will never work for blood diseases. In the last six months, they’ve changed their minds. It’s never been my goal [to cure myself]. My goal is to put smiles back on the sad faces of young kids who never had a chance to live. I’m going to be 65. The focus needs to remain on the young kids."