Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum Submarine Swims Thru Blood

Now they just have to find the really, really small, teeny-tiny people to crew the thing.

Prehaps we have something even smaller than "teeny-tiny people" right now.

I have put a few items together below.
Prehaps this 'electronic submarine chip' could carry viruses, into your body area where they might do some good?
Australian scientists are leading a global charge to combat one of the world's worst killers
with a surprising secret weapon - the common cold.

Common viruses have become the latest weapon against cancer, with a small Australian biotechnology group one of the leaders in the field.
The idea has been around for some time there have been a couple of instances of cancer patients entering spontaneous remission after exposure to certain viruses in the last century.
There is the case of the eight-year-old African boy diagnosed with Burkitt's lymphoma at a Ugandan health clinic. He was exposed to the measles virus and in the next few weeks his tumour regressed
completely and he entered remission.
An incident documented by the British medical journal The Lancet in 1971 described the example of a Hungarian chicken farmer who was suffering advanced colorectal cancer. When an outbreak of the avian virus Newcastle disease hit the farm, the man became infected and went into remission.
Having beaten his illness, the man was feted as something of a faith healer
Associate Professor Darren Shafren of the University of Newcastle has been looking at the phenomenon for the better part of 15 years.

Shafren is the chief scientific officer with a company called Viralytics, which has been conducting trials using a virus to treat cancer patients. His work is focused on the coxsackievirus, one of the causes of the common cold. "If certain Viruses get into the bloodstream, they can be carried to other areas of the body, infect and seek out other cancer cells at a distant site."
It is a long, slow and expensive process - such studies can cost up to $10 million - but Shafren believes the benefits will be worth it.
''The virus will win hands down on quality of life. There is no doubt that viruses target cancer, there is no doubt that viruses can kill tumours; now, it's the balance of giving the right virus to the right patient. That's the secret - it's going to be who gets the delivery right.''

A Boston company called BioVex, Inc, which is using a genetically modified version of the herpes virus to treat melanoma and head and neck cancers, was acquired by global pharmaceutical giant Amgen for $US1 billion in February last year.
American company Jennerex has engineered a pox virus called JX-594, which is being tested on patients with liver cancer.
Canadian group Oncolytics Biotech is in phase three trials using the reovirus - usually a mild virus that can affect the gastrointestinal system or respiratory tract - on patients with head and neck cancers.

***Thoughts
The smallest items may sometime produce the biggest leap forward?