Tech

Researchers are using AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" to help fight cancer

by Richard Howard

April 4, 2016

Scientists are using loudspeakers to refine cancer drugs, and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” is their song of choice.

Remember when you were younger and would have to find reasons to justify listening to your favorite music to your parents? “Mom, it relaxes me!” Or maybe “Classical might do it for you, but Slipknot helps me concentrate!” They never really worked, did they?

Well, AC/DC fans have just gotten an ace in the hole: any time someone give you grief for blasting the legendary Australian rockers, now you can reply. “Oh, sure, let me just turn off this music that’s HELPING CURE CANCER.”

Let’s address the obvious first (we do live in a world where it was necessary to clarify Red Bull doesn’t actually allow you to grow wings): it hasn’t suddenly been discovered that the song “Thunderstruck” has the power to shrink malignant tumours. Rather, a study by University of South Australia’s Professor Nico Voelcker has shown that subjecting the anticancer drug camptothecin to the song during preparation markedly improved the effectiveness of the process and in turn, the efficacy of the drug itself.

In order to increase the amount of time the drug circulates in the body and to control the API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient) release rate, its particles are coated with a plasma polymer. Previously, only the exposed side of particles could be coated, but now scientists are using “Thunderstruck” to improve the process, as Voelcker explained:

“Normally we would ignite a plasma onto the surface. The problem with doing that is you only form the coating on one side of the particle, the side that is exposed. But the side of the particle on the surface, the other side, is not going to get coated. That is where we came up with the idea of using a loud speaker that we would play into the system. We would turn that loudspeaker to a song that it would vibrate and the particles would bounce up and down. The chaotic frequencies worked well and gave you a more homogenous coating.”

While there are other tunes that will certainly do the job, the researchers have decided that “Thunderstuck” will continue to be the song of choice for the process as they continue their research into using the technique on other drugs. Your argument for the outstanding qualities of heavy music will still stand though since, due to the need for violent vibrations, high-energy tunage like AC/DC remains a requirement.

“I don’t think Barry White would have worked,” Voelcker concluded.