Researchers say metal from dinosaur-killing asteroid can kill cancer cells

The asteroid that crashed into our planet about 66 million years ago and led to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs appears to have life-saving abilities as well.

Researchers in the U.K. and China have found that one of its metals, iridium, can kill cancer cells.

According to a release from the University Of Warwick, it does so, “by filling them with deadly version of oxygen.”

The researchers developed an activated organic-iridium compound and used a laser to send it through the skin and all layers of a model lung cancer cell tumor.

After determining it had killed the harmful cells, the team moved on to testing the treatment’s impact on non-cancerous cells and found it did no damage to healthy tissue.

“This project is a leap forward in understanding how these new iridium-based anti-cancer compounds are attacking cancer cells, introducing different mechanisms of action, to get around the resistance issue and tackle cancer from a different angle,” Cookson Chiu, one of the study’s authors, commented.

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