John Kanzius invented a radio wave machine that he believed would one day cure cancer. He got cancer researchers so excited, some are already testing it out on laboratory animals.

When 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl first met Kanzius, he told us he didn't have a background in science or medicine; he didn't even have a college degree.

What he did have was a deadly form of leukemia and a determination to use whatever time he had left to come up with a better way to treat the disease.

Using his wife's pie pans and what he knew best - radios - Kanzius, a former radio executive, built a machine in his garage that he hoped would zap cancer cells without the horrible side effects you get with chemotherapy and radiation.

60 Minutes decided to keep track of Kanzius and his invention, so we followed him for over a year, as he pushed to speed up the research on his machine and fought to slow down his own cancer, which was killing him.

When Stahl first met Kanzius in January 2008, he was finishing his 36th round of chemotherapy since being diagnosed with terminal leukemia. All that chemo had been keeping him alive, barely.