An article on Telegraph.co.uk has indicated that trials on a new alternative treatment to chemotherapy may begin within the next two years.

The treatment relies on attaching tiny iron-oxide particles, which are safe and easy to use in the human body, to special proteins that are designed to only stick to cancer cells. After the cancer cells have been detected, an invisible infra red light is used to heat them up, killing the cancer cells.

Professor Quentin Pankhurst, who is pioneering the research at the Royal Institution's new £3.5 million laboratory, said it will be used to treat dozens of different types of cancer - with the first trials to target head and neck cancer.