For many years the hunt has been on to find an effective way to treat cancerous tumours using physical rather than chemical means. That hunt may now be over with the latest breakthrough made by Dr Jennifer West at Rice University in Houston, Texas. West has done tests on animals using a non-chemical procedure known as Photothermal Ablation. She injected millions of nanoparticles, which can absorb infrared light, into the animals’ bloodstreams. These particles go straight to the tumours because, unlike healthy tissue, tumours have abnormal blood capillaries that will let them through. A few hours later an optical fibre is inserted into the tumour and a blast of infrared light is passed down the fibre, which heats the particles and effectively cooks the tumour.