Cancer "monorails" can be used to kill tumours by luring them into toxic pits or areas of the body that are safer to operate on, say US researchers.
A team at the Georgia Institute of Technology designed nanofibres thinner than a human hair which cancers "choose" to travel down.
One of the researchers Prof Ravi Bellamkonda said: "The cancer cells normally latch on to these natural structures and ride them like a monorail to other parts of the brain.
Prof Bellamkonda told the BBC: "It's a way of bringing the tumour to the drug, not the drug to the tumour.
"You can move a tumour along a path you specify and then kill it, it's not creating extra tumour and the primary tumour actually shrinks. "
Dr Emma Smith, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "This fascinating, cutting-edge approach could lead to new ways of stopping tumours growing without damaging healthy tissue, which is particularly important for people with brain tumours.
"But it's still in its infancy and so far has only been tested in rats, so there is a long way to go before we know if it will be safe and effective as a cancer treatment."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26189827
