Treating cancer tumours (without side effects) is one of the biggest medical challenges of our time. But to solve this modern-day problem, a group of scientists has found a 66-million-year old metal as an answer.

Yes, iridium - a space age metal commonly believed to have gotten enriched in the earth's crust by a meteorite that destroyed the dinosaurs - could be used in a treatment that destroys cancer cells selectively using light.

A study by scientists at the University of Warwick, along with scientists in China, France, Switzerland and Heriot-Watt University, has developed a "technique using light to activate a cancer-killing compound of Iridium that attacks, for the first time, a vital energy source in cancer cells even under hypoxia," reports Science Daily.

According to the Science Daily report, the technique would particularly be suited to treat cancers of the bladder, lung, esophageal, brain and skin.

Once the Iridium compound has been light-activated, it can attack the energy source in the cancer cells and catalytically destroy that co-enzyme or change it into an oxidised form. This will upset the energy source in a cancer cell and 'effectively cut off the tumour's power source.