For example, take a blue-green algae known as "mermaid's hair" that grows in the South Pacific. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego recently discovered that the algae contains a powerful chemical compound that kills cancer cells.

Specifically, the compound targets blood vessels that feed tumors and can kill actual cancer cells, too. And unlike chemotherapy drugs and radiation treatments that blast not only tumors but also lots of healthy tissue, too, the algae compound can be used more strategically. Because it naturally arranges into molecule-sized bits, the compound can be coupled with nanotechnology to target specific cancer cells without harming other parts of the body.

Now, it's not known how common this algae is or how feasible it would be to harvest the cancer-killing compound in large quantities. But the chemical's structure is so simple that scientists have been able to duplicate it in the lab.

So far the compound has been tested on cancer cells in petri dishes, and shown to be very potent. The next steps are to test it in animals and then in humans. So it'll be several years before it's known if this discovery will actually help cancer patients.

But with further research, it could prove to be a major breakthrough in the fight against cancer.  

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