Scientists at Stanford University are said to have grown three dimensional cancers from human tissue in the lab for the first time ever. This is said to have raised hopes for more effective testing of new drugs.

They are said to have grown `Test tube tumors"', in culture dishes in the same way as the tumors grow in the body. The researchers are said to have taken normal human cells from the skin, throat and cervix and turned them cancerous by using a virus.

They are then said to have observed the cancerous cells break through healthy tissue in the same way as they happen in the human body.

They made use of 3D tumors to test 20 experimental cancer drugs and came up with some three very effective and promising options which are likely to stop the cancer invading surrounding tissue. These drugs could not be tested on animals.

"Now we can create human tumors from multiple different tissues, we have a new way to assess what might be going on in spontaneous human tumors", Paul Khavari, who led the research, published in Nature Medicine said.