Dozens of patients with advanced cancer will take part in a trial being planned in the US and Europe – including Britain – starting either later this year or early in 2017. It will be the first big test of so-called T-cell therapy in patients with solid tumours where conventional therapies have failed.

The trial is one of several in the new field of “immuno-oncology” in which the body’s immune defences are corralled to fight the disease. Many experts consider it the most exciting advance since the development of chemotherapy half a century ago.

White blood cells called T-cells are a critical part of the immune system because they have evolved to target and destroy invading infections caused by viruses and bacteria. However, scientists are increasingly convinced that a patient’s T-cells can be manipulated to identify and kill cancer cells.

Several clinical trials using T-cell therapy on “liquid” tumours, such as the blood cancers, have produced astonishing results. One of the most famous cases revealed earlier this year was that of a one-year-old girl suffering from an aggressive, incurable form of leukaemia until she was cured after a transfusion of donated, engineered T-cells at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

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