Cancer, described as the ‘emperor of all maladies’ by Siddharth Mukherjee’s book by the same name, is a disease which needs no introduction. Currently regarded as a collection of diseases, cancer is most accurately characterized by an unregulated growth of cells within the body -  be it within organs like the pancreas, lungs and brain, or fluid connective tissues like the blood. Given that cancer itself is so diverse and multifaceted, there are many therapies used to combat it, like chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgery and immunotherapy, to name a few. However, off late the trend has been to use more and more targeted and personalised therapies in order to specifically target the respective type of cancer being dealt with. Scientists from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore have come up with another such ingenious targeted therapy to combat cancer. This therapy utilizes graphene oxide molecules conjugated with magnetic nanoparticles. Graphene-oxide nanocomposites can act as a substrate where various specialised drugs can attach, that can then be slowly released in the specific body part harbouring a tumour. In addition, graphene oxide has also been shown to kill cancer cells specifically. What’s more, graphene-oxide nanocomposites can also be thermally excited by shining near-infrared radiation on them and thus be used to kill tumour cells in a targeted way. In addition to their therapeutic value in treating cancer, these magnetic nanocomposites can also be used to  diagnose cancer. An earlier study conducted by the authors showed that the arrangement of these magnetic nanoparticles on the graphene oxide sheet can be detected on a MRI scan, and thus be used for diagnosing tumours. The authors further studied the impact and efficiency of these graphene oxide nanoparticles in killing cancerous cells within various human cancer cell lines derived from varied tissues. The study adds another weapon to our arsenal of cancer fighting techniques.