An Irish scientist has made a significant breakthrough towards treating one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer.

Naoise Synott from UCD has been working on a new drug for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer.

Each year, more than 250 people are diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer. It is often aggressive, difficult to treat, and tends to be more common in younger women.

The subtype accounts for approximately one in six breast cancer cases globally.

Professor Joe Duffy of the Irish Cancer Society says the drug works in a totally different way to the current chemotherapy treatment.

He said: “We have shown that a new drug, known as APR-246, can inhibit, at least in the laboratory, the growth of breast cancer cells that are derived from breast cancers that are currently very difficult to treat.”

The research team based in St Vincent’s University Hospital and University College Dublin hopes that the drug can prevent the growth of triple-negative breast cancer cells.

Researchers from Breast-Predict, an Irish Cancer Society Collaborative Cancer Research Centre, have shown APR-246 can prevent the growth of triple-negative breast cancer cells.

The findings have been published in the International Journal of Cancer.

The research was carried out by PhD student Naoise Synnott, under the supervision of Professor Duffy and Prof. John Crown.

It involved laboratory tests in combination with current chemotherapy treatments and was funded by Breast-Predict and the Clinical Cancer Research Trust.

It is now hoped that the drug will prove successful in clinical trials.

Ms Synott said: “At the moment the only form of drug treatment available to patients with triple-negative breast cancer is chemotherapy.

“While this will work well for some patients, others may find that their cancer cells don’t respond as well as might be hoped to chemo, leading to patients suffering the side effects of this treatment without any of the desired outcomes.”

Head of research at the Irish Cancer Society, Dr Robert O’Connor, hailed the development as a significant milestone in the ongoing work of Breast-Predict.

“These research programmes focus on finding new ways to prevent as many cancers as we can, ensuring the most advanced personalised treatment options are available and that as many patients as possible thrive after treatment,” he said.

“The number of people with cancer in Ireland is expected to double by 2040, and more research is vital if to tackle this growing epidemic of cancer.”

Additional reporting by Noel Baker of The Irish Examiner.