Israeli scientists have managed to identify the mechanisms that control the growth and spread of breast cancer, moving the Jewish state one step closer to discovering a cure to the killer disease.

The findings by the scientists at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science regarding metastasis of breast cancer cells were published in Nature Cell Biology (http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/v9/n8/abs/ncb1622.html).

A spokesman for the institute said the findings will enable scientists to better understand how cancer spreads throughout the body, and possibly lead to the development of medication to successfully combat the disease.