London: A compound found in cannabis could halt the spread of many forms of aggressive cancer, scientists have claimed.

Researchers found that the compound, called cannabidiol, had the ability to “switch off” the gene responsible for metastasis in an aggressive form of breast cancer, the Daily Mail reported.

Importantly, this substance does not produce the psychoactive properties of the cannabis plant.

The team from the California Pacific Medical Center, in San Francisco, first spotted its potential five years ago, after it stopped the proliferation of human breast cancer cells in the lab, the report said.

Last year, they published a study that found a similar effect in mice.

Now, they say they are on the verge of publishing further animal study results that expand these results further.

“The preclinical trial data is very strong, and there’s no toxicity. There’s really a lot or research to move ahead with and to get people excited,” study co-leader Dr Sean McAllister, told to the San Francisco Chronicle.

While he, along with colleague Dr Pierre Desprez acknowledge that they are some way off from turning their finding into a pill, they are already developing human trial models.

They hope to eventually test the drug in combination with current chemotherapies.

Professor Desprez had previously found that a protein called ID-1 seemed to play a role in causing breast cancer to spread.

Meanwhile, Dr McAllister had discovered the cannabidiol had anti-cancer potential.

The pair teamed up to see if they could treat a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer called “triple negative.”

This form, which affects 15 percent of patients, doesn’t have three hormone receptors that the most successful therapies target. Cells from this cancer have high levels of ID-1.

When they exposed cells from this cancer to cannabidiol they were shocked to find the cells not only stopped acting “crazy” but also returned to a healthy normal state.

They discovered that the compound had turned off the overexpression of ID-1, stopping them from travelling to distant tissues.

Other potentially treatable cancers are forms of leukaemia, lung, ovarian and brain cancers, which also have high levels of ID-1.