Breast cancer may be treated by shark blood antibodies, according to researchers at a Scottish university; however, the world will have to wait at least three years to benefit from the potential breakthrough.

CBS News revealed Friday that the University of Aberdeen had been granted $320,000 from the Association for International Cancer Research (AICR) to study "shark IgNAR antibodies." A nonprofit organization based in the U.K., the AICR is especially focused in helping cancer patients who have developed drug resistance, and no longer benefit from treatment.

Science Communication Manager Lara Bennett told CBS that her organization hopes that finding from the study will help treat patients who have become resistant to drugs like Herceptin, a monoclonal antibody that stops certain receptors from working. The study will aim to determine whether sharks' blood contain compounds that could stop the growth of cancer cells.

According to Fox News, unique IgNAR antibodies, which could only be found in shark's blood, may be used to prevent the growth of cancer cells. Dr. Helen Dooley, lead author of the study, explained that, "IgNAR antibodies are interesting because they bind to targets, such as viruses or parasites, in a very different way to the antibodies found in humans; they can do this because their attachment region is very small and so can fit into spaces that human antibodies cannot."

According to Breastcancer.org, one (1) in every eight (8) women in the United States will be affected by 'invasive breast cancer' during her lifetime. It is also expected that 232,340 new cases of invasive breast cancer will affect women in 2013, while 64,640 new cases of non-invasive type will be diagnosed in American women. Men are not exempt from the disease, either, as around 2,240 new cases are expected to affect men in the same year, although the risk for males is low, as the disease only affects one in a thousand. Although the mortality rate for breast cancer has significantly decreased over the years for women in the United States, around 39,620 women were expected to die from the disease in 2013. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among women in the United States.