South Korean scientists say they are closer to a breakthrough to be able to detect cancer through a blood test.

A joint team led by professor Kim Young-soo of the Seoul National University and doctor Lee Chul-soo at KAIST announced Monday they developed a technology that can analyze up to 300 protein markers from a micro sample of breast cancer.

This means cancer diagnosis can be carried out by a single blood test when the origin of various protein markers are identified.

In the past, such tests required developing new antibody analysis methods for each marker that were costly and time consuming.

The research was funded by the US Cancer Society and the findings were published in the journal Nature Methods.