{"id":102,"date":"2026-03-07T14:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T14:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/?p=102"},"modified":"2026-07-31T15:27:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T14:27:56","slug":"evassay-a-liquid-biopsy-transforming-prostate-cancer-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/evassay-a-liquid-biopsy-transforming-prostate-cancer-diagnosis\/","title":{"rendered":"EVAssay: A liquid biopsy transforming prostate cancer diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>As part of UK <strong>Prostate Cancer Awareness Month<\/strong>, we\u2019re sharing this Medical Research Council (MRC), Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) funded project exploring <strong>EVAssay<\/strong>, a blood-based diagnostic approach to support more accurate, non-invasive prostate cancer detection.<\/h3>\n<p>Led by <strong>Prof Aled Clayton<\/strong> and supported by<strong> Dr Isobella Honeyborne<\/strong>, the project focused on addressing technical barriers to help move promising laboratory research closer to clinical use.<\/p>\n<p>Funded by the Medical Research Council, through UK Research and Innovation Impact Acceleration Account funding at Cardiff University.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-103 media-103\" class=\"image align-none\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/684\/2026\/07\/ClaytonA_MRC__A3_Poster_2025_Page_1_Image_0001.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Prostate cancer diagnosis often relies on invasive biopsies that can be costly and uncomfortable for patients, and risks infection in about 10% of cases. This project focused on developing EVAssay, a blood-based diagnostic approach designed to support more accurate, non-invasive detection. The work aimed to move promising laboratory research closer to real-world clinical use.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at Cardiff University tackled key technical barriers limiting blood-based cancer diagnostics, developing new methods to improve reliability, scalability, and readiness for clinical laboratories.<\/p>\n<p>Using patient samples from the Wales Cancer Biobank, the team redesigned the assay to support automation and future discovery, strengthening pathways towards clinical use.<\/p>\n<p>IAA funding enabled high-risk, early-stage development that standard research funding rarely supports, allowing the team to test and refine a promising diagnostic approach.<\/p>\n<p>It generated critical evidence for follow-on investment and directly underpinned a \u00a3600k Health and Care Research Wales Advanced Fellowship awarded to Isobella Honeyborne. The funding has positioned the technology for larger-scale validation, to provide robust evidence for its potential usefulness alongside current standard practice, and hopefully aiding decisions around the need for biopsy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As part of UK Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, we\u2019re sharing this Medical Research Council (MRC), Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) funded project exploring EVAssay, a blood-based diagnostic approach to support more [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":7183,"featured_media":103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221,52,123],"tags":[129,56,127,131,40,125],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-studies","category-mrc","category-school-of-medicine","tag-biopsy","tag-cancer","tag-diagnosis","tag-funded-research","tag-impact-funding","tag-prostate-cancer"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions\/162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/funded-research-impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}