Research Innovation Awards

Our Research Innovation Awards are dedicated to funding the most impactful and innovative projects. They focus on new ideas, which tackle taming prostate cancer from a completely new angle. The idea is to give scientists the freedom to be inventive, and try ambitious projects that could mean big rewards for men.

Funding game-changing research projects like these are what Prostate Cancer UK is all about. These projects spur innovation in the field, they help us to plan our longer-term, larger investments and – ultimately – they help us to stop prostate cancer from killing so many men each year

- Dr Matthew Hobbs, Acting Director of Research

The scheme has run every year since 2017. Each time, our panel of experts have the difficult task of narrowing the submissions to the just some of the most promising. Now, we have 18 outstanding projects to show for it.

2020

In the latest round of awards, we're funding Professor Simon Mackay to add the final touches to a pioneering new drug for men who are running out of treatment options.

Thanks to the funding from Prostate Cancer UK, we now have the chance to bring this treatment one step closer to clinical trials. After all this time, I’d be over the moon if I could make that difference to men affected by prostate cancer.

- Professor Simon Mackay

2019

In 2019, we funded Professor Paula Mendes to reinvent the PSA test. She’s using innovative nanotechnology to diagnose prostate cancer more accurately.

At the end of two years, we want to demonstrate that our technology can detect prostate cancer with high accuracy. One day, the test could even be used to replace the PSA test.

- Professor Paula Mendes

2018

In 2018, Dr Ning Wang started looking at whether exercise could prevent prostate cancer spreading to the bone, which could result in a simple new way to treat and prevent the disease.

There’s no denying that exercise is good for us but it could prove to be especially beneficial for the thousands of men diagnosed with prostate cancer every year and we’re delighted to be working with Prostate Cancer UK on this project.

- Dr Ning Wang, University of Sheffield

2017

Professor Norman Maitland started work on his Research Innovation Award in 2017. He's delving into the nitty gritty detail of patient response to therapy – not only which drug works best for each patient, but which drugs work best for individual cells within each patient. The researchers hope to use this understanding to work out how to optimise a man’s treatment to kill as many of his cancer cells as possible.

Thank you for helping us fund groundbreaking research

It is your support that allows us to fund ground-breaking research through our Research Innovation Awards. With your donations, they are pushing the boundaries of prostate cancer treatment, diagnosis and prevention. One day, research like this will stop prostate cancer being a killer.