Smarter. Faster. Earlier.
Transforming prostate cancer diagnosis and prevention.
In the UK, 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Over 50,000 people are diagnosed in the UK each year, and over 12,000 die from the disease. It is the UK’s most common cancer in men 1 . Prostate cancer also brings a significant economic cost. The NHS spends £93 million annually on treatment 2 , with total costs to the UK economy reaching £800 million 3 .
These figures reinforce a simple truth: we must do better. At UEA, we believe we can - by investing in smarter diagnostics, faster referrals and earlier intervention
We are:
Developing two advanced tests to detect aggressive prostate cancer earlier and more accurately.
Pioneering a new method of prevention by targeting cancer-causing bacteria.
Not all prostate cancers are the same. While many are deadly, most are not dangerous - but current tests cannot reliably tell the difference. This leads to over-treatment – including unnecessary surgery that often causes incontinence and lifelong impotence4 .
Introducing our new tests
THE PUR TEST
The screening tool the UK urgently needs
The PUR (Prostate Urine Risk) Test is a simple urine test that can identify aggressive prostate cancer without the need for a biopsy 5
It improves significantly on the current standard test, the PSA blood test, in two key ways:
• Convenient and accessible
The PUR Test is mailed to patients for at-home sample collection – the sample is then mailed back to the lab for analysis. This makes it ideal for early mass screening: no medical appointment is needed.
• More informative
Through biomarker analysis of prostate gland secretions in urine, the test provides a four-point risk score (PUR1–PUR4), indicating the likelihood of aggressive disease.
THE TIGER TEST
Detecting the deadliest cancers
Our team has discovered a distinct category of dangerous prostate cancers with the worst outcomes, called ‘tiger’ cancers 6 . We have developed the Tiger Test, an AI-powered test that uses biomarker analysis to detect these tiger cancers in a tiny biopsy sample.
• Only 1 in 10 prostate cancers are Tigers. Distinguishing tiger cancers from non-lifethreatening cancers will help doctors treat patients who need it, and spare other patients from unnecessary radical treatment.
While a useful test, PSA is not adequate for screening. If used for screening, PSA can only save 17 lives for every 315 ultimately harmless cancers it diagnoses 4
The PUR Test not only detects cancer, it also gives detailed information on how dangerous it is –meeting a need PSA cannot. Furthermore, it can detect aggressive cancer before symptoms develop.
With accreditation, PUR could become the UK’s first national screening test for prostate cancer.
• Tiger cancers have a 75–80% risk of spreading and require immediate treatment. Other prostate cancers can often be managed with surveillance.
We have determined the Tiger Status for 300 prostate cancer patients from Norfolk and Norwich University hospital, building an AI-powered tool ready for clinical use.
We are preparing to submit the test for national accreditation. Once accredited, we aim to launch a regional rollout with NHS East of England’s support.
Why these tests?
You may have heard about other prostate cancer tests in development. What sets the UEA developed tests apart is that:
• The PUR Test offers a cheap, practical screening solution without the need for biopsy, providing each patient with risk-specific information from the earliest stage.
• The Tiger Test detects a biologically distinct and deadly subtype of prostate cancer and adds predictive value to existing NICE-approved methods.
Our proven and reliable tests will add value to other existing and developing tests, creating a more targeted approach to prostate cancer treatment. This will inevitably improve care, save lives, and reduce costs to the NHS.
AI uncovers two distinct prostate cancers
In collaboration with other universities, Prof Cooper’s team has discovered two genetic types, or ‘evotypes’ of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is in fact not one disease, but two7 :
• A ‘canonical’ evotype, which is less aggressive.
• An ‘alternative’ evotype, which is more dangerous and aggressive.
This breakthrough helps explain why patients respond very differently to the same treatment –
A new frontier in prevention: bacteria and prostate cancer
Our team have identified five types of bacteria commonly found in patients with aggressive prostate cancer8 – the Anaerobic Bacteria Biomarker Set (ABBS). Some of these bacteria are new to science.
Accumulating evidence suggests that this link is causal: that ABBS bacteria are causing the cancer.
We aim to prevent prostate cancer by targeting ABBS bacteria with antimicrobial treatments before they trigger cancer. Similar approaches are already
and opens the possibility of treatments tailored to each evotype. We are researching the implications, with 11 scientific publications currently under review.
Prof Colin Cooper: A global leader in prostate cancer research
UEA Chair of Cancer Genetics, Prof Colin Cooper is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a world leader in prostate cancer research. Prof Cooper has served on the Government’s Prostate Cancer Advisory Group. He has headed the National Cancer Research Initiative’s Prostate Cancer Collaborative which promoted the UK introduction of active surveillance for early cancer and of abiraterone treatment for advanced disease. He is joint Lead Investigator of the Pan Prostate Cancer Group (PPCG), a global consortium of researchers and clinicians who collaborate to uncover the genetic factors driving prostate cancer aggressiveness.
We are so close now to changing the face of prostate cancer testing.
Prof Colin Cooper BSc, PhD, DSc, FMedSci.
being used to prevent gastric cancer9 – now, there is potential to do the same for prostate cancer.
We are preparing for a clinical trial of this approach – but first, we must gather more evidence to confirm that ABBS bacteria are definitively causing the cancer. A meeting of the PPCG
The future
Our overriding goal is to take our breakthroughs from the lab to patients.
Our discoveries so far have been achieved by raising £3.6 million in philanthropic funding and £5 million in research grants.
• The PUR and Tiger Tests
Once available across the UK, our tests will transform clinicians’ ability to detect aggressive cancers. Patients who do not need treatment can be spared it, and those who do can get the treatment they need.
• The ABBS project
This trial may lead to an entirely new method of prostate cancer prevention.
Projected funding required for the next phases of each project:
We’re applying to the Department of Health’s TRANSFORM Project and seeking support from the Medical Research Council and NIHR
We look forward to continuing conversations, particularly about the future role of public, private and philanthropic funding, in our diagnostic and preventative technologies.
£2m
2027/2028: Begin rolling out the test
2026/2027: Expand lab capacity
2025/2026: Submit for national accreditation
PUR TEST
£3m
2027/2028: Conduct a trial rollout in NHS East of England
2026/2027: Expand lab capacity
2025/2026: Submit for national accreditation
TIGER TEST
£4m
2027/2028: Clinical trial of antimicrobials as prostate cancer preventative
2026/2027: Apply to MRC/NIHR for clinical trial funding
2025/2026: Confirm that ABBS bacteria cause cancer
PROJECT
ABBS
UEA’s research excellence
UEA is a centre for research excellence, with medical and biological sciences an area of outstanding strength.
91% of UEA research rated “world-leading” or “internationally excellent” (REF2021).10
Top 20 UK rank in both Biological Sciences11 and Clinical Medicine (THE REF2021 analysis).12
Top 100 global university for Impact (THE World University Rankings).13
UEA is based at the Norwich Research Park (NRP), one of only five BBSRC-funded UK Research and Innovation Campuses. The NRP hosts 3,000 scientists and clinicians, four specialist research institutes and the Norfolk and Norwich and University Hospital (NNUH). Collaboration across the NRP powers UEA’s high-impact medical research.
We are equipped to rewrite the story for those with prostate cancer.
Please contact us if you’d like to discuss this research and how to support it. Or, you can visit our website to find out more.
+44 (0)7990 438106
giving@uea.ac.uk
uea.ac.uk/about/giving-to-uea/ our-causes/prostate-cancerresearch
References
1 Prostate Cancer UK, “About Prostate Cancer”, January 2025, https://prostatecanceruk.org/prostate-informationand-support/risk-and-symptoms/about-prostate-cancer
2 S angar et al., “The economic consequences of prostate and bladder cancer in the UK”, BJUI International, 95, 1 (2005): 59, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-410X.2005.05249.x
3 University of Oxford, “Cancer costs the UK economy £15.8bn a year”, November 2012, https://www.ox.ac. uk/news/2012-11-07-cancer-costs-uk-economy%C2%A3158bn-year
4 Burki, Talha, “Prostate Cancer UK launches the TRANSFORM trial”, The Lancet, 403, 10438 (2024): 1738, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)00912-7
5 Connell et al., “A four-group urine risk classifier for predicting outcomes in patients with prostate cancer”, Urological Oncology, 124, 4 (2019): 609-620, https://doi. org/10.1111/bju.14811
6 Luca et al. “DESNT: A Poor Prognosis Category of Human Prostate Cancer”, European Urology Focus, 4,6 (2018): 842-850, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euf.2017.01.016 (n.b. Tiger cancers are called DESNT cancers in this paper.)
7 Woodcock et al. (2024), “Genomic evolution shapes prostate cancer disease type”, Cell Genomics, 4, 3 (2024), 100511, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xgen.2024.100511
8 Hurst et al., “Microbiomes of urine and the prostate are linked to human prostate cancer risk groups”, European Urology Oncology, 5, 4 (2022): 412-419, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.euo.2022.03.006
9 National Cancer Institute, “Helicobacter pylori and Cancer”, April 2023, https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causesprevention/risk/infectious-agents/h-pylori-fact-sheet
10 T imes Higher Education, “REF 2021”, May 2022, https:// www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ref-2021-researchexcellence-framework-results-announced
11 T imes Higher Education, “Biological Sciences”, May 2022, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ref-2021biological-sciences
12 T imes Higher Education, “Clinical Medicine”, May 2022, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ref-2021clinical-medicine
13 T imes Higher Education, “University of East Anglia” October 2024, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/ world-university-rankings/university-east-anglia
UEA is an exempt charity: HMRC reference number XN423.