A team at UCD has won the university’s Startup of the Year Award for its work to develop a novel urine DNA test for aggressive prostate cancer.

EpiCaPture won the award  as overall winner of the VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme, which is run by NovaUCD. The aim of the annual programme is to support the creation and launch of sustainable and profitable new start-ups emerging from the university.

The EpiCaPture test measures six epigenetic biomarkers which are indicative of aggressive disease, and has potential as a non-invasive, early detection and screening test to augment the current PSA blood test for early detection of aggressive prostate cancer. 

A second application is as a repeated-use monitoring tool for men with low-grade levels of the disease, to identify tumour progression.

The members of the team are Dr Antoinette Perry, Asia Jordan, Adele Connor and Ross Nelson, along with Edward Simons, a chartered accountant and former investment banker.

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Perry explained: “By selectively detecting aggressive prostate cancer disease, EpiCaPture informs of the need to biopsy and thus could have a significant societal and economic impact by eliminating unnecessary, costly and invasive procedures for the majority of men with the disease.

“EpiCaPture’s performance thus far looks really promising. We’re currently at the stage of validating the results in an independent cohort, and we anticipate results by mid-2021.”

In addition to the award, EpiCaPture receives a cheque for €10,000 (sponsored by AIB), a professional services package to the value of €10,000 (sponsored by Bryan Maguire Business Consulting and Deloitte) and incubation space at NovaUCD to the value of €12,000.

The other participants in this year’s programme were AquaB Nanobubble Innovations, Joyst Instruments, recsyslabs and seamlessCARE.

Photo: Anoinette Perry. (Pic: Nick Bradshaw/Fotonic)