Dr. Mireia Olivan, researcher of the Research Unit in Biomedicine and Translational Oncology at Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), has received one of five grants from the Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer (AECC) in Catalonia, for the study, "Exosomes in urine as a source of biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of prostate cancer", endowed with 20,000 euros.The objective of the project awarded is to identify protein expression profiles in exosomes from urine that correlate closely with the diagnosis of prostate cancer risk and clinical progression. With the exosomal fraction, researchers could avoid interferences produced by the major proteins and unmask possible minor proteins more susceptible to potentially become biomarkers. Obtaining this protein profile may result in a decrease in the number of invasive, costly and often unnecessary biopsies, thereby improving the sensitivity and specificity of current diagnostic methods.