OncoRes Medical Awarded $3 Million CRC-P Grant to Advance Precision Prostate Cancer Surgery

Friday, 26 June 2026

OncoRes Medical has been awarded $3 million in funding under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) program to explore the application of the Company’s proprietary Quantitative Micro-Elastography (QME) imaging technology in prostate cancer surgery. 

Prostate cancer affects approximately 1.5 million men globally each year. Treatment options may include focal therapy or radical prostatectomy. Through this CRC-P project, we will investigate the potential role QME could play in improving patient outcomes across both treatment options. 

The program aims to deliver two major advances.  

1. QME will be integrated into robotic prostatectomy workflows, enabling surgeons to identify tumour margins with greater precision while preserving the critical neurovascular bundles responsible for sexual and urinary function.  

2. The technology will be adapted for real-time prostate biopsy evaluation to support immediate focal therapy approaches during a single surgery, avoiding multi-step treatment pathways. 

While radical prostatectomy can completely remove cancer in many cases, up to 80% of patients experience significant side effects, including erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence - complications that profoundly impact long-term quality of life. One of the key challenges in prostatectomy is the limited availability of real-time feedback on tumour margins and surrounding nerve structures, creating a difficult trade-off between achieving complete cancer clearance and preserving prostate function. 

OncoRes’ QME technology may have the potential to address this challenge by providing high-resolution, real-time tissue imaging that enables surgeons to distinguish malignant tissue from healthy structures and guide intraoperative decision-making. 

The second objective of the program is to adapt QME for real-time prostate biopsy evaluation. 

For men undergoing focal therapy, treatment is staged between two surgical procedures: an initial biopsy followed by a separate therapeutic intervention. This is largely due to the absence of intraoperative tools that allow surgeons to immediately determine whether cancer is present in biopsy specimens, instead relying on delayed histopathology results. 

This project will explore the potential of QME to streamline this treatment pathway by providing immediate tissue assessment during the initial procedure, with the aim of enabling cancer identification and treatment within a single surgical session and reducing the need for multi-step treatment pathways. 

CRC-P grants support short-term, industry-led research collaborations. OncoRes has been the recipient of two previous CRC-P grants which supported the progression of QME from benchtop innovation toward commercial readiness in breast cancer surgery, having recently initiated our fourth in vivo Australian clinical trial – the first interventional study. This new CRC-P project builds directly on this foundation by translating and extending the QME platform into prostate cancer surgery. Through this work, OncoRes aims to remove the compromise between complete cancer clearance and functional preservation. 

This project will be delivered in collaboration with CliniPath Pathology and The University of Western Australia – conducted at BRITElab in the Harry Perkin Research Institute. We are grateful to the Department of Industry, Science and Resources for their continuing support. 

OncoRes Medical Media Contacts

Rebecca Franich: rebecca.franich@oncoresmedical.com