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A funding boost from the Cancer Society will see new research undertaken on testing for endometrial cancer.
Endometrial cancer is the most common gynaecological cancer type in the country with around 500 people being diagnosed with it each year.
It is being found increasingly in younger people aged 20 to 40.
The Cancer Society will fund three post-doctoral fellowships and one of those to receive the funding is Dr Anastasiia Artuyants.
Artuyants said she would work to introduce simple testing methods to detect the disease early on.
A link had recently been established between endometrial cancer and some other diseases such as diabetes and obesity, which was a likely reason for the increase in endometrial cancer cases, she said.
The current testing methods for endometrial cancer were quite invasive, Artuyants added.
"Here we will try to develop minimally invasive, rapid and cost-effective methods. This will allow [us] to catch these cases earlier on and improve the treatment and hopefully outcomes."
Researchers will be using two strategies, she said.
Firstly, they would look at the specific proteins present in the patient's blood samples that had a strong association with the cancer.
Secondly, they would look for a link between bacteria and the endometrial cancer to try and determine whether the presence of a particular bacteria would be a strong indicator of the presence of cancer.
