Staff from the University of the West of England are being encouraged to join the fourth Run for the Future event next weekend.

The faculty of health and life sciences has underwritten the entry cost of UWE runners in the event on the Downs on Sunday, September 20, which raises money for research. The faculty has a particular interest in the run, organised by Rotary in Bristol and the Bristol Urological Institute, because it's involved in a research project that aims to develop a non-invasive screening test for prostate cancer.

Professor John Duffield, pro vice-chancellor and dean of the faculty of health and life sciences, said: "The run seems like a great way of bringing different people from the faculty and university together to help support a project that has the potential to make an enormous impact to protect men's health."

Every year, more than 35,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Only a proportion of these men will have aggressive cancer and die within five years.

But there is no reliable test that will predict, at an early stage, how aggressive someone's cancer will be.