The INNOVATOR study will expand validation of Enlighten® across 12 cancers and assess whether capillary blood collection could enable a future laboratory-based test using samples collected at home.

TORRES VEDRAS, Portugal, July 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Proteotype Diagnostics Unipessoal LDA (“Proteotype”) today announced INNOVATOR, a €3.023 million European clinical study to expand the evidence base for Enlighten® and evaluate a more accessible route to blood collection. The project is supported by approximately €2.116 million through COMPETE 2030, under Portugal 2030 and co-funded by the European Union. It will contribute evidence and capabilities for Proteotype’s planned CE marking pathway.

Enlighten® is a blood-based multi-cancer test that measures the host response to tumour development. Building on the UK MODERNISED study, which is evaluating 10 cancer types in real-world NHS settings, INNOVATOR will extend the programme to 12 cancer types in Portugal, Spain and Germany. It will recruit 2,000 participants: approximately 1,200 with cancer and 800 controls, including symptomatic and asymptomatic groups.

Together, MODERNISED and INNOVATOR are expected to generate evidence from approximately 3,350 participants in four European countries, broadening validation across healthcare systems and populations while exploring a simpler and more accessible route to sample collection.

The study will collect paired venous and capillary blood samples using a CE-marked Tasso® collection device. It will assess the comparability of the paired samples to support a future laboratory-based Enlighten® test that could use blood collected at home.

Wesley Sukdao, CEO and Co-Founder of Proteotype Diagnostics, said:

“Growing up in poverty in South Africa and losing close family members to cancers detected too late shaped the ethos behind Proteotype. Scientific progress only changes lives when people can access it. INNOVATOR moves us closer to our goal of making advanced cancer testing affordable, accessible and practical, regardless of where someone lives or the resources available to them.”

Dr Emma Yates, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder, said:

“INNOVATOR will allow us to evaluate Enlighten® across a broader range of cancers, populations and sample formats. The scale and design of this study are critical to understanding how robustly the biology translates across sample types and clinical settings.”

Professor Gonçalo Bernardes, Co-Founder and Chair of Proteotype’s Scientific Advisory Board, said:

“This award reflects the momentum behind Enlighten®, from fundamental insight into the body’s response to cancer to large, clinically focused validation programmes. INNOVATOR combines strong science with a clear translational objective: developing a test that can be deployed at scale.”

Professor Luís Costa, Chief Investigator of INNOVATOR, said:

“A multi-country study of this scale offers an important opportunity to generate clinically meaningful evidence across diverse patient groups. The paired-sample design will help determine whether capillary collection can support reliable testing and, ultimately, reduce practical barriers to cancer detection.”

The INNOVATOR project is scheduled to begin on 1 October 2026, with participant recruitment expected to start following the required ethics, regulatory and site approvals. The study is expected to conclude by the end of 2028.

The project will also expand Proteotype’s team in Torres Vedras. The company is recruiting for full-time Senior Trial Manager, Quality & Regulatory Affairs Specialist, Systems & Cloud Engineering and Full Stack Engineer roles, alongside further opportunities across clinical, laboratory and corporate operations.

About Proteotype Diagnostics

Proteotype is a pioneering diagnostics company dedicated to the development of advanced multi-cancer early detection and personalised medicine tests that measure the host response to tumour development. Its lead product, Enlighten®, is being evaluated as an accessible and scalable multi-cancer test designed to support earlier investigation and better-informed clinical decision-making.

Media contact: pr@proteotype.com 

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SOURCE Proteotype Diagnostics

The new digital experience reinforces the brand’s commitment to innovation, leveraging cutting-edge technology to make avocado education as accessible and always good as avocados themselves

Key takeaways:

Just in time for National Avocado Day, Avocados From Mexico is launching AVO.AI, a groundbreaking conversational AI platform designed to answer every consumer question — from ripeness and recipes to storage — making the brand the first in the produce industry to deploy a custom AI educational tool.Celebrating a record-breaking season where Americans enjoyed an unprecedented 2.76 billion pounds of Mexican avocado imports, the new tool helps fans make the most of every avocado.Powered by advanced AI and trained exclusively on the brand’s extensive educational library, AVO.AI empowers fans with ultimate produce confidence, taking the uncertainty out of selecting, ripening and storing.

DALLAS, July 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — This National Avocado Day, Avocados From Mexico®, the number one selling avocado brand in the U.S., has launched AVO.AI, a custom AI-powered answer engine designed to transform how consumers find reliable answers to avocado-related kitchen, storage, nutrition and recipe questions. The launch follows a record-breaking season where Americans enjoyed an unprecedented 2.76 billion pounds of Mexican avocado imports, highlighting the brand’s rapid growth and the massive demand for digital consumer resources.

While many brands are experimenting with generic third-party AI integrations, Avocados From Mexico is launching the produce industry’s first custom answer engine. Bypassing traditional search rabbit holes, AVO.AI acts as a knowledgeable kitchen sidekick, delivering tailored answers from the brand’s trusted vault of educational content. It’s a major step forward for produce marketing, proving the immense value unlocked when high-tech and high flavor meet.

Meeting Consumers Where They Are
Consumer search behavior has shifted: people no longer want to click through endless web pages for a single prep tip — they expect immediate, reliable answers.

Unlike a generic public AI tool that pulls from the open web, AVO.AI acts as a dedicated, brand-trusted assistant. By cutting out search clutter, AVO.AI gives consumers a direct, effortless line to exact avocado inspiration and tips, exactly when they need it.

“At Avocados From Mexico, we’ve always been obsessed with what’s next,” said Alvaro Luque, President and CEO. “We’ve spent years using AI to bring unexpected, fun experiences to our fans, and AVO.AI is our next big leap. This goes beyond selling more avocados and puts the focus on making your kitchen life easier and a lot more inspired. By adding this smart, hands-on tool to our digital lineup, we’re continuing to lead the category by redefining how people think about and enjoy avocados.”

A Smarter, Safer Kind of Brand AI
On a technical level, AVO.AI represents a major leap forward for brand owned media. Rather than requiring consumers to browse articles or sift through search results, AVO.AI turns Avocado From Mexico’s extensive content library into a conversational search experience that delivers a tailored answer to each question.

AVO.AI intuitively understands what a user is trying to accomplish and pulls highly accurate, strictly brand-safe advice. For example, when asked about avocado prep, the tool instantly delivers proper safety techniques, completely bypassing unverified or unsafe advice found on the open web.

“In building AVO.AI, we created something truly unprecedented: the first-ever AI tool dedicated exclusively to a single produce item,” said Kristian Bottini, CEO of 270B. “The technology is engineered for genuine dialogue, intuitively understanding consumer intent and context to deliver helpful, conversational answers. By anchoring the AI within a curated, brand-approved vector database, we ensured AVO.AI acts as a highly responsible, trusted ‘produce expert’ that consumers can reliably turn to for all their culinary inspiration.”

Smart Solutions for Everyday Kitchen Questions
For Avocados From Mexico, AVO.AI is more than a consumer tool — it’s a strategic listening post. The anonymous insights gathered will offer an ongoing window into what users truly care about, directly fueling the brand’s broader Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) strategy and shaping future content around real consumer needs. Because AVO.AI understands context, users can skip generic search results and ask highly practical questions, such as:

“How can I make guacamole if I only have half an onion?””I’ve already sliced my avocado, how can I store it so it doesn’t go bad as fast?””What is the safest way to remove an avocado pit?”

AVO.AI is now live, representing the first phase of a broader digital evolution for Avocados From Mexico. As the platform learns and scales, Avocados From Mexico plans to continually expand its capabilities, integrating it deeper into major cultural marketing moments and continuing to redefine the intersection of agriculture and technology.

To experience AVO.AI and learn more, visit https://avocadosfrommexico.com/avo-ai.

For more information about Avocados From Mexico, visit https://avocadosfrommexico.com, and follow the organization on Facebook (facebook.com/avocadosfrommexico), Instagram (@avocadosfrommexico), X (@AvosFromMexico) and TikTok (@avocadosfrommexico).

About Avocados From Mexico
Avocados From Mexico is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mexican Hass Avocado Importers Association (MHAIA), formed for the purpose of advertising, promotion, public relations and research for all stakeholders of Avocados From Mexico. Under agreements, MHAIA and the Association of Avocado Exporting Producers & Packers of Mexico (APEAM) have combined resources to fund and manage Avocados From Mexico, with the intent to provide a focused, highly- effective and efficient marketing program in the United States. Avocados From Mexico is headquartered in Irving, Texas.

Ana Ambrosi
aambrosi@avocadosfrommexico.com 

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SOURCE Avocados From Mexico

A new geo-location-first social network helps enthusiasts find nearby owners, events, and drives, closing a gap the major platforms leave open.

RALEIGH, N.C., July 30, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — GarageApp, a social network built for car and motorcycle enthusiasts, is available now on the web, iOS, and Android as the first platform to organize the community around location, giving owners a direct way to find and connect with the vehicles and people near them.

Where Instagram and Facebook are built on followers, GarageApp connects neighbors. Members search for nearby car and motorcycle owners by make, model, year, trim, or keyword, turning a distant online contact into someone they can actually meet, drive, and work on cars with. No other social platform is built around where the owners are located, and GarageApp was created to change that.

The problem was obvious to founder Dave Vandewouw, who spent years at car shows watching enthusiasts admire vehicles that they had no way to trace back to their owners to ask questions about their car or motorcycle or arrange to see it again.

“GarageApp was born out of passion from fellow car enthusiasts,” said Vandewouw. “We kept going to car shows where everyone was walking around admiring each other’s vehicles, but if you wanted to talk to the owner, you couldn’t find them. We built GarageApp so that when you’re at a car event or a Cars and Coffee, you can connect with the owner, ask questions about the car, and even plan to meet up beforehand, all based on the make and model you care about.”

Location runs through the whole app. Events, groups, and the feed can all be filtered by where a member is located, so people show up to nearby car shows and Cars & Coffee meetups already knowing which vehicles, and which owners, will be there. The result keeps car and motorcycle culture close to home.

Beyond location, GarageApp pulls the rest of an enthusiast’s world into one place. Members show off their builds in their Virtual Garage, generate AI-powered driving routes they can share live over CarPlay and Android Auto, and message one another privately. Event organizers get promotion tools and a direct line to attendees, with a live guest list showing who’s coming and which vehicle they’re bringing. GarageApp also offers an Affiliate program, and is currently the only social network in the industry that offers revenue share.

GarageApp is available on the web and for download on the App Store and Google Play. To learn more, visit garageapp.com.

Media Contact

Dave Vandewouw, GarageApp.com, 1 (919) 436-6223, media@garageapp.com, https://garageapp.com/

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SOURCE GarageApp.com