Empowering women's health: Grad student launches innovative start-up
Nanotechnology Engineering alumna CT Murphy (BASc ’23) created CELLECT, a new start-up which aims to improve access to cervical cancer and HPV screening. CELLECT's technology uses nanomaterials in menstrual products to diagnose HPV and cervical cancer using menstrual blood, potentially eliminating the need for Pap smears.
Murphy’s fourth-year design project served as inspiration for their Masters thesis under the supervision of Chemical Engineering Professor Marc Aucoin. Murphy was awarded the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN)-Velocity scholarship for the project. They also received funding from Velocity’s Up Start Program and Cornerstone Program.
Murphy’s own experience with the outdated testing method was an inspiration to invent another way to test for HPV and cervical cancer. They found no one was using menstrual blood as a diagnostic medium. Menstrual blood contains cells and analytes that could give useful and life-saving indicators about the patient's health thereby leading to higher selectivity and specificity for testing.
“I thought about creating a testing method using a readily available fluid that women could do once a month,” says Murphy. “There are multiple diagnostic tests using urine however menstrual blood is such a stigmatized bodily fluid.”
Aucoin, Director of Applied Virus and Complex Biologics Bioprocessing Research Lab has expertise in the use of bodily fluids, having previously worked on the detection of metabolites in urine, as well as the production of viruses for use in vaccination strategies.
“CT has found an important societal problem for which she wants to develop a solution. When she asked for support – how could I say no? I’ve known ever since I started working with her that she is destined for great things. I’m so happy that she wants to share her journey with me,” says Aucoin.
Murphy as founder and CEO of CELLECT is creating a company dedicated to women’s health by designing new, non-invasive technologies to replace current screening methods making diagnostics more accessible.