Waterloo Engineering alum CT Murphy (BASc ’23, nanotechnology engineering) recently launched CELLECT to improve women’s access to cervical cancer and HPV screening.
CELLECT's innovative technology uses nanomaterials in menstrual products to diagnose HPV and cervical cancer using menstrual blood, potentially eliminating the need for Pap smears.
The Pap test (or Pap smear) screens women for cervical cancer but regular testing can be difficult to access — in Ontario, women are only eligible for the test every three years. This is cause for concern as early detection is key to treating cervical cancer successfully.
Menstrual blood, like urine, contains cells and analytes — biomarkers that can be tested to provide information about a patient’s health and indicate the need for further, more selective and specific testing. But Murphy could find no diagnostic tests using menstrual blood which alerted them to a glaring gap in women’s health research.
Murphy tackled the issue in their fourth-year Capstone design project which won them the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN)-Velocity scholarship to support their graduate studies. They also received funding from Velocity’s Up Start Program and Cornerstone Program to develop and commercialize their research. From there, CELLECT was born.
The company is now working to develop a tampon or other menstrual product that allows menstrual blood to become a compatible analyte for HPV testing and cervical cancer testing. This will enable women to use a familiar product and bodily fluid to test for cancer.
For Murphy, CELLECT’s driving force is not merely to design a product, but to advance women’s health. Given that funding for research on women’s health is a fraction of what’s available for men’s health research, CELLECT’s mission is vital.
“Menstrual blood is such a stigmatized bodily fluid,” says Murphy. “But more than half the world’s population experiences it so let’s use it to be more informed and proactive about their health. Women’s health demands better attention and more knowledge, and I want to help make that happen.”
Go to Helping women take charge of their health for the full story.
Read CT Murphy's interview with CBC News and learn more about her innovative tech.