Behind the development of a new medical system to examine with physiological blood

ByLo & amp;

Techniques have been developed to collect blood and cells without causing pain by menstrual blood that can be taken from women once a month without using blood sampling with a needle, and analyze them for use in early detection of diseases. Science and patents have been supported by men so far, but the actions of female engineers are summarized in The New York Times as women's eyes have the possibility of being undeveloped as yet.

The Tampon of the Future - The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/opinion/sunday/the-tampon-of-the-future.html

In 2014, Harvard engineer Ridhi Tariyal got a groundbreaking answer to the question "What is the way to draw blood without pain?" Normally, women need a lot of blood when trying to find out about pregnancy / childbirth. Tariyal proposed this blood collection method as easy as possible at home by using blood that can be taken from a woman, that is, "menstruation" once a month without using a needle. Tariyal and his colleague Stephen Gire developed a technology to convert menstrual menstruation into medical samples and obtained a patent.


First, Tariyal and Gire thought about putting chips inside the tampon and making a "smart tampon" that can analyze the female body in real time, but Tariyal himself said " Because there was resistance to putting in, many women speculate that there will be resistance. Therefore, the tampon was used only for blood collection, and the analysis was carried out outside the body was adopted a mechanism.

Although sanitary products were used for a long time, the sanitary products currently in use were redeveloped by female engineer Lillian Gilbreth around 1920. Gilbreth, who worked at Johnson & End Johnson, surveyed more than 1,000 women and asked what the ideal sanitary napkin would be like to improve with ready-made sanitary napkins , Etc. We investigated and developed it. As a result, a thick dietary sanitary napkin like a diaper was mainstream at the time, but it turned out that it was requested a product name that was perfect for the body and that was not embarrassing even in public, The products are now being made. In addition, this investigation was not instructed by the company, but that Mr. Gilbreth made at his own discretion. Because, many of the men working at the company manufacturing napkins at that time did not realize that women hated their sanitary napkins.

ByFeral godmother

Of the 200 tampon-related patents acquired from 1976 to the present, men developed as much as three-quarters. Tariyal points out that there is a lot of undeveloped possibilities because women were not in a position to announce ideas for a long time. This is true not only for health but also for other fields.

Tariyal is not the only person who points out that there is a gender gap in the field of patents and that "possibility is overlooked". For example, Sybilla Masters, a female engineer who invented a corn crusher in the early 1700s, tried to obtain a patent, but since women were forbidden by law to possess property at that time, "Sybilla and his wife" It was only possible to take a patent in the form of.

Even now there is a gap by sex, and in the 2012 survey we know that 92% of the patent holders are men. Toby Stuart of the Haas School of Business pointed out that this is because men have more social networks to gain ideas and conduct commercial activities than women.

In the case of Tariyal, Harvard University who told Tariyal that he would invent a new tool prepared a researcher scholarship and was willing to cooperate with chemistry professor and commercialize technology , "In my case it was exceptional," Tariyal says.


However, even with support from the university, the road to diagnostic tools using menstrual blood has been steep. For example, Tariyal initially thought about selling diagnostic tools in terms of "being able to use it to diagnose infectious diseases such as Chlamydia". Now it is possible to receive Chlamydia 's diagnostic test for free if you go to the clinic, but because I thought that it would be desirable for many women from the point of view of privacy, "I can do it at home alone" . However, when demonstrating the blue liquid as a menstrual blood, there were many investors who found that over 90% of venture capital employees were men and that they felt discomfort or jokes.

Tariyal looked back then and said, "Some people said that" This product is useful only for women, and there are only half of the population on the planet for women. "So what did you say?" Hide your disappointment Not appearance. Some people say "I want you to rethink it for men," some people suggested that "I want you to develop quietly testable tools without being noticed by women, because women are liars."

ByC.matthias kügler

In the summer of 2015, Tariyal and Gire are beginning to despair in a situation where it is not possible to break through at all, thinking that "we must find a way to fit more taste of investors".

Menstrual blood contains not only blood but also a lot of cells of the ovary and uterus. By analyzing these cells with a diagnostic tool, it is possible to check the condition of the body of a woman, discover cancer early, It is possible to discover genital diseases. When two people switched their focus to cell analysis from the diagnosis of infectious diseases, the idea was accepted by investors and Illumina decided to provide laboratory and technical assistance by a venture company. The two have developed and refined tampons to collect cells in the uterus so that women can quickly find women's changes in genes related to diseases, endometriosis, etc. by themselves.

Tariyal chose the way of science because I love SF-like things, "Hyper loopI want to be realized and I want to live on Mars. "Earlon maskAlthough I admire the CEO from the bottom of my heart, I am worried that only some communities like men will decide the shape of the future. "When inventors and investors are homogeneous, the future will also be homogeneous," Tariyal said.