Project Details

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Next Generation 'Smart' Sanitary Pad for At-Home Diagnosis of Women's Health

Company: Prof. Dipanjan Pan

Major(s):
Primary: BME
Secondary: EE
Optional: ESC, ME

Non-Disclosure Agreement: NO

Intellectual Property: NO

Menstrual effluent (ME) is an underutilized, non-invasive, and monthly accessible biofluid that contains rich cellular, proteomic, genomic, and metabolomic information. Harnessing ME as a diagnostic matrix creates a unique opportunity to detect conditions such as polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, hormone imbalance, endometrial cancer, and fertility disorders without surgery or venipuncture. The long-term vision of this project is to build a scalable platform for at-home, menstrual-based diagnostics that democratizes women’s health, reduces time-to-diagnosis, and generates longitudinal datasets for precision care. This menstrual effluent platform aims to shift women’s health diagnostics from hospital-centric, invasive procedures to private, affordable, at-home, privacy-focused testing. The end-product is EndoMARK, an at home diagnostic kit that uses menstrual effluent to screen for PCOS via a disposable one-time use smart pad containing a lateral flow strip integrated with a microfluidics. A simple visual or app read result is expected.