How a Waterloo engineer uses menstrual products to test for HPV and cervical cancer
Test is a tool for doctors to get lab results for patients without an appointment
To get tested for the human papillomavirus (HPV) or cervical cancer, a Pap test is required, and CT Murphy says it's an experience that can be uncomfortable and one some people may avoid.
It's why Murphy has worked to develop a way to do the same testing with commonly used products including tampons, pads and menstrual cups.
Murphy is a master's student in chemical engineering at the University of Waterloo and CEO and founder of Cellect, a startup that aims to improve access to cervical cancer and HPV screening through technology.
Murphy joined Josette Lafleur, guest host of CBC K-W's The Morning Edition, to talk about the research.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. Full audio of the interview is at the bottom of this story.
Host Josette Lafleur: You tackled this issue as part of your 4th year capstone. What made you decide to focus on women's health?
CT Murphy: Honestly, originally it wasn't my goal. I wanted to focus on something for everyone. But it really came about after my first Pap smear when I was 21 and it was not a great experience for me. I couldn't believe that I would be the only one to think that it was weirdly uncomfortable and archaic.
You've seen the device [used for Pap tests]. It looks borderline medieval and I couldn't believe that I would be the only one with that problem. So I looked into it a bit more and I realized that even though it's one of the most life-saving screening techniques, one of the most important for women's health and women's reproductive health, it has abysmal patient compliance. Like, no one wants to do it. Not only is it inconvenient, it's embarrassing, for some people it can be really painful.
I decided I have this wonderful degree from the university that I really appreciate and that gives me a huge breadth of knowledge. I decided, why don't I actually use that to try and address it and so I came up with the idea for this nanomaterial, pitched it to some other students and they decided to help me on the fourth-year design project and we got a really good proof of concept and some really good results at the end of it.
So I decided to go on with it for my Masters and focus on that with the research.
Lafleur: Let's talk a bit more about the nanomaterial. Tell me how that works.
Murphy: I can't go into it too much just due to the IP [intellectual property], but on a very high level how it works is it passively concentrates these cells of interest, so that's the cervical cells in this case within the menstrual blood and allows the rest of the components to sort of flow through while also attaching and absorbing.
So that just sort of means passively adhering to any sort of nucleic acid within the sample. So that's DNA or RNA.
Once this is collected you can then mail this in and using some readily available chemicals that are usually available in any sort of lab, so clinical labs, you can then take out that sample and apply it to tests for HPV that can tell you if you have precancer, cervical cancer or are at high risk for said cancers.
Eventually we also want to apply it to stuff like endometriosis, ovarian cancer, any sorts of STD's [sexually transmitted infections] and things that aren't even reproductive illnesses.
Lafleur: How will you collect the samples?
Murphy: It's entirely put inside things like tampons, any sort of menstrual products. So it'll be within tampons, pads, things that are very familiar form factors that women use literally every single month to be able to send those into a lab.
To me, it's just baffling that we have things like urine tests, blood tests, any sort of bodily fluid tests except menstrual blood and it's the only bodily fluid we are literally taught how to collect.
Lafleur: When we are speaking about the results, does it take the same amount of time as it would if you were to get screened during a Pap smear?
Murphy: There's actually a decent cut down in time. Let's say you're just collecting it and you hand that off to the lab. It entirely cuts out the middleman of needing to schedule that gynecological appointment.
Obviously if you get some sort of positive test, you'll have to go in and get that confirmation Pap smear, but it has the goal of eliminating the need for routine Pap smears.
It should actually take a lot less long due to the fact that it doesn't require any sort of in-person contact with a doctor or any scheduling of appointments.
Lafleur: How do you see this tech perhaps being integrated into doctor's offices?
Murphy: It's more to be a tool for doctors to be able to say, 'OK, take this test regularly and if anything comes up, you come see me and we do that Pap smear and we get the confirmation of the type where you know the cancer is if it exists or where the lesions are, if they exist.'
It's more about actually giving a tool to doctors so having them say instead of just being like OK, you have to come in for this test specifically come in on this day, just send me this sample by this day and then we'll go from there.
Lafleur: You are addressing a gap in women's health. Why do you think there's been such oversight?
Murphy: It's really upsetting and sad to say, but systemic sexism and systemic discrimination plays a huge role in it. And that's something I won't mince words about.
Women weren't required to be in clinical trials in Canada until 1997. That wasn't even implemented until the early 2000s. So anything before then, it's just men and we are quite hormonally different.
It's also to do with the fact that in engineering specifically, chemical engineering, nanotechnology engineering, for a long time those were such heavily male-dominated fields. And it's really not their fault that these well established chemical engineers or nanoengineers or anybody who works with materials didn't even know that this was a problem. It doesn't affect them in their everyday life.
So it's the importance of having women in STEM and the advent of that that is really, you know, spurred this sort of innovation wave in women's health. But you know, before that it was just a lack of knowing that a problem existed or the people that could address the problem knew that it was even there.
Lafleur: This project grew into a company for you as well: Cellect. It is still in its infancy stages, but what are the next steps?
Murphy: It's basically optimizing the nanomaterial. So obviously, we had a really crude, a decent proof of concept, but a crude one. So what we're trying to do now is actually use the masters that I'm in to work on the intellectual property for that.
So once that's done, we'd like to apply for Class 2 medical device status within Canada and be able to roll out in Canada and then the U.S. We actually just got our first provisional patent yesterday, that's within the US and Canada.
It's very much about optimizing the technology, prototyping actual form factors, making sure that they're as comfortable and familiar for women as possible and integrating it.
LISTEN | This UW student is working to improve women's access to cervical cancer and HPV screening:
