Local startup looks at non-invasive alternative to pap smears

A Waterloo company is working on a non-invasive alternative to pap smears. CTV’s Colton Wiens visits their lab.

A University of Waterloo femtech startup is aiming to improve screening for some of the most common women’s health problems, while finding a non-invasive way to do it.

CELLECT Laboratories is working on a non-invasive technology that could replace the need for pap smears, while still helping people access life-saving screening.

“Basically, making it so that the people who can’t get pap smears or who won’t get pap smears are still able to get life saving screening,” CT Murphy, co-founder/CEO, CELLECT Laboratories, said.

The idea is to embed nanomaterials to collect diagnostic biomarkers from menstrual blood, to change the way women are screened for HPV, cervical cancer and other DNA-based diseases.

“We use a patent pending nanomaterial that passively collects and stabilizes the genomic DNA within menstrual blood while allowing the blood cells, which are considered contamination for a lot of these tests. Do that due to the hemoglobin to go through basically collecting the larger cells of interest and the genomic DNA,” Murphy said.

Murphy said for many people with a cervix, the fear of getting a pap smear can keep them away from ever getting screened, which could save their life.

“Honestly, I hated it. It was really, really bad for me for various reasons. And because of that, I decided to put my nanotechnology engineering degree to use and came up with the idea and founded collect,” Murphy said.

Some women find the speculum used uncomfortable.

“A horrible, archaic device that is not made for comfort. It’s painful and scary, and if there’s any sort of trauma or disease is hanging around, that might make it more painful. I know a lot of people do worry about getting it,” Leora Singer, a coop student with CELLECT Laboratories, said. “So, I am almost 22 and I’ve never had a pap smear. Hopefully with this technology, if it gets far enough along by then I’ll never have to get one. And I think that would be amazing.”

So far, they’ve focused on using the technology with menstrual pads or cups. They hope to eventually create a way to use it with tampons. With the right funding and approvals, they believe it could hit the market soon.

“I’d say anywhere from a year and a half to two years from now would be their earliest. Just I mean, as a medical device, this is something that’s regulated. And so, we want to make sure that, you know, it’s safe and effective,” Ibukun Elebute, Co-founder and COO of CELLECT Laboratories, said.

The group said they have more testing to do and they also have to get through clinic trials.

“We have to get through feasibility studies. So, I’m not going to say like absolutely. In theory it absolutely is (safe) because of the material we’re using has been used in food safe stuff. But obviously we need a lot more like clinical studies and feasibility studies to make sure. Because the last thing we want to do is make something that can be potentially toxic. We don’t want to add to the women’s health problems,” Murphy said.

The University of Waterloo startup recently won a national student entrepreneurship competition and will be the only Canadian group competing globally for a $1,000,000 prize.

“To any woman who is watching. We’re doing this for you. I also want to highlight that if you have an innovation in your mind, don’t hesitate. Women’s health needs the attention that it deserves and that we’re just happy to be on this journey,” Elebute said.