Two Harvard-trained researchers, who bonded while battling epidemics in West Africa, are developing diagnostic technology to help women monitor their own health and fertility.
Harvard-trained researchers Ridhi Tariyal and Stephen Gire created a smart tampon system that can detect the warnings signs of infection and other anomalies in menstrual blood. Because Ridhi Tariyal was convinced women shouldn’t have to go to the doctor’s and go through clinical tests to get information that is theirs, she decided to develop a system that uses blood from tampons and provides digital results at home.
Behind this innovation, the young woman promotes the idea that periods are not actually “trash” but something really useful. She says: “it’s such a rich biological matrix that you’re shedding every single month.”
The duo is now working on an endometriosis test by extracting and sequencing the genes present in cells found in period blood.
This innovation shows that the period movement is turning into social awareness. More and more, scientists confirm the period blood can be paired with useful information, a proof that the period movement is slowly trickling into medicine issues.