Welcome to our Worldwide Girls’s Day sequence, the place we shine a highlight on ladies who’re forging paths and making vital impacts within the area of drugs, significantly in ladies’s well being.
Right now, we’re honored to introduce Dr. Sara Naseri, CEO and Co-Founding father of Qvin, a trailblazing firm on the forefront of girls’s well being know-how. In our dialog, Dr. Naseri shares insights into the inspiration behind Qvin, the groundbreaking Q-Pad™ know-how, and the way their work contributes to this 12 months’s theme of inspiring inclusion in healthcare.
Be part of us as we delve into the challenges and triumphs of innovating in ladies’s well being, and find out how Qvin’s applied sciences are empowering ladies and individuals who menstruate, particularly in underrepresented communities, to take management of their well being in unprecedented methods.
Firstly, please introduce your self and description your profession so far. Extra particularly, might you share with us what impressed you to co-found Qvin and delve into the realm of girls’s well being know-how?
I used to be captivated with enabling folks to be extra preventative about their well being and wished to discover a method that might permit sufferers to acquire clinically related details about their well being recurrently and non-invasively.
Once I was in medical faculty, I recognized menstrual blood as a easy technique to acquire well being insights non-invasively and recurrently for half of the world’s inhabitants – females. I led a analysis crew that in 2019 printed one of many first peer reviewed research on the scientific relevancy of menstrual blood, beforehand thought-about waste, within the Journal of Medical and Laboratory Drugs in 2019.
My crew and I proved that important well being data could be gleaned from menstrual blood and I then went on to Co-Discovered Qvin and its pioneering Q-Pad™for ladies globally.
70% of medical choices are made primarily based on blood testing and lab work. The normal strategies of blood testing require invasive procedures administered by medical professionals, that are time-consuming and costly. And but, menstrual blood – a month-to-month cycle of blood launch – has by no means been explored as a diagnostic supply for well being data. Qvin printed never-been-done-before analysis that menstruation accommodates vital and clinically related well being data.
This Worldwide Girls’s Day focuses on inclusion and equality. How does Qvin’s work contribute to those targets within the healthcare sector?
At Qvin our aim is to make well being care accessible for all females in addition to shut the gender information hole that exists in ladies’s well being. Not everybody has the time, entry and monetary means to get laboratory outcomes for blood work, nevertheless, billions of individuals globally bleed each single month and might get entry to necessary well being data just by utilizing the Q-pad.
On the identical time, there’s a gender hole in drugs and science. Girls’s well being analysis has been neglected, underfunded and most significantly, stigmatized. It was not till 1993 when ladies and minorities had been, by legislation, included in scientific trials.
Nonetheless, there continues to be an ongoing lack of feminine illustration and participation in medical analysis. 70% of power ache sufferers are feminine, but ladies solely signify 20% of power ache analysis. By using menstrual blood that billions of individuals throw away month-to-month, Qvin will assist shut the medical gender information hole.
Dr. Naseri, for our viewers who will not be acquainted, might you clarify how the Q-Pad know-how works and what makes it a groundbreaking growth in menstrual well being monitoring?
Qvin’s Q-Pad is the primary and solely FDA cleared diagnostic menstrual pad that could be a handy, no needle various to conventional lab blood testing utilizing interval blood.
Testing menstrual blood with the Q-Pad eliminates frequent obstacles to conventional laboratory testing corresponding to lack of entry, anxiousness, invasiveness, time, or monetary means. Eradicating these obstacles to care can result in higher and extra correct diagnoses and administration of our well being.
The Q-Pad permits ladies to leverage their pure interval for normal insights about their our bodies in order that we are able to allow early detection and be actually preventative.
Not solely does the Q-Pad present ladies with a straightforward, non-invasive technique to monitor their well being, however by using menstrual blood that billions of individuals throw away month-to-month, Qvin will assist shut the medical gender information hole. Qvin believes menstrual blood is a superpower for ladies and for ladies’s well being analysis.
The way it works
The Q-Pad is used identical to every other menstrual pad out there in the marketplace. We suggest you employ two Q-Pads throughout your month-to-month cycle.
- Obtain the Qvin app and register your equipment.
- To make use of, merely unwrap the Q-Pad and affix it to your underwear.
- Put on it till the oval (marked on pad) saturated with blood.
- Take away the novel dry blood assortment strip from contained in the pad, put it into the pre-paid packaging that comes together with your Qvin equipment and mail again to the CLIA-Licensed Qvin Lab.
- Drop the pre-paid packaging within the mail inside 72 hours together with your two assortment strips.
- You’ll obtain your leads to the Qvin app inside 5-10 days after delivery, within the type of a safe, digital lab report it’s also possible to share together with your doctor.
Picture Credit score: Qvin
How does the Q-Pad examine to conventional strategies of well being monitoring and diagnostics when it comes to accuracy, comfort, and person expertise? Moreover, past diabetes monitoring, what different well being situations might probably be recognized or monitored successfully utilizing the Q-Pad know-how?
The Q-Pad Equipment marks a big innovation in healthcare diagnostics as the primary and solely FDA-cleared diagnostic menstrual pad that captures menstrual blood for vital well being testing, akin to conventional lab assessments.
This pioneering product permits people to gather samples within the consolation of their very own houses with out the necessity for lab visits, finger pricks, or venous blood attracts. Designed with natural cotton and a detachable assortment strip, the Q-Pad affords a seamless expertise throughout menstruation. After assortment, the strip is mailed to a lab for scientific testing, avoiding the effort of returning the complete pad.
Empowering ladies to take cost of their well being, the Q-Pad Equipment is a crucial instrument for knowledgeable discussions with healthcare suppliers, backed by routine, preventative well being screenings. Its accuracy aligns with conventional testing requirements, present process rigorous validation in CLIA/CAP licensed laboratories.
The Q-Pad’s reliability is additional underscored by its adherence to the best validation requirements, together with NGSP for the A1c check and comparability to venous blood for different assessments, making certain outcomes are as reliable as these from typical diagnostic strategies.
The overwhelming acceptance of the Q-Pad is obvious from a 2023 analysis research the place 94% of 614 respondents favored the idea, and a scientific trial with 285 contributors revealed a robust desire for the Q-Pad over conventional Pap smears, with 91% favoring the Q-Pad and 99% endorsing it for HR-HPV screening.
Created by the Qvin crew and myself, the Q-Pad goals to supply a worldwide answer for earlier HR-HPV screening, a vital consider stopping cervical most cancers deaths. It additionally gives entry to a variety of biomarkers necessary for monitoring numerous well being situations, together with thyroid well being, diabetes and pre-diabetes administration, irritation, anemia, ovarian reserve, and different fertility and perimenopause indicators.
Our analysis has validated the concordance between venous and menstrual blood for ldl cholesterol and lipids, with plans to develop the checklist of biomarkers by way of additional validation. This revolutionary strategy facilitates simpler entry to important well being screenings and opens new avenues for preventive healthcare.
How vital is the FDA clearance for the Q-Pad and A1c Take a look at, and what does it imply for the way forward for menstrual blood testing within the healthcare trade?
Qvin is the primary and solely healthcare service that collects menstrual blood samples as a substitute for historically collected venous blood attracts. The FDA clearance makes it doable for the thousands and thousands of girls in America who dwell with diabetes to obtain monitoring of A1c, utilizing laboratory assessments carried out on the Q-Pad.
Extra broadly, this marks a chance for testing necessary biomarkers for the greater than 80 million individuals who menstruate within the U.S. The normal methoblood testing strategies require invasive procedures administered by medical professionals, that are time-consuming and costly.
Not everybody has the time, entry, and monetary means to get laboratory outcomes for blood work; nevertheless, billions of individuals globally have their interval each single month. And but, menstrual samples had by no means beforehand been explored as a diagnostic supply for well being data. Eradicating these obstacles to care can result in higher and extra correct diagnoses and well being administration.
Qvin proved the scientific relevancy of menstrual blood for a variety of necessary biomarkers.The Q-Pad was initially created to establish biomarkers for HPV and has expanded and recognized extra biomarkers to check for, together with pre/diabetes, anemia, fertility, perimenopause, endometriosis, and thyroid well being.
Why is it important to prioritize ladies’s well being in public well being agendas, and what are the broader societal impacts of doing so?
Girls’s well being analysis has been neglected, underfunded and most significantly, stigmatized. Feminine biology has not been studied equally because the starting of medical analysis. It was not till 1993 when ladies and minorities had been, by legislation, included in scientific trials. The info used to information scientific prognosis right this moment is biased to male biology.
So, when ladies are usually not included in analysis, medical prognosis will not be correct for ladies. There continues to be an ongoing lack of feminine illustration and participation in medical analysis. And we wish to change that.
We consider menstrual blood is a superpower for ladies and for ladies’s well being analysis. By using menstrual blood that billions of individuals throw away month-to-month, it’s our aim to assist shut the medical gender information hole.
Picture Credit score: ESB Skilled/Shutterstock.com
What had been among the most important scientific challenges you confronted in growing the Q-Pad, and the way did you overcome them?
The largest roadblock was proving the scientific relevancy of menstrual blood. My crew and I’ll proceed analysis to scientifically show ladies can get entry to extra biomarkers on the Q-Pad.
In what methods do you consider Qvin’s know-how empowers ladies and individuals who menstruate, significantly in underrepresented communities?
Our aim with Qvin and our novel Q-Pad and academic know-how is to revolutionize healthcare and alter how we look after ourselves. At the beginning the, the Q-Pad gives an accessible technique to display the inhabitants within the consolation of their very own dwelling, giving them common insights that them turn out to be extra preventative relating to their well being.
One of many largest alternatives we see with Qvin and our Q-Pad Equipment know-how is granting entry to non-invasive and handy testing to thousands and thousands of individuals within the US and world wide who would not have fast entry to a healthcare supplier.
Sooner or later, I can see a time when a gynecologist recommends a Q-Pad Equipment to sufferers, particularly these at larger danger for preventable illnesses like cervical most cancers.
Trying ahead, what rising applied sciences or traits do you consider will additional revolutionize ladies’s well being within the subsequent decade?
Applied sciences that present simple, handy and clinically related data can be key in revolutionizing ladies’s well being. Girls are desperate to take management of their well being and so they need their well being data however they’re busy with carriers and household life and would not have time to enter a lab/hospital/physician’s workplace recurrently.
We want applied sciences that permit ladies to proceed their lives as busy and important members of our work power and household unites with out lacking necessary early indicators of well being.
Lastly, as we have fun Worldwide Girls’s Day, what recommendation would you give to younger ladies aspiring to enter the sector of medical know-how and entrepreneurship?
For ladies’s well being points to turn out to be a precedence we want extra females (along with males) to wish to be a part of this area and contribute to its enhancement. There’s a huge alternative to seize as a result of it’s an space of well being care that has been neglected.
It’s unbelievable to work in an space of well being the place there are nonetheless main inquiries to be answered and to be a part of serving to discover these solutions for such an enormous a part of the world’s inhabitants.
Web site: Qvin – Empowering ladies. Interval.
Press launch: FDA clearance press launch
Peer reviewed publications:
About Dr. Sara Naseri
Dr. Sara Naseri, CEO and Co-Founding father of Qvin, a worldwide ladies’s healthcare service leveraging menstrual blood for early diagnostics, graduated from Aarhus College, Denmark, in 2019.
Her intensive involvement in medical analysis spans prestigious establishments like Yale, Kyoto College, and Stanford College, the place she centered on ladies’s well being and cervical most cancers screening applied sciences.
Early in her profession, at 16, Naseri co-founded Bucky’o’Zun, growing a UV-absorbing compound to guard in opposition to pores and skin most cancers, incomes her the nickname “Ozone Lady” and quite a few awards, together with first place from the European Parliament in Intel Problem Europe and Denmark’s Feminine Entrepreneur of the Yr in 2013.
Naseri, who has contributed to training and know-how innovation advisory teams, can also be a acknowledged speaker and was the youngest participant in Singularity College’s Graduate Research Program. Fluent in Danish, English, and Persian, her work goals to advance medical options and well being requirements globally.
