If dogs can smell cancer... why can't we?

Hello :)

Ever heard of dogs being able to smell cancer?...

Designed after a dog's olfactory system and olfactory neurons, The Blue Box is an AI-powered _medical device_ for pain-free, non-irradiating, low-cost, in-home _breast cancer testing_ – just by introducing a urine sample in a box! Our AI-based algorithm reacts to specific urine metabolites and outputs a _classification rate of >95%._

The Blue Box is a 3D-printed box that contains 8 _chemical sensors_ that are specifically sensitive to some breast cancer biomarkers – i.e. some molecules whose presence or absence in one's physiology is correlated to the condition of breast cancer. When a urine sample is introduced inside The Blue Box, the aforementioned sensors “read” the sample for 30 minutes, and then send the reading to the user’s phone via _Bluetooth_. The Blue App will then send it to the cloud via WiFi, where our _artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm_ is allocated. Once AI reaches a diagnostic, it will be sent back to the user's phone and displayed in the app.

Women deserve a better solution

During my undergrad years, I came across a study by the CDC reporting almost _40% of women skipping their mammogram_ screening (41% due to pain), potentially resulting in 1/3 cancers detected too late, and thus worse survival chances for women.

This frustration motivated me to discover that _93.55%_ of breast cancers diagnosed by a mammogram are "false alarms" (Catalan Department of Health). Moreover, image-based techniques typically fail to properly identify tumors when used with women with fibrocystic breasts (breast tissue with healthy lumps). Shockingly, around 60% of women worldwide do currently have fibrocystic breasts.

Finally, although a single radiation dose is not harmful, yearly exposure to a mammogram increases breast cancer risk itself. In fact, in 2017, the World Health Organization published the "WHO Position paper on mammography screening" stating that there is an urgent and tangible _need for a better solution_ for breast cancer screening.

Consequently, there exists a need for a pain-free, accurate, non-irradiating, low-cost, in-home breast cancer test.

The science behind the box

As early as Roman times, medicine has paid special attention to human physiological metabolites, e.g. uncontrolled diabetes was historically diagnosed by a sweet taste in urine, liver failure produced a fish-like smell... However, human metabolic studies did not meet the oncology field until April 1989 when Dr. Hywel Williams and Dr. Andres Pembroke from King’s College Hospital, London reported a case in The Lancet about a Collie-Doberman who was constantly smelling a mole in its owner's leg. The mole was then shown to be cancerous, saving the patient’s life. This event proved that cancer causes metabolic changes, thus altering the body's smell.

We have followed a different approach to the challenge. We have studied the _dog's taste buds_ and the sensory neurons they connect to and realized what makes them fire a signal. We then decided that if the dog was able to feel it, so was our Arduino microprocessor. And so we translated the dog’s olfactory system into a _microprocesor and a couple sensors_ and mimicked the dog's olfactory cortex into _an AI-based code_.

Our journey

In October 2017 I started testing the viability of such a device during my biomedical engineering bachelor thesis at the _Universitat de Barcelona_. Later on, with the ultimate goal of bringing this solution to all women in the world, I moved to California, which seemed the right place to keep pursuing this dream. At the _University of California Irvine_, I pursued the master of Embedded Cyber-physical Systems, where I met my friend _Billy_, who soon got motivated to bring in his computer science background.

Billy built a secure server where to host our AI-powered algorithm, and designed a connectivity flow so that data can be sent via Bluetooth to the phone and through the internet to the cloud. I designed a convolutional neural network for sample classification and trained it with the data we had previously obtained. The outcome of our master thesis was a classification _accuracy of >95%_.

Our goal for 2022

Our goal for 2022 is to finally bring The Blue Box to hospitals and use it to "read" urine samples from multiple users. If we can _collect at least 1000 urine “readings”_, we will be able to use them to further _train our AI algorithm_. So far, Hospital Universitari Sant Joan, in Reus, and Hospital Universitari de Tarragona Joan XXIII have agreed to join the study. Once collected, we will send the data overseas to the Center for Embedded Cyber-physical Systems at the University of California Irvine (UCI), where I work, and we will take care of AI training and testing.

Why are we raising capital?

Inventing, developing and testing a medical device is a process that involves lots of passion, determination, love for your startup… but unfortunately lots of money as well. If you choose to be part of this project by dominating whatever quantity you feel like, we promise to put your funds to good use: We’ll be hiring new team members, affording prototyping materials and seeking the resources, mentorship and advice we need to...

• Ensure that The Blue Box has a safe and defined path till _marketization_
• Try to _accelerate_ its commercial launch

Some of our previous awards

Sir James Dyson personally chose our startup and as the global winner of the James Dyson Award 2020, a worldwide design and engineering competition.

In 2020 we got accepted into Global Grad Show’s startup accelerator, a programme connecting the world's best academic minds in design, engineering and architecture.

We are currently part of SkyDeck HotDesk startup incubator, at the University of California Berkeley.

In June 2021, we ended up finalists of "The most disruptive technology", at the Advanced Factories awards, Barcelona.

The Blue Box in the media

You can also read about us here…

BBC  |  Daily Mail  |  The Guardian  |  Taiwan News  |  ELLE  |  Vogue  |  She does the city, Canada  |  TRT World News  |  Despierta América (Good morning America)  |  Televisión Española (Spanish National TV)  |  Els Matins de TV3 (Catalan National TV)

And we have attended some conferences as well...

Bioengineering and MedTtech against cancer'20  |  Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week Summit'21  |  Arduino Day'21

Thank you :)

We still have a long journey ahead of us, and we will enjoy every step of the way. Thank you ALL for being here. This is a collective effort 💙

Blue regards, 

- Judit & Billy

The Blue Box

When society comes together to CHANGE the way we fight breast cancer.