New Theory hosted Anna Villarreal, a Millennial who may change the way we test for gender related diseases.

Anna Villarreal has created a company, Boston-based LifeStory Health, that is working to develop the first ever, non-invasive, menstrual blood diagnostic test.  Menstrual blood is the most logical biologic agent specific to women only and this revolutionary new methodology will enable the testing and analysis of women’s internal health at the molecular level to detect a wide-range of prevalent female diseases.

 

Basic research has driven significant innovation in health care, enabling discoveries that have changed our lives, saved countless individuals, and provided protective and preventative measures that make the developed world as healthy as it has ever been. This year, the National Institute of Health alone will spend $32.3 billion on medical research.

So what if I told you that both research and diagnostic models really only explore half of what they could? Since the advent of medical research, the default subject has been a male patient. In fact, men outweigh women by two-thirds in clinical trials.

LifeStory Health wants to change that and is calling for more female-specific testing. The potential represented by this approach is wildly exciting. Transforming something considered to be medical waste into a vibrant source material for research is a truly transformative approach to discovery.

Check out Anna’s interview on the New Theory Podcast: