BPD Alumnus Gauravjit Singh and his team develop device for Cervical Cancer prevention.
Gauravjit Singh graduated from BITS, Pilani-Dubai in 2005 and joined Duke University, Durham to pursue his Masters in Management and Entrepreneurship. He co-founded a company with four of his friends last September to provide medical detection services to women to prevent cervical cancer in Haiti, Honduras and Tanzania. The company called "ImaGyn", just won the main prize of $100,000(USD) in the CUREs Start Up competition. Below is the Press Release on the same.

    Cervical Cancer Project Wins Start Up Competition: Low-cost device helps prevent cervical cancer in the developing world

    DURHAM, N.C. A team of Duke University graduate students has developed a device to facilitate cervical cancer prevention in the developing world. This device, the cerviScope, is a portable colposcope that will cost roughly 95 percent less than comparable technology in US-based hospitals. The team, imaGyn, won the $100,000 CUREs Competition on Saturday, April 14th.

    Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death among women. Over 260,000 women die every year from this disease with 80percent of these cases occurring in the developing world. Althoughcervical cancer is highly preventable, this problem is overlooked by most public health organizations.

    ImaGyn has garnered resounding support from the gynecology community in Duke Hospital and in Hopital St. Croix in Haiti during the development of the cerviScope. During an early prototype demonstration, Dr. Peter Cartwright proclaimed, "I think it's got some potential. [The cerviScope] is much better actually than the colposcope considering the social impact on women in the developing world, I would pay $1,000 to sponsor one or more cerviScopes for use in a low-resource country like Haiti." Dr. Jeffrey Wilkinson adds, "Access to cervical cancer screening and treatment is essential for women in developing countries." With a competitive device priced at a significant discount, many doctors and business experts are wondering why imaGyn doesn't develop and market the cerviScope to replace the $10,000 colposcope in US hospitals. In response, the team explains, "Our primary mission is to make an impact in places like Haiti, Honduras and Tanzania?this is what our vision is founded on, but if hospitals here see potential in our device, I don't have a problem with that!"

    The team members Gauravjit Singh ,Theo Tam, Wynn Xiao Wuand and Adnan Haider express their hope for the global community, "We're not here to change the world. Our modest ambition is to save the lives of 19,000 women in the next five years by helping them get access to cervical cancer screenings."

    CUREs is a non-profit business competition sponsored by Engineering World Health. The organization aims to bring medical technology to the developing world to solve public health problems while promoting entrepreneurship.

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