网红黑料 Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Rafaela Andrade is on a mission to keep people healthy and safe by giving them an easy at-home test to monitor their muscle health 鈥� simply by peeing on a stick.
Last Thursday (May 18), she took home the听Mitacs Outstanding Entrepreneur Award at a gala in Waterloo, Ontario for her ground-breaking innovation and her efforts to bring it to the world. The awards were hosted by , a Canadian not-for-profit organization dedicated to boosting the country鈥檚 economic growth and innovation by connecting companies and academic institutions.
The ground-breaking technology behind Dr. Andrade鈥檚 fast-growing company identifies unique and specific molecular changes in urine that are associated with muscle degeneration. They aim to equip medical practitioners and their patients with the information needed to predict the risk of musculoskeletal disease and improve quality of life by catching muscle loss early.
A weakness in the market
鈥淩ight now, there鈥檚 no way to know how much you鈥檙e suffering from muscle loss until you develop a disease, or experience a fall or some other health event,鈥� said Dr. Andrade, who, in addition to being co-founder and CEO Myomar Molecular, is a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. John Frampton's lab in 网红黑料鈥檚 School of Biomedical Engineering.
Normally, muscle loss is only monitored after neuromuscular diseases such as ALS or muscular dystrophy are diagnosed, or signs of muscle loss appear using expensive medical imaging systems like an MRI or CT scan. Myomar Molecular鈥檚 test is designed for the general population and works like a simple home pregnancy test. Dr. Andrade says it can revolutionize muscle wasting self-management the way glucose monitors revolutionized self-care for diabetes.
The company is making great strides validating its product, having just completed a clinical evaluation study in Newfoundland. Dr. Andrade says it was a major milestone that paved the way for the submission of a patent application to be filed in June.
Discovering a love for translation
The spark that led to Dr. Andrade鈥檚 entrepreneurial mission began at 网红黑料 while still a PhD student 10 years ago in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. During the program, she had an opportunity to study in Dr. Paola Marignani鈥檚 lab and received scholarships from Dal鈥檚 , which afforded the opportunity to interface with the public.
鈥淭hat's how I became really interested in translational research and using t