Maryam Sadeghi

Dr. Maryam Sadeghi - Simon Frasier University

A smartphone app that helps track potentially cancerous moles

Skin cancer is common and potentially deadly with risks increasing the longer it is undetected. Dr. Maryam Sadeghi was so concerned that people can wait weeks or months to find out if suspicious moles were malignant that she created an innovative device and app called MoleScope.

Dr. Sadeghi developed the product with help from Simon Fraser University’s Venture Connection, which provides students with business mentors and entrepreneurial help. Dr. Sadeghi is scientific director of the Digital Health Hub at Simon Fraser University.

Find out more: Simon Fraser University >

* Maryam Sadeghi was one of 14 Innovators to Know invited to Ottawa by Universities Canada on Feb. 24, 2016 to meet with high school students, science policy makers and Parliamentarians.

Improving the health of Canadians through smartphone app

Transcript

Text on screen: [Celebrating Canada’s Research Excellence: A Smartphone App to Improve the Health of Canadians]

Maryam Sadeghi: I learned that skin cancer is the most common cancer. I learned that 70 percent of skin cancers are found by patients themselves or their family members, and I was shocked how archaic was the system. There was nothing digital. Everything was paper-based. They placed dots on the paper for moles. I was like you should document this properly. This is easy. And as a scientist, it didn’t make sense for me not to have it.

So I decided to start building the system, the solution for them. And it’s very rewarding when you see what you’ve built is being used in cancer centres and thousands of patients and dermatologists and oncologists.

Text on screen: [Universities Canada logo, The Voice of Canada’s Universities]

Universities Canada