BME students win entrepreneurship co-op award

Congratulations to Samantha Sperling and Keeley McCormick for winning the Coast Capital Entrepreneurship Co-op Award!

Photo: Samantha Sperling and Keeley McCormick from Revyn Medical Technologies receiving their entrepreneurship co-op awards from the Coast Capital Innovation Center. From left to right: Zoe Crookshank, Samantha Sperling, Keeley McCormick, and Joshua Latimer. Not in photo: Devon Carmichael.

Samantha and Keeley are part of a team of five engineering students who took on the task of improving an existing medical device as a class project.

“The idea originated in a class that focused on human factors and improving an existing medical device. The vaginal speculum came to mind as a device that could be improved in so many ways. As we started researching the speculum, we discovered that it was designed in the mid-19th century by a man who tested the device on slave women and that it caused a large percentage of patients to either delay or avoid the only procedure that detected cervical cancer in the early stages. That’s when we really became passionate about the idea. Over the next eight months, our team focused on improving the speculum design to increase device effectiveness, patient comfort, and physician ease-of-use.”

The team recently founded Revyn Medical Technologies.

“Through our start-up, we hope to take our design to market and create a positive and meaningful impact on the level of care acceptable for people with vaginas. We plan to continue designing and developing medical devices that meet the needs of all overlooked and underserved communities. We refuse to accept that a device that only "gets the job done" is good enough and firmly believe that everyone deserves access to innovations that prioritize patient comfort and improve health outcomes.”