Dare to Dream: An Ultrasound Bra For Breast Health with Dr. Canan Dagdeviren
about the episode
Can Wearable Technology Detect Breast Cancer? Dr. Canan Dagdeviren on the Ultrasound Bra & Women's Health Innovation
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren is Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of the Conformable Decoders research group at the MIT Media Lab.
In this episode, Dr. Dagdeviren shares the incredible story behind the lab’s wearable, conformable ultrasound breast patch that enables standardized and reproducible breast imaging. They’re developing a first-of-its-kind ultrasound technology for breast tissue scanning and imaging which offers a non-invasive method for tracking real-time dynamic changes of soft tissue. This technology is meant to be used in adjunct with current screening methods, addressing the various barriers that many women at high risk for breast cancer face when it comes to breast screening.
Driven by her aunt's battle with breast cancer, Dr. Dagdeviren embarked on a journey to innovate breast cancer screening solutions. In our conversation, she shares the current prototype for The Conformable Ultrasound Breast Patch (CUSBr-Patch), detailing the logistics of how it works and how she envisions the patient experience.
Beyond product innovation, Dr. Dagdeviren emphasizes the need for elevating standards in clinical trials. She outlines the commitment she and her team have made to implement a diverse patient-centric approach in their lab.
If you are a woman at high risk for breast cancer and currently on a breast cancer screening plan, please consider applying to be a part of the Conformable Decoders’ clinical trial. You can email Dr. Dagdeviren at canand@mit.edu for more information.
APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | YOUTUBE | AMAZON MUSIC | TUNE IN
“The ultrasound patch is an adjunct technology that will empower not only the patient but also the medical doctors and radiologists to save time, which is equivalent to survival. With early breast cancer detection, we can increase the survival rate up to 98%.”
About Dr. Canan Dagdeviren
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren is an associate professor of media arts and sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she leads M.I.T. Media Labs Conformable Decoders research group. The group's vision is to convert the patterns of nature and the human body into beneficial signals and energy. Previously, she was a junior fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Dr. Dagdeviren was named one of BBC's 100 women in 2023, which recognizes inspiring and influential women from around the world.
Connect with Dr. Dagdeviren on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Conformable Decoders
Episode Outline
(00:53) Meet Dr. Canan Dagdeviren
(01:49) An Innovative Ultrasound Bra For Adjunct Breast Screening
(04:54) The Details: Dr. Dagdeviren’s New Technology
(16:39) The Future of Women’s Healthcare: Doing Better by Women
-
Sharon Kedar 00:02
Behind every pioneering idea, method, and device is a fellow human or humans, a trailblazer who is daring enough to ask the questions that push the boundaries and make the impossible possible. I'm Sharon Kedar, Co-Founder of Northpond Ventures, a multibillion-dollar, science-driven venture capital firm, and the host of Innovate and Elevate. In each episode, we'll have candid, in-depth conversations with top doctors, scientists, and innovators, about leading-edge discoveries and how they impact our lives. Season one focuses on women's health, with the aim of helping women lead our healthiest lives. You'll hear from leading experts, such as Dr. Kathryn Rexrode, Division Chief Women's Health at Harvard's Brigham Hospital. It's time for all of us to Innovate & Elevate.
Sharon Kedar 00:53
Hi, Canan and welcome to the podcast. So Dr. Canan Dagdeviren is an associate professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she leads MIT Media Lab's
Conformable Decoders Research Group. The group's vision is to convert the patterns of nature and the human body into beneficial signals and energy. Previously, she was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Dr. Dagdeviren was named one of BBC's 100 Women in 2023, which recognizes inspiring and influential women from around the world for her recent invention of a wearable ultrasound patch for early breast cancer detection. Canan, welcome to the podcast.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 01:41
Thank you so much, Sharon, for the warm introduction.
Sharon Kedar 01:49
If I may go back to 2015, if you could share the story of your aunt and what inspired you to create this breast cancer wearable.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 02:02
2015 was a very unfortunate year for all of us as a family. My dear aunt at that time, she was very happy, holds tons of hopes for the future, has four kids and very healthy. And suddenly, she was diagnosed with breast cancer despite the fact that she had regular breast screening. So it was already too late for her. She developed interval cancer. Interval cancer means assuming your first mammography, by the time you have your second mammography, 40% of these high-risk women
develop interval cancer in between.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 02:41
And unfortunately, my aunt was one of those women and she could survive only six months after the diagnosis. And at that time, I was a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and I was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University and I requested from Bob Langer if I can fly to The Netherlands where my aunt lived at that moment and he was like, "Of course, go ahead and spend some time with your aunt." And I was lucky. I was with her during her last 12 days and she was in pain. She was very nervous and sick and it was devastating for all of us, all of us around her. And just to comfort her by using my engineering skills and imagination, I took a piece of paper and sat on her bedside and I was sketching a bra, an electronic bra which can do early breast cancer detection in between the mammographies.
Sharon Kedar 03:34
What inspired you to draw the bra, as you're sitting there with your aunt, who at my understanding, she was 49?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 03:42
Yes.
Sharon Kedar 03:44
I’m guessing you were in your 20s?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 03:46
Yes, I was in my 20s. Actually, the point for me was just to relax her, just to give her hope. "Aunt, you will be fine and I'm going to develop this device and it will help you. You will be screening your breast at home without an operator and it will not only help you for many more women all around the world." And she was giving me feedback while being in pain. She was saying, "What if we also do not need to use an ultrasound gel? I don't want to wipe myself after the ultrasound." And she was like, "We shouldn't have someone to smash a personal part of ourselves. Can you make it more wearable, more softer?" And we were like just a conversation in between us and the inspiration of course all about my aunt and how I can help women like her and enable them to do frequent screening. So I was hoping to provide
a new tool, a wearable tool in between this patient journey map to enable the early breast cancer detection with frequent screening.
Sharon Kedar 04:54
Can you show us? Do you have the wearable ultrasound? So if we could talk about what you have in terms of the wearable ultrasound.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 05:01
So imagine it's a malleable technology. At this moment, this is the first prototype. It's just like a cup which can be placed attachable and detachable, snappable on your personal bra and it's very flexible.
See I can make it this way, I can flex it, I can bend it, I can even stretch it with some force and it can be scalable as well as personalized based on the cup size that you have. Currently, we have four cup sizes A, B, C and D, which covers the entire population and with different curvatures and sizes. And this is important because the results will come to your phone within sub seconds while literally you are drinking your coffee and you don't need to stay still, you can still move around and then capture the data with a single shot. You don't need an operator to scan on your breast tissue.
Sharon Kedar 05:59
So to unpack this fascinating device a little bit more and it looks different than the video and the MIT news article from last year, so congrats on the evolution. I remember the honeycomb structure
and the bra that had a bunch of holes cut in it. Could you talk about, when it comes to mammography, ultrasound and MRI, how you see the current standard of care and how this device would fit in?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 06:26
Sure. It is based on safe and proven ultrasound science and we created a new generation
of wearable ultrasound technology. So it's not radiative. And if I can unpack a little bit how the ultrasound is working, you apply a little voltage to the technology and it vibrates and generates a sound wave which can penetrate through your tissue and reflect back from any obstacle. It can be your baby, it can be your breast tumor or lesion, whatever you may call. And then that reflection, reflected wave
can be captured by the technology and it gives you a black and white image which you can identify the location and coordination of any non-good progress in your soft tissue. Compared to the mammography, as I said, it is non-radiative. It does not require any radiation. And compared to the MRI,
it does not need to have you to stay still for a long time and you don't need to have an injection on your vessels which have the contrast agent for MRI to be more visible.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 07:34
However I should underline, we are not changing the patient journey map. We are just bringing a new tool for novel medical intervention and novel medical imaging, which takes the current painful and bulky and expensive ultrasound scans to a wearable technology which can be worn at home with no skill operator and no ultrasound gel. And you can scan it periodically, let's say every month, so that you can have 12 data points in a year. With multiple data points, with the big data. This is also, we are including in our technology, not only the technology, the data that we are going to capture from larger populations will be the second product. I really value data because data is going to tell us a lot.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 08:31
For instance, an example, we have, Sharon, 265 breast cancer drug lines in the market currently, but we don't necessarily know in detail how the efficacy of these drugs are on a given patient. There is no way to monitor these patients throughout the medication. You have maybe one data point during the medication and one after the medication. But imagine a wearable technology which you can wear it
while taking your drug and it takes just a few seconds every week or every month. And this big data is going to tell you a lot and you will even estimate through the AI and machine learning what is going to happen on your breast tissue.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 09:13
So in sum, compared to the mammography and MRI and current bulky ultrasonography technologies, our technology is providing a new tool for patients to examine their breast and capture their data and send a signal to their doctors in earnest in an early manner. And it may also decrease the traffic
at the hospital. You don't need to go to the hospital, you will go and take your mammography if it is needed.
Sharon Kedar 09:42
Would you say that this is an adjunct to what their personalized plan with their doctor would be?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 09:49
Absolutely. This is what it is. It's an adjunct technology tool for what we have in the current healthcare system and it will empower not only the patient, also the medical doctors and radiologists to save time which is equivalent to survival. So with this early breast cancer detection, we can increase the survival
rate up to 98%, yet alone we can decrease the medical cost by half, like almost $16 billion per year
and it's increasing 30% every single year.
Sharon Kedar 10:21
How do you think we'll be able to buy this? When will we be able to buy this?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 10:24
Currently, we are conducting our intensive human trials at MIT Center for Translational and Clinical Research along with my amazing team. And we are capturing more data to talk more about and understand more about the specificity and sensitivity of the technology. Actually, for the sensitivity we are quite sure, but for the specificity we need to get more data and also compare it with mammography and biopsy results, which will take some time. We are also starting our early discussions with the FDA and launching the company will be in between, so with the best estimation and everything, it will be less than three years,we should be able to have this technology to be used by the patients.
Sharon Kedar 11:08
When you talk about sensitivity and specificity, can you just explain what your standards are to get this into the hands of women, hopefully, globally?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 11:18
Yeah. In terms of the sensitivity, we would like to make sure the resolution is good enough to recognize any progression in the tumor or any anomalies in the soft tissue. Currently, the resolution that we have is around 0.02 centimeters, which is, as an order of magnitude, is really tiny, and more order of magnitude smaller than stage one tumor size so that we are good enough to recognize any start of the anomaly within the soft tissue. In terms of the specificity, we want to make sure that whatever we found is either benign or malignant.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 11:57
And we need to compare it with the shapes and also how it is growing parallel or unparalleled to the gravity. So there are a lot of questions and parameters that we are looking at, but overall, we want to make sure that when we see something we should be able to label it as mammography and MRI are also doing. So our hope is to increase our specificity up to 80% and I believe that with more data collection we can even boost this number up, which is extremely important when it comes to the false positives.
Sharon Kedar 12:33
So how do you imagine that a woman can get this device in a few years? Can a woman just go into a CVS or Walmart? Or will they need a prescription from their doctor to get this ultrasound wearable?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 12:45
Yes, the patient will require a prescription from their doctor, and then it will come delivered to your doorstep and you will be using it at home. And I believe this will save a lot of time for the patients to visualize their soft tissue.
Sharon Kedar 13:00
I know these days a lot of times when you get tests at a hospital for instance, you can get the results yourself before the doctor’s even called you. So how do you envision that read out?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 13:11
This part is pretty critical and I'm not only thinking alone, I'm also working with some psychologists to find the best way for the best user experience, patient experience. So we are hoping to eliminate all the errors in the process so the data will be sent to the cloud and will be processed by the algorithms that we generate AI and machine learning sophisticated algorithms. And then not only that, the image will be image segmentation so that you can understand and compare it with the other data in the pool.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 13:47
and the doctor will receive an AI and machine learning supported report. But then you will be called either by a nurse or you will receive a notification on your phone like a green line, "Everything is perfect." And if something is kind of a question mark, you will have a yellow light and then you may need to go to the doctor for more sophisticated scans like mammography or MRI.
Sharon Kedar 14:10
Why wouldn't we just be able to buy this without a prescription?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 14:14
So we want to make sure that while we are empowering women and the population, we also want to make sure that the data is clean and is coming from the same profile. And also we want to make sure first to understand how the technology works on high-risk women and the data is understood and explained by the doctor to the patients.So, at this moment we do not want to have the technology
distributed to the entire population, just for a specific group of people to understand the technology's impact on those individuals.
Sharon Kedar 14:48
In terms of the cost of the bra, how much is the bra gonna cost?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 14:53
Currently, in the R&D stage it is less than $600, but with mass production we are hoping to make it
even more cheaper. And we are also working on the AI algorithm site, which will come as a subscription model, kind of an iPhone model. You will have the iPhone but also have the data plan. So you will have the bra and you will also have the imaging plan so that you can combine all and have a whole package for yourself.
Sharon Kedar 15:22
And this will be paid for by whom?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 15:25
I am hoping it will be paid and approved by the insurance companies and we will have the reimbursement and it will all go well. This is sort of the hope that I have.
Sharon Kedar 15:34
Yes. And that is a road you will journey down as you take your device forward. And when someone is wearing this wearable bra, do they leave it on while they're having their coffee for like five minutes, 10, 15? Where's the sort of baseline going to be?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 15:54
So it's quite easy and I use it on myself and I use it during daily life. You just wear it and it takes a few seconds to capture the image and if you still would like to keep it on, you can. You can even walk while you are taking your image. You can brush your teeth and take the image and you are done. And if you want to keep it on, you can keep it on, but you are supposed to take it off and wear your normal bra and do your daily life, but you don't need to go anywhere else. Just at home or even while you travel, so it's very comfortable and the technology is malleable and very flexible and comfortable.
Sharon Kedar 16:36
What's the big vision in terms of women in the world and the ability to use this breast cancer wearable?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 16:43
My big vision is to have this technology especially to be used in populations which have barriers for these kinds of technologies. So another point of this technology is that we are trying to make it affordable and when you ask how, whatever technology that we use currently in the market are bulky due to many reasons. They use acoustic lenses, they use matching layers and many other device components which makes the device and technology very costly. So we are eliminating many of these layers from our existing tool, which makes the technology more affordable, more cheaper, more portable.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 17:20
So this is another beauty of the technology. One scan will cost less than $3, less than a cup of coffee, which makes this technology more democratized, not only for the underrepresented women
population, but for all. And also my hope is that we can create a map like a breast cancer map for the entire world. We know from the genes that Jewish women have a lot of genes and mutations for the breast cancer, and we don't know why still. We need to know how this population is affected from the age, gender, culture, food, sleep, like many things, depression. I'm working with a couple of breast oncologists from MGH, they are amazing people and they are guiding me through the process
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 18:08
And one of them was asking me, there is no technology that can visualize the breast tissue through the menstruation period every month. What if we also visualize because some of the anomalies are changing throughout the month and we can make sure that they are not related with the hormonal changes but the changes that are associated with the tumor. So longitudinal monitoring is extremely important when it comes to identifying what is malignant and what is benign. So that's why I was linking it to the high data collection point because that high data collection point along with the longitudinal monitoring, will be a key player and determination point for the specificity. And in terms of the periodicity, right now with the patients that we examine, we do it every month just to see if there is any change. For some women, it's person-dependent and it's even dependent on the person’s age, and many other variables.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 19:11
Currently, we are sticking with one month intervals, but for some women even a month interval may not be necessary. So collecting data every three months would be also sufficient. Currently, with this big data intensive human trials, we are trying to find a way like the risk factors and the risk tagging. We are also trying to come up with our own equation. What would Sharon need based on her profile?
Sharon Kedar 19:35
When you think about the data gap, I think it's around 1993 that women were allowed in clinical trials and the reasons given included hormone fluctuations, childbirth. By the way, women are still not at equal levels in clinical trials. Women of Color are not at equal levels, but basically that means that some of the data that you're talking about, so how does our menstrual cycle impact finding tumors, breast cancer early detection that we literally did not collect that data, and only in 1993 have we started. I’m curious your commentary, but thank you for being part of the answer there.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 20:19
When it comes to the clinical research, I really would like to emphasize here. My group, even though I'm a young researcher, I realized the gap between gender representation in the clinical trials and we wrote as a group, a diversity statement and we promised no matter how long it's going take, we will do human clinical trials with equal male and female subjects if the study is not gender-specific. And actually, because of many reasons as you stated, societal reasons, hormonal reasons, we get less female participation compared to the male. But we don't pursue, we wait and we collect equal numbers. And in our papers we cite our diversity statement and we say that our results are not biased.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 21:07
And we get amazing feedback from female researchers so that we can make the technologies
that we develop embraceable by everyone. And not only that, actually I say this proudly, three years ago I wrote a two-page policy paper for the MIT Washington office and my team is also working on the legislation and the kind of words, the suggestions when it comes to the human trials. And we are trying to implement that at MIT by working with the MIT Washington office. And I'm so proud to say that because we need to start now at earnest and I have responsibility as a young professor to educate my students and follow the tradition that we wrote together to be equal for male and female participation in the clinical trials to have universal technologies for all.
Sharon Kedar 22:02
If the listener and viewer wants to learn more about the technology, where do you recommend that they go?
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 22:09
They should go to our website called conformabledecodersmedia.mit.edu. And on the project page, they can find all the details about the technology and where we are. And if they would like to be a part of our human trials, they can simply email me.
Sharon Kedar 22:26
Wonderful. Feel free to be part of the answer by emailing Dr. Dagdeviren and being part of the human trials. Thank you for being on the podcast. It's been such a pleasure to have you. You are an inspiration both as a person, a scientist, and an innovator. Thank you, Canan, for being on the podcast.
Dr. Canan Dagdeviren 22:47
Thank you so much, Sharon, for everything that you have done for me. I appreciate this podcast too. And have a great day and lovely to see you.
Sharon Kedar 23:16
Thank you for tuning in. Please connect with me Sharon Kedar on LinkedIn for additional innovative content. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to like it. And don't forget to subscribe to the channel by clicking the button below this video. The views and opinions of the hosts and podcast guests are their own professional opinions and may not represent the views of Northpond Ventures.
About Your Host
Sharon Kedar, CFA, is Co-Founder of Northpond Ventures. Northpond is a multi-billion-dollar science-driven venture capital firm with a portfolio of 60+ companies, along with key academic partnerships at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, MIT’s School of Engineering, and Stanford School of Medicine. Prior to Northpond, Sharon spent 15 years at Sands Capital, where she became their first Chief Financial Officer. Assets under management grew from $1.5 billion to $50 billion over her tenure, achieving more than 30x growth. Sharon is the co-author of two personal finance books for women. Sharon has an MBA from Harvard Business School, a B.A. in Economics from Rice University, and is a CFA charterholder. She lives in the Washington, DC area with her husband, Greg, and their three kids.
Connect with Sharon
Connect with Sharon on LinkedIn: Sharon Kedar
Learn more about Innovate and Elevate innovateandelevatepodcast.com
Join the newsletter to receive the latest episodes in your inbox: Innovate and Elevate Newsletter
Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
Did you love this episode? Let us know by rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts. It’s easy - click this link, scroll to the bottom of the page, and select “Write a Review.” Let us know what you liked best about the episode. While you’re at it, consider following Innovate and Elevate. Follow now!
FAQs
What is an ultrasound bra?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Canan Dagdeviren explains that the ultrasound bra is wearable technology designed to allow more frequent breast imaging and monitoring. The goal is to create more accessible approaches to breast health and early detection.
Can wearable technology help detect breast cancer?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Canan Dagdeviren discusses how wearable technologies may create new possibilities for monitoring changes in breast tissue and improving access to screening tools.
How does wearable ultrasound technology work?
In this Innovate & Elevate conversation, Dr. Canan Dagdeviren explains that wearable ultrasound technology combines engineering, imaging systems, and flexible materials designed to interact with the body in new ways.
Why did Dr. Canan Dagdeviren create the ultrasound bra?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Canan Dagdeviren shares how personal experiences and family health history helped inspire her work in breast health innovation and wearable technology development.
Can breast cancer screening become more personalized?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Canan Dagdeviren discusses how emerging technologies may help create more individualized and continuous approaches to health monitoring and prevention.
How is technology changing women’s healthcare?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Canan Dagdeviren explains that engineering and wearable devices may help create healthcare experiences that are more accessible, personalized, and proactive.
Could wearable devices change preventive medicine?
In this Innovate & Elevate discussion, Dr. Canan Dagdeviren explores how wearable health tools could potentially shift healthcare toward earlier detection and prevention rather than waiting for symptoms.
Why is early detection important in breast health?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Canan Dagdeviren discusses why earlier identification of changes in breast tissue may improve care pathways and healthcare outcomes.
How do scientific breakthroughs move from ideas to real-world healthcare tools?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Canan Dagdeviren discusses how innovation often combines personal motivation, interdisciplinary research, engineering, and persistence over time.