C-Blu is a medical device company working to increase the accuracy of cervical cancer screening.
The team includes five University of Utah students: Ethan Betts, Libby Brooks, Derek Lewis, Ryleigh Smith, and Nathan Wallace. The students are studying biomedical engineering and business.
Cervical cancer is one of the most treatable forms of cancer. If diagnosed early, survival rates can be as high as 91%. However, the current survival rate is 50%, with 94% of deaths occurring in low-resource areas where effective screening is unavailable.
“We built a cervical cancer screening device that can be taken into low-resource areas,” Brooks said. “Improving screening rates can help eliminate cervical cancer — something the World Health Organization is trying to do in the next six years.”
“In low-resource areas right now, they use visual inspection for screening,” Wallace said. “Our goal is to make that significantly more effective for more accurate screening.”
Cancerous tissue has a higher concentration of DNA than healthy tissue. By using a certain wavelength of blue light, the DNA in cells fluoresces, and cancer cells appear brighter than healthy cells. By shining blue light on the cervix, doctors can more easily identify cancer cells — hence the name C-Blu. This technique makes cancer diagnosis through visual inspection more accurate and could improve colposcopy-directed biopsies.
The team has developed a fully functioning prototype. They hope to sell to organizations equipping humanitarian groups and low-resource areas with medical supplies. “It can go out to field clinics where they can treat women and save lives,” Betts said. “It’s a simple treatment, but they need to know if they have cancer first.”
More articles like this in ‘Student Innovation @ the U!’
Find this article and a lot more in the 2025 “Student Innovation @ the U” report. The publication is presented by the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute to celebrate student innovators, change-makers, and entrepreneurs.
