Duke Engineering develops low-cost portable imaging devices, such as the Pocket Colposcope, to expand access to cervical and breast cancer screening and treatment in low-resource settings. The technology integrates artificial intelligence for early detection, enabling deployment across clinics with limited equipment. These systems have already reached more than 8,000 women across 11 countries.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
Cervical cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death for women in over two dozen countries, largely because conventional diagnostic tools require bulky, expensive equipment and trained specialists unavailable in low-resource and rural clinics. Breast cancer treatment also faces challenges, including overtreatment of early-stage tumors and difficulty monitoring therapy response in settings without advanced pathology services.
Solution
Duke Engineering provides portable, low-cost diagnostic and treatment-monitoring technologies designed for clinics with limited infrastructure. The flagship Pocket Colposcope is a handheld imaging device that enables cervical cancer screening in midwife-run community clinics, allowing more than 95 percent of women to receive proper care without referral to specialty centers. The platform pairs these devices with artificial intelligence and digital health tools that standardize image quality and support scalable deployment. In breast cancer, Duke Engineering is developing localized immune-modulating therapies and real-time metabolic imaging to monitor treatment response pieces and predict recurrence risk, with ongoing work aimed at reducing unnecessary interventions and identifying which early-stage patients actually require aggressive therapy.
Target Audience
Primary users are clinicians and community health workers in low-resource and rural settings, including midwife-run clinics, as well as surgeons and oncologists at cancer treatment centers seeking accessible screening and treatment-monitoring tools.
Features
- Portable, handheld Pocket Colposcope designed for cervical cancer screening in low-resource and rural settings
- Artificial intelligence integration for standardized image quality control and support for self-screening workflows
- Real-time metabolic imaging tools that measure tumor response to therapy by analyzing nutrient utilization in cancer cells
- Optical and computational diagnostics that assess fresh tissue and biopsy samples to predict long-term outcomes and risk levels
- Localized immune-modulating therapies that activate the body's immune system against breast tumors to reduce recurrence
- Digital health platforms enabling scalable deployment and standardized care across diverse clinical environments