Research-based health platform company, Sanguina, today announces the launch of its mobile app, AnemoCheck Mobile, now available at the Google Play Store and coming soon to the iOS App Store. This smartphone app measures hemoglobin levels, a key indicator of anemia by analyzing the color of a person’s fingernails, specifically their fingernail beds, in a photograph.
Anemia affects more than two billion people worldwide, particularly women, children, high-performance athletes, and the elderly. Anemia is a deficiency in iron levels in the blood that if left untreated can result in fatigue, weakness, complications in pregnancy, and in extreme cases, cardiac arrest. Because anemia affects so many people for different reasons, hemoglobin level has the potential to become the world’s next vital sign, akin to heart rate and blood pressure, to indicate wellness or illness, if made accessible.
Historically, tests for anemia require the use of specialized equipment and blood draws in laboratories. Sanguina’s AnemoCheck Mobile is the first smartphone application to measure hemoglobin levels with a “fingernail selfie,” anytime, anywhere, without the need to draw blood. The simple technology engages, educates and empowers people, and people managing anemia whenever, wherever, to enable better health and wellness management for better quality of life.
AnemoCheck Mobile instructs the user to take an image of their unobstructed fingernail beds. Its algorithm is able to measure hemoglobin level based on the coloration of the nail bed. Once the user captures the image, it is assessed for quality, and if it passes, a hemoglobin level result appears on screen.
AnemoCheck Mobile was created by Dr. Wilbur Lam, MD, Ph.D.; Dr. Rob Mannino, Ph.D.; and Erika Tyburski, as a startup out of Dr. Lam’s research lab at The Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. Dr. Lam and Dr. Mannino first introduced the concept and research results in Nature Communications, published on Dec. 4, 2018. Both Tyburski and Dr. Mannino are affected by anemia and were motivated to provide more access to simple tools to make life easier.
“This non-invasive anemia detection tool is the only type of app-based system that has the potential to replace a common blood test,” said Wilbur Lam, MD, Ph.D., a clinical hematologist-bioengineer at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, an associate professor of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine, and a faculty member in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and Georgia Tech.
Sanguina exists to empower people to learn more about and take action on their health, through accessible science and technology. The company focuses on the development and distribution of simple-to-use and standalone wellness tools and medical diagnostics. They aim to transform healthcare and wellness management by bringing an ever-expanding suite of tools to the broadest spectrum of users around the world.
“Smart-device technologies can enhance awareness of our individual health status,” said Tiffani Bailey Lash, Ph.D., director of the program in point of care technologies at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), part of the National Institutes of Health. “Putting effective and easy-to-use tools in the hands of people with chronic anemias has the potential to improve regular monitoring of hemoglobin levels that, in turn, leads to daily wellbeing and maintenance of better health in the long term.”
The company’s first products are for on-demand hemoglobin determination for healthy lifestyle management and anemia screening. To date, Sanguina has raised over $4.2 million in funding from The Seed Lab, XRC Labs, as well as grants from The National Science Foundation and The National Institutes of Health.
“Our team is an exceptional and diverse group of researchers, scientists and entrepreneurs who are uniquely positioned to invent and develop groundbreaking technology and methodologies to improve health management, and enable physicians and hospitals to manage patients better. Creating simple and accessible tools empowers people to take a more active role in their health. It’s your health, own it!” said Sanguina CEO and Founder, Erika Tyburski. “We are so thrilled to have completed research and development and published results so that today, we can publicly launch the AnemoCheck Mobile app. This app will encourage engagement in one’s health to transform the lives of people at high risk for anemia, and help answer questions for the billions of people dealing with its relatively common symptoms.”
Amidst today’s pandemic, health management has been put on hold for many due to social distancing measures, strained medical resources, and hospitals at capacity. Many also face unprecedented stress levels, and it’s created the perfect storm for those coping with fatigue and weakness. AnemoCheck Mobile is just Sanguina’s first step towards empowering people to manage their health and wellness to ultimately lead better lives.
Sanguina
Sanguina is a research-based health platform with products that focus on indications that have the potential to become vital signs, trackable parameters or home tests to improve health and wellness management. Each product combines science and technology to create simple tools for use in the home. Sanguina aims to lead the transformation of healthcare and wellness management by bringing an ever expanding suite of tools to the public including the world’s first ever smartphone app that can measure a blood-based biomarker. Its first product, AnemoCheck Mobile, measures and tracks hemoglobin levels, the world’s next vital sign, akin to blood pressure and heart rate. Sanguina is also working on the rollout of their second product, AnemoCheck Home, a two-minute, disposable self test that requires less than a drop of blood from a finger prick sample. Sanguina’s multidisciplinary team consists of researchers, scientists, and engineers, and several founders have personal connections to anemia and share the desire to increase access to health information and management for all. For more information, please visit www.Sanguina.com.
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