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Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mumma mea acknowledges

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Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast

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Speaker 1: is recorded on.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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Speaker 1: I am Clare Murphy. This is Mumma MIA's daily news podcast,

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Speaker 1: The Quickie. Have you ever thought much about what interesting

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Speaker 1: biological information might be found out about you from your

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Speaker 1: menstrual blood? Okay, so maybe you might not have, but

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Speaker 1: there are researchers out there who've discovered that the blood

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Speaker 1: we try so hard to get rid of each month

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Speaker 1: could be the answer to diagnosing some of the most

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Speaker 1: difficult to pin down conditions that women face. Today. We're

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Speaker 1: getting into our uterus to see exactly how a menstrual

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Speaker 1: cycle could be a game changer for women's health at

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Speaker 1: the future. But before we do that, here's the letters

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Speaker 1: from the Quikie newsroom. Tuesday, September seventeen. The man suspected

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Speaker 1: of planning to shoot Donald Trump as he played golf

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Speaker 1: at his Florida course has been charged with two gun

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Speaker 1: related crimes. Fifty eight year old Ryan Routh was arrested

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Speaker 1: on suspicion of trying to assassinate the former president after

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Speaker 1: he was spotted hiding in shrubbery, pointing a rifle into

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Speaker 1: the golf course where Trump and a friend were playing.

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Speaker 1: Secret Service agents who were clearing each hole before the

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Speaker 1: pair arrived, saw the barrel of the ak style rifle

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Speaker 1: he was holding sticking out of the bushes and open fire.

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Speaker 1: Ralth ran and got into his car, but he was

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Speaker 1: apprehended a short time later and arrested. Phone records suggest

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Speaker 1: he'd been hiding in the bushes for up to twelve hours.

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Speaker 1: Ralph has prior convictions for possession of a weapon of

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Speaker 1: mass death and destruction and another for possession of stolen goods.

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Speaker 1: He's now been charged with possession of a firearm as

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Speaker 1: a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an

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Speaker 1: obliterated serial number, but more charges are likely to come.

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Speaker 1: Former TV presenter Andre o'keef will appear in court again

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Speaker 1: today facing more charges after reportedly surviving a heroin overdose

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Speaker 1: at his home on Saturday. The fifty two year old

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Speaker 1: former seven Network host was seen driving erratically towards Sydney's

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Speaker 1: Rose Bay Police station yesterday. He went inside the building

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Speaker 1: before returning to his car, getting into an argument with

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Speaker 1: photographers before he attempted to drive away, deciding to park

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Speaker 1: again and return to the police station. Officers searched his

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Speaker 1: vehicle and allegedly found prohibited drugs. He was charged with

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Speaker 1: breaching bail and possessing a prohibited drug. Just two days earlier,

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Speaker 1: paramedics had been called to O'Keefe's home in Vaucluse just

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Speaker 1: after three thirty am, where they successfully revived him after

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Speaker 1: a suspected heroin overdose. He was taken to hospital where

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Speaker 1: he was reportedly in a stable condition. The suspected overdose

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Speaker 1: came just days after a court upheld a conviction of

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Speaker 1: domestic violence against him. A landmark report into the impacts

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Speaker 1: of menopause are leading to hope for a much needed

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Speaker 1: conversation around the condition and how to better support Australian

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Speaker 1: women through it. The Senate is handing down its inquiry

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Speaker 1: report into the economic, physical, mental and financial impacts of

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Speaker 1: menopause and perimenopause today, a condition that can affect women

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Speaker 1: from their thirties into their sixties, with many facing a

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Speaker 1: range of symptoms including lethargy, joint pain, insomnia, brain fog,

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Speaker 1: depression and anxiety, with many unaware of what will happen

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Speaker 1: to them until they're in the thick of it. According

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Speaker 1: to ABS data, women are retiring early due to metopause,

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Speaker 1: resulting in them losing more than five hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: five thousand dollars in salary and super with advocates saying

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Speaker 1: workplaces aren't doing enough to help women through this period

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Speaker 1: in their lives and women often too embarrassed to have

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Speaker 1: the conversation. Former BBC News presenter Hugh Edwards has avoided

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Speaker 1: jail for possessing child exploitation material. The sixty three year

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Speaker 1: old pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent images

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Speaker 1: of children. The charges relating to forty one illegal images

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Speaker 1: that he received via WhatsApp, including two videos involving children.

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Speaker 1: Seven of the images were considered to be in the

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Speaker 1: most serious category. After receiving one of the videos, Edwards

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Speaker 1: replied with the question anymore. The judge sentenced Edwards to

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Speaker 1: six months in prison suspended for two years, meaning he'll

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Speaker 1: not see the inside of a jail cell unless he

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Speaker 1: commits another criminal offense in that time. That's the latest

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Speaker 1: news headlines. Next, we're going to do something we've always

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Speaker 1: been told is a little bit gross. We're going to

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Speaker 1: look closely at our menstrual blood and find the treasures

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Speaker 1: that lie within and the answers it may unlock. For centuries,

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Speaker 1: menstrual blood has been viewed as little more than a

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Speaker 1: waste product that women need to secret away, never to

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Speaker 1: admit that it even is expelled from their bodies once

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Speaker 1: a month, for decades of their lives. However, recent scientific

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Speaker 1: advancements have revealed that it could hold the key to

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Speaker 1: revolutionizing women's health diagnostics. Menstrual blood contains a wealth of

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Speaker 1: information about women's overall health and reproductive system. It's a

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Speaker 1: complex mixture of blood, endometrial tissue, and cervical mucus, the

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Speaker 1: unique composition making it an invaluable source of biological information.

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Speaker 1: Unlike venus blood, the blood we get when we have

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Speaker 1: it drawn from our arm, which provides a snapshot of

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Speaker 1: our current health status, menstrual blood offers insights into the

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Speaker 1: uterine environment and can potentially reveal early signs of various

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Speaker 1: health conditions. One of the most promising applications of this

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Speaker 1: is in the diagnosis of endometriosis. This painful condition affects

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Speaker 1: millions of women worldwide and is notoriously difficult to diagnose,

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Speaker 1: often requiring invasive procedures, but researchers have found that menstrual

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Speaker 1: blood from women with endometriosis contains unique cellular characteristics and

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Speaker 1: gene expression patterns that could serve as biomarkers for the disease.

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Speaker 1: Studies have also shown that menstrual blood can be used

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Speaker 1: to detect high risk strains of human papillomavirus HPV, the

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Speaker 1: primary cause of cervical cancer, potentially replacing or even complementing

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Speaker 1: traditional perhaps ameres or cervical screenings. In a groundbreaking development

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Speaker 1: in the US, the FDA just recently approved a menstrual

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Speaker 1: blood test for monitoring hemoglobin A one C levels, a

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Speaker 1: key indicator of long term blood sugar control in diabetes patients.

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Speaker 1: This approval marks the first diagnostic test of any kind

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Speaker 1: based on menstrual blood, potentially revolutionizing diabetes management for menstruating individuals.

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Speaker 1: It may also enable us to monitor hormonal imbalances, thyroid disorders,

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Speaker 1: reproductive health issues, certain types of cancer, and genetic disorders.

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Speaker 1: At the forefront of this field in menstrual blood diagnostics

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Speaker 1: is NextGen Jaine, a women's health company who've created an

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Speaker 1: innovative smart tampon system, Riddy Tariel is the co founder

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Speaker 1: of next Gen Jain Riddy. Can you explain to us

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Speaker 1: exactly how this smart tampon system works.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely. I make a small comment to begin, which is

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Speaker 3: we call it the smart campon system because years ago

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Speaker 3: someone gave us that quick baity title. But we always

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Speaker 3: like to reaffirm that the campon is all overgam and cotton,

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Speaker 3: and so it's quite dumb. It's your body that's smarts.

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Speaker 3: What we've developed is just a translation system that allows

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Speaker 3: us to interpret the signals that your body is given

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Speaker 3: naturally every single month. The way that a user experiences

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Speaker 3: our product is is that they sign up for our

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Speaker 3: clinical studies and they receive a kit, which is a

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Speaker 3: cardboard box that arrives in their house. It contains the

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Speaker 3: tampon that we want them to use. You know, we

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Speaker 3: go through a process of selecting tampons that have minimal additives,

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Speaker 3: minimal sense. It is placed in your body for about

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Speaker 3: four hours and it comes with instructions for use that

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Speaker 3: direct you to things like how to wash your hands beforehand.

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Speaker 3: And then they take the tampon out and they put

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Speaker 3: it into a jar that comes in the kit as well.

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Speaker 3: The jar has a preservation buffer at the bottom, and

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Speaker 3: then you snail mail it. In the United States, you

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Speaker 3: just put it into your mailbox, put up the little

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Speaker 3: red flag that alerts postman to pick it up, and

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Speaker 3: once it arrives at our labs, material is extruded from

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Speaker 3: the tampon, and then we try to understand whether or

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Speaker 3: not the genomics signals we are seeing from the mentional

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Speaker 3: affluence that you have shed looks more like a particular

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Speaker 3: disease or like a normal healthy you know, volunteers as

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Speaker 3: Temple and I see particular disease because there are many

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Speaker 3: conditions that we are looking into, but the one that

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Speaker 3: we have studied the most is endometriosis.

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Speaker 1: I guess what women want to know, is this eventually

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Speaker 1: going to be a non invasive test that can confirm

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Speaker 1: whether someone has endometriosis or not, because women are struggling

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Speaker 1: to get a diagnosis from start to finish, and some

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Speaker 1: people it takes ten more years to finally get a diagnosis,

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Speaker 1: and even then it requires invasive surgery to actually have

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Speaker 1: it confirmed. How close to a reality is an endometriosis

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Speaker 1: test using menstrual blood.

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Speaker 3: I think it's really close. And I say that with

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Speaker 3: the full knowledge that you know, we've been working in

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Speaker 3: this space for ten years, and there are other great researchers,

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Speaker 3: one of them actually based in Australia that has been

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Speaker 3: looking at menstrual blood for a long time. There are

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Speaker 3: a couple of factors that make me optimistic that it

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Speaker 3: is close. One is just that the sheer volume of

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Speaker 3: research that is happening in the space. It's not just us,

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Speaker 3: It's not just that researcher in Australia. There are researchers

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Speaker 3: in the UK and other labs in the United States.

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Speaker 3: I think that there's no turning back that this momentum,

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Speaker 3: we will, you know, start to evaluate mentrual blood as

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Speaker 3: a really interesting sample type for many many diagnostics. And

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Speaker 3: I think everyone has landed on the fact that endometriosis

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Speaker 3: is incredibly difficult to diagnose and it has this awful

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Speaker 3: diagnostic odyssey and a huge length of time before you

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Speaker 3: find out what you have. And so there actually has

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Speaker 3: been this real focus on not just looking at mentrual blood,

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Speaker 3: but looking at mentual blood for specifically diagnosing endometriosis. And

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Speaker 3: our research and the research that we are reading in

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Speaker 3: the literature really point to the fact that we think

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Speaker 3: that we are probably, you know, within years, close to

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Speaker 3: having an endometrios is non invasive diagnostic.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned there that there are labs now looking at

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Speaker 1: menstrual blood in this way, but I was reading that

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Speaker 1: at the beginning of this type of research, some people

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Speaker 1: found it difficult to find who would even test menstrual

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Speaker 1: blood due to the so called eke factor of having

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Speaker 1: menstrual blood through their machinery. Do we still have to

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Speaker 1: get past social conditioning of how we view menstrual blood

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Speaker 1: as being something kind of dirty and shameful and to

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Speaker 1: be hidden before we truly accept just how rich it

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Speaker 1: might be in helping women's health.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, there's a positive answer to that and

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Speaker 3: a disappointing one. I'll start with the disappointing, which is that, yes,

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Speaker 3: I think that there still is hesitancy. And I was

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Speaker 3: actually on a call with NIH today and they mentioned

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Speaker 3: that they had floated the idea of using menstrual blood

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Speaker 3: to a bunch of biotech farmer companies and everyone looked

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Speaker 3: very uncomfortable and said, we'll get back to you. And

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Speaker 3: out of the ten you know organizations represented, only one

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Speaker 3: actually you know, got back expressing interest. And you know,

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Speaker 3: my response to that, and they were asking me what

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Speaker 3: I thought about that, and I said, that's an improvement.

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Speaker 3: You know, ten years ago when we started down this path,

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Speaker 3: you know, people were beyond a comfortable they didn't want

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Speaker 3: to talk about it. The conversations, you know, shut down

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Speaker 3: very quickly. And so even though of course there is

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Speaker 3: still this residual discomfort and unfamiliarity, I think it's improved

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Speaker 3: and it's better now, and I think it will be

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Speaker 3: even better in five years from now.

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Speaker 1: Just how broad could this potentially be for women when

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Speaker 1: looking at diagnosing various conditions. I know you've mentioned indometriosis.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we're looking at a range of STIs cancers

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Speaker 1: like cervical cancer. Just how broad could this potentially be

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Speaker 1: with the information that we've already unlocked.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the potential is huge. I mean to

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Speaker 3: your point that there's two ways that we look at it.

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Speaker 3: One is things that you can find that are very binary,

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Speaker 3: so viruses, bacteria, so Gunner I committee, you know HPV,

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Speaker 3: which leads to cervical cancer. You know, these things are

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Speaker 3: absolutely being explored. Some of them are on market, just

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Speaker 3: going locally through self administered swads. And the next step

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Speaker 3: will obviously be you know, self administered tampons which people

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Speaker 3: are self administer and broadly looking at mental blood to

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Speaker 3: figure that out. A secondary that, as you know, we're

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Speaker 3: working on and others are working on, or just looking

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Speaker 3: at endometrial genomic signals and endomutrial lightning that could be

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Speaker 3: indicative of not just endometriosis, but fibroids, adnomiosis, pcos so

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Speaker 3: specifically reproductive conditions, with the hypothesis being that because there

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Speaker 3: is hormonal dysregulation, that there is likely to be a

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Speaker 3: change in the uterine lightning that is detectable. The third

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Speaker 3: that I would offer up that I know that people

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Speaker 3: have explored in the past, and I actually think that

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Speaker 3: will be a part of this process is trying to

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Speaker 3: look at and isolate rare cells from things like ovarian

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Speaker 3: cancer or endometrial cancer that can be found earlier and

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Speaker 3: earlier by looking at mentrol blood, and I think that

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Speaker 3: that's going to be really exciting.

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Speaker 1: Ready, just finally, we're starting to see a shift in

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Speaker 1: how we look at diagnosing conditions that predominantly impact women,

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Speaker 1: because we know, for a very long time the medical

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Speaker 1: industry has been focusing on men in particular, they find

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Speaker 1: it easier to conduct research on men that don't fluctuate

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Speaker 1: in the ways that we do hormonally, and we've seen

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Speaker 1: a real disconnect between how women are treated in a

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Speaker 1: medical system because of that. Are we starting to see

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Speaker 1: a real shift in the focus on actually getting good

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Speaker 1: research and good diagnostics to help women.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I mean I'm going to speak from a very

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Speaker 3: US centric perspective, but we find so many more conversations

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Speaker 3: happening at every level, you know, industry, entrepreneurship, NIH, public funding.

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Speaker 3: As you guys might know, there was a one hundred

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Speaker 3: million dollar carve out with an arper H, which is

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Speaker 3: one of the new funding agencies in the US, and

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Speaker 3: so you know, we're really excited that now dollars are

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Speaker 3: beginning to match coverage. So for a long time, we

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Speaker 3: felt like there are a lot of people talking about

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Speaker 3: the disparities and funding for women's health, but it wasn't

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Speaker 3: really moving the needle in terms of actual checks being written.

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Speaker 3: And so I think that the public sector is catching

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Speaker 3: up first and you're beginning to see that shift, and

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Speaker 3: we're really excited and hope that there is a relied

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Speaker 3: private sector boost soon.

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Speaker 1: So if this is the kind of research happening in

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Speaker 1: the US. How close are we to an endotest here

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Speaker 1: in Australia using menstrual blood. Caroline Garget is an adjunct

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Speaker 1: professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Monash

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Speaker 1: University and a research group head of endometrial stem cell biology.

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Speaker 1: Caroline really just told us that we're probably within a

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Speaker 1: few years of having a test for endometriosis from menstrual blood.

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Speaker 1: Do you think she's right?

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Speaker 2: I think we've probably got a little bit more to go,

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Speaker 2: and we're looking at different ways of how we can

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Speaker 2: use menstrual fluid for diagnostics, and we're really wanting to

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Speaker 2: actually first establish a biobank, the Amber Biobank, so we've

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Speaker 2: got lots of samples to manage this, and we will

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Speaker 2: be looking at perhaps five different components of the menstrual fluid,

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Speaker 2: and also we're looking at a novel way of collecting

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Speaker 2: the menstrual fluid as well and developing a device. Can't

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Speaker 2: say much more about it other than that it's.

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Speaker 1: A bit secret squirrel at this point, is it okay?

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Speaker 2: Well, it is because it's still really on the drawing

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Speaker 2: board and we need funding to progress. What we've got

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Speaker 2: in mind.

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Speaker 1: I'm interested to know, Caroline, how you tell that someone

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Speaker 1: has endometriosis. If that's essentially like urine lining growing on

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Speaker 1: the outside of the uterus. Is it all the same

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Speaker 1: thing or can you tell the difference?

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Speaker 2: No, there will probably be differences. And the thing is

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Speaker 2: menstrual fluid represents just one stage of the cycle. It's

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Speaker 2: got e emetrial tissue in it, and it's viable that

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Speaker 2: we can grow three dimensional organoids from menstrual fluid. But

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Speaker 2: at that stage, after implantation of an embryo would have happened,

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Speaker 2: but doesn't and so then it has to shed off.

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Speaker 2: So it's just after that stage of the cycle. But

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Speaker 2: what we think, and I think there's a bit of

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Speaker 2: evidence that there are differences in enimetrial tissue anyway, and

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Speaker 2: so that's what we're kind of wanting to look at

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Speaker 2: to see whether the differences between normal endometrium and endometriosis

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Speaker 2: endometrium that gives it the opportunity for that tissue which

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Speaker 2: is shed in the menstrual fluid and can get back

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Speaker 2: into the pelvic cavity by reverse flow, that gives it

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Speaker 2: the advantage and enables it to actually implant in women

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Speaker 2: who get endometriosis, but those who don't it doesn't happen.

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Speaker 2: So that's what we're looking for, is those differences. And

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Speaker 2: I guess there's things like, for example, there are the

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Speaker 2: endometriosis risk genes, so that's in the DNA and they're inherited,

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Speaker 2: and there's about forty two different regions of the DNA.

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Speaker 2: But we're looking at other things, you know, like proteins

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Speaker 2: and exosomes, also the cellular content and the stem cell

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Speaker 2: content because we have methods of quantifying them. So we've

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Speaker 2: got quite a lot of things that we're looking at

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Speaker 2: a broad range, and we're not ready yet to say

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Speaker 2: which one is the best. We actually need to do

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Speaker 2: a large sample.

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Speaker 1: Caroline, do you think this is the way of the

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Speaker 1: future as far as diagnosing things like endometriosis? Do you

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Speaker 1: think this is where we really should be focusing on

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Speaker 1: using menstrual fluid to do this.

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Speaker 2: I do think it's a very good way because one

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Speaker 2: thing is it's a non invasive source of endometrial tissue,

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Speaker 2: so you don't actually have to have a laparoscopic operation

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Speaker 2: to get endometrial tissue. It's actually in your menstrual fluid

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Speaker 2: and The thing is we can use that too to

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Speaker 2: even test drugs or even the hormones that the women

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Speaker 2: take and look at their action within those organoids. So

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Speaker 2: it's really like a personalized medicine approach, growing the cells

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Speaker 2: up from the individual and then testing their responses. The

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Speaker 2: other thing that we've done is that we've looked at

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Speaker 2: how constant is menstrual fluid from an individual woman from

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Speaker 2: one cycle to the next, and in that study we

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Speaker 2: found that it is very constant. We did find for

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Speaker 2: any of the parameter we looked at, there'd be one

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Speaker 2: woman or maybe two their results were way outside what

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Speaker 2: looked like the normal range for just that small cohort

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Speaker 2: that we had, but it was always constant. So it

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Speaker 2: seems to us that if there are differences, which may

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Speaker 2: be for endometriosis, but it could be for other disorders

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Speaker 2: as well, adenomiosis or pea costs or any endometrial sort

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Speaker 2: of problem, that it's probably quite constant across individual cycles,

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Speaker 2: which I think is an important consideration if we wanted

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Speaker 2: to use menstrual fluid for diagnostics or for even testing

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Speaker 2: drugs as well.

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Speaker 1: Caroline, do you need volunteers for this? Are we at

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Speaker 1: this stage? Yet were you're trying to create that bank

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Speaker 1: of examples to look at.

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Speaker 2: We would love volunteers. We just need to get a

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Speaker 2: little bit more funding so that we can manage it.

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Speaker 2: But yes, when we land a bit of funding, you know,

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Speaker 2: we'll distribute information via social media and other ho it's

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Speaker 2: an institute of medical research where our work that Yes,

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Speaker 2: we're ready, please donate and we'll have a whole system

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Speaker 2: in place.

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Speaker 1: The emerging field of menstrul blood diagnostics represents a paradigm

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Speaker 1: shift in women's health. By tapping into this previously overlooked resource,

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Speaker 1: researchers and companies are opening up new possibilities for early

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Speaker 1: disease detection, personalized medicine, and improved health care access for women.

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Speaker 1: And as research in this area continues to advance, we

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Speaker 1: may soon see a future where our monthly cycle actually

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Speaker 1: becomes a powerful tool for maintaining and improving women's health.

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Speaker 1: Where we once discarded menstrual blood, it now becomes a

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Speaker 1: treasure trove of health information, empowering women to take control

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Speaker 1: of their health in ways never possible before. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: spending some time feeding your mind with us today. The

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Speaker 1: quickie is produced by me Claire Murphy and our senior

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Speaker 1: producer Taylor Staro, with audio production by Tom Lin.