When Medic.Life first approached me, their request was deceptively simple: “We want to make a smart toilet—one that will track people’s health every time they used the restroom.”
With my background in pharmacy and biotech, the request was right up my alley, but that also meant that I knew just how big of a challenge this project would be. Even so, though, I was intrigued. Could it be done? I had a feeling that the answer was “yes.”
Over the next year, I threw myself into developing a meaningful way to measure personal health data using bodily excretions. After exploring and testing a variety of options, I finally settled on infrared spectroscopy as our most viable option. Working with Medic.Life’s team of engineers, we built a functional prototype and I set about creating a multivariate algorithm that could be used to extrapolate health information from urine.
Eventually, I created an algorithm that assessed millions of points of data. After testing countless examples (don’t ask for details, you don’t want to know), I finally created a working model. The toilet was officially “smart”.
I helped Medic.Life identify and work with partners, brand their product, take it to shows and enter initial funding discussions. I wrote their patents for them and helped them get the product into a position where they were able to hire a team of healthcare professionals and researchers to take the product to the next level and prepare it for FDA approval.
At this point, the project is still in research and development mode, but I look forward to seeing it reach completion. It was certainly one of the most interesting—and odd—projects that I’ve ever worked on.
That being said, working on massive R&D projects like this is something that I relish. It’s an opportunity to find unusual ways to solve complex problems and create products that can change the world.