By Khalida Sarwari
Surbhi Sarna can still remember that day. She was in her room, writing a paper on Ralph Waldo Emerson, when she felt an uncontrollable pain.
She had just enough time to walk to where her mother was sitting in another room before she passed out. The next moments were a blur: her mother carrying her to the car and taking her to the ER, and doctors examining her. But by the end of her visit, doctors still did not know what was wrong with her.
Sarna was 13, and even weeks later she was still in the dark about what had happened to her. But the symptoms and pain persisted.
“I felt as if someone had stabbed me with a knife and twisted the handle,” Sarna, now 28, recalled.
Doctors initially thought it was appendicitis. There was also the fear that it could be ovarian cancer, but the only way physicians could know for sure was by doing an invasive surgery, a procedure that could spread cancerous cells if cancer was indeed present.
It wasn’t until six months later that Sarna and her family received a diagnosis: complex ovarian cysts. However, doctors could not tell if the cysts were malignant or benign. The experience, Sarna said, was eye-opening.
“It raised questions of why isn’t there more awareness of this issue? And, why did it take such a long time to figure out what was going on?”
Sarna spent the next three years routinely battling the pain until doctors put her on birth control medication that helped to regulate the cysts. It was at that point she knew she wanted to one day start a company dedicated to women’s health.
Two years ago, Sarna founded nVision Medical, a startup that aims to create a technology to detect ovarian cancer quickly and early. The startup has thus far raised $4.5 million from three leading medical device investors and is among 10 companies selected to receive technical support and assistance by the Fogarty Institute in Mountain View. Established in 2007 by Dr. Thomas Fogarty, the institute helps innovators overcome funding, regulation and time-to-market challenges.
“Fifteen years later, I’m definitely living a dream of mine that I’ve had for a long time,” she said.
Sarna has created a prototype for two different catheter-based devices. The first is for gynecologists to use in the diagnosis of fallopian tube blockage, which is the leading cause of female infertility, Sarna said. The second is a Pap smear that will allow a gynecologist to find early stage ovarian cancer in-office. Ovarian cancer remains one of the most lethal cancers because it is usually found late stage, according to Sarna.
The device provides “a way to collect cells and figure out if they’re cancerous without having to do surgery, and that doesn’t exists right now for ovarian cancer,” she said.
The goal is to get both devices approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by mid-2015.
Recently, Forbes magazine named Sarna one of its “30 Under 30” in the fields of science and health care. Every year, the magazine compiles a list of the brightest people in 15 different fields under the age of 30.
“It’s definitely been an exciting start to 2014, and it’s a great honor,” Sarna said. “At the same time, we do have a lot of work to do being in the early stage of a startup.”
Now a San Francisco resident, Sarna was born in San Jose and moved to Saratoga when she was 12. She is a graduate of the Harker School.
