stem cells from menstrual blood for women’s health

They continued to work on the concept and later got in touch with a research team from Australia, which had discovered adult stem cells in the endometrium (the lining in the uterus) in 2007.

Lao and Immanuella, who is Indonesian and has a background in life sciences, started MenSC Labs in November 2024. Its name is a scientific acronym for menstrual-derived stem cells.

Immanuella says her interest stemmed from seeing the gaps in healthcare solutions for women.

“In the past five to 10 years, women’s health used to be a niche with relatively few solutions, like simple period-tracking apps. Today, we’re seeing a greater shift towards recognising it as a critical part of healthcare,” she adds.

At MenSC Labs, women recruited through social media and word of mouth donate their menstrual blood using a collection kit.

The kit includes a menstrual cup to collect the samples – usually on the second and third day of their cycle – test tubes to pour the samples into, an ice pack and a vial containing a mixture of anticoagulants and antibiotics that keeps the blood from clotting and prevents bacterial contamination.

The samples are couriered to or dropped off at the laboratory where the stem cells are isolated and cultured, or grown. Each sample typically has about 2ml to 3ml of blood, which yields a good number of cells, Lao says.

The company has about 70 active donors comprising mainly students, teaching staff and researchers in NUS as MenSC Labs is based in a laboratory there. The majority are in their early to mid-20s and they are reimbursed $60 a sample. There is a waiting list of over 300 women.

After quality control tests, the cultured stem cells are sold as off-the-shelf cells to researchers in Australia and Singapore, who use them in lab work. Donors are informed of where their samples are used.

Its research-use products are currently used by over 10 research labs in Singapore, Australia and the US.

Beyond this, MenSC Labs is developing its own clinical programme and hopes to work with clinicians and researchers on regenerative medicine treatments for women’s health.

The Gen Z founders have raised just under $100,000 in funding so far. This includes a $10,000 grant from NUS Enterprise and another $50,000 from Enterprise Singapore’s Startup SG Founder Programme. The rest came from family members and friends.

They are hoping to raise more pre-seed funding, despite difficulties, partly because menstruation remains a taboo topic.

“A big part of our business model is trying to give back to women’s health and to raise awareness of it. People always get a shock when they hear about us. Some may call it a waste product, but that’s just a perception. It’s part of a biological process,” Lao says.

However, others are intrigued by the concept and say they hope his start-up’s work will help unravel the prevailing stigma around menstrual cycles, premenstrual syndrome and sanitary pads, he adds.

Strangers have come up to tell him: “Hey, you’re doing great work.”

The company is launching a menstrual blood analysis service, believed to be the first of its kind in Singapore, although a few companies in the US also offer this.

This test helps clinicians screen menstrual fluid for specific conditions like endometriosis and polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, a condition formerly called polycystic ovary syndrome, among other uses.

But in the longer term, Lao and Immanuella have a far loftier goal – potentially helping to develop treatments for conditions such as Asherman’s Syndrome, which forms scar tissue in the uterus, and premature ovarian insufficiency, where the ovaries stop working before a woman hits age 40.

He says: “We want to be one of the first companies to develop regenerative treatments for women’s health. That means we want to understand how to use the stem cells to cure some women-specific diseases.”