Erica Barnell was in medical school when she first got the idea that would eventually lead her down the path of entrepreneurship. During a clinical rotation through WashU Medical School, Barnell met a patient who presented at the hospital with late-stage colorectal cancer, yet had never been able to complete current recommended screening, such as colonoscopy. “I just remember thinking, we live in an era where we can sequence the human genome in 24 hours, and we can provide precision medicine to patients based on their genetic sequencing — why can’t we provide molecular diagnostics for people like this woman, who couldn’t afford to take the time off work and who was scared to get a colonoscopy…
