Early detection of cancer saves lives, but the tests that catch it are often invasive, expensive and out of reach for the people who need them most. Kevin Saruni Tipatet is trying to change that. His company, VibraSpex, is developing a laser-based technology, powered by machine learning, that reads the subtle signals of early cancer in biofluids like blood.

This episode follows Kevin from a childhood in Kenya, through a bioengineering education in Germany, to a cancer pathology lab in Scotland where the problem became personal. He is honest about the parts founders rarely discuss: the trade-off between publishing a paper and protecting your IP, the family member who told him he was crazy, and the slow, liturgical grind of grant funding.

It is a grounded conversation about building medtech the hard way, and why the questions you ask ma ...