The Problem
Menopause is a natural stage of life, but its effects can be disruptive and deeply personal. Hot flashes and night sweats can cause significant discomfort and disrupt sleep. Difficulty concentrating can interfere with work, and vaginal dryness can make sex painful. Some women also experience anxiety and mood changes. The hormonal changes of menopause can also accelerate bone density loss and alter metabolism, increasing the risk of osteoporosis, weight gain, and changes in blood sugar and cholesterol. Experiences vary widely: some have few symptoms, while others experience symptoms that affect their daily lives for years.
Despite these impacts, menopause remains poorly understood and is too often dismissed. Limited awareness and stigma can leave women reluctant to discuss their symptoms or unsure where to turn for support. During perimenopause, the transition leading up to the final menstrual period, hormone levels can fluctuate unpredictably. Occasional blood tests provide only snapshots, making it difficult to understand how changing hormone patterns may relate to an individual’s symptoms over time.
In clinical practice, menopause care remains largely symptom-based, and many women are left without clear tools to understand whether the changes they are experiencing may be hormonal related
Our Solution
A collaborative research team is developing MenoSense, an at-home system that combines a minimally invasive hydrogel microneedle patch, a compact reader to measure three key hormones, and a smartphone app that pairs hormone trends with self-reported symptoms. The goal is to provide women a clearer picture of how their hormone patterns may relate to symptoms they experience during the menopause transition.
Tracking these changes over time could help women identify patterns and bring more information to conversations with their clinicians. For researchers, these paired measurements could help reveal why symptoms differ among women and how hormonal changes relate to those experiences
With further development and clinical validation, the team hopes this approach could help women and their clinicians make more informed decisions about treatment and monitor changes in symptoms and hormone patterns over time. The longer-term aim is to support a more personalized approach to menopause care, including treatment selection and monitoring
Product Journey
As a 2026–2027 Validation Project, MenoSense brings together an interdisciplinary research team that spans the Wyss Institute, MIT, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Natalie Artzi’s lab contributes expertise in materials for minimally invasive sampling, while Jim Collins’ lab brings experience in sensitive molecular detection and compact diagnostic systems. Clinical lead Kathryn Rexrode helps guide development around the real-world needs of women navigating the menopause transition.
The project is supported by Harvard University’s Office of the Vice Provost for Research. The team seeks additional funding to advance the technology toward clinical evaluation and its longer-term goal of enabling more personalized menopause care
