Tech in T.O. Next Generation: Toronto teen makes developments in health technology

This is the eighth instalment of a 10-part series on Toronto’s technology community.

Ben Nashman’s passion for health and tech began when he was child and now that he’s 19 years old, he has turned that passion into a career with hopes of advancing technologies in the health industry.

“I was always interested in tech and science ever since I was a little kid,” Nashman said, adding The Knowledge Society helped bridge those interests.

“I’ve learned about a lot of next generation technologies that I never would have been exposed to like quantum computing and nanotechnology. And with that springboard I started learning about a lot of bio-tech fields on my own and that’s kind of what led me into this.”

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Nashman is currently working on developing a technology that would allow for non-invasive blood testing.

“It’s a technology that’s going to let people monitor different things in their blood and these are called metabolites,” he said.

“This is something that you would get tested for in a regular blood test. But what I’m working on is a way to measure those things completely non-invasively, so that means no needles and no finger pricks.”

3:07 Extended: Interview with Ben Nashman

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Nashman is currently working with Mount Sinai hospital in Toronto.

“I’m working out of that hospital right now. There I’m doing most of my testing and developing a lot of the different technologies for this to work. And I’m working with a lot of really awesome people there who are helping along,” Nashman said, adding his goal is to help people access more information on what’s happening inside of them.

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“I really want to just help people get a lot more data on who they are. Right now if anything happens to us we kind of just go based off feeling and it’s hard to kind of quantify if something’s going wrong.

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“But if we can constantly monitor a lot of relevant molecules in our blood, we could have a really good understanding of what’s going on and that could help with the prognosis of a lot of diseases especially diabetes, cancers, so things that affect millions and millions of people and also just people who want to monitor their general health.”

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