This is Ted Health, a podcast from Ted, and I'm your host, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter.

I don't know about you, but there are certain health checkups that I'll happily procrastinate on.

Dental cleaning? Fine. I'll push it out a few months. Annual blood work? Yeah, I'll get around to it eventually.

But there's one screening that so many people delay or even

avoid altogether, the mammogram. We know it saves lives, but the thought of the discomfort,

the awkwardness, or even the fear of what the results might show can be enough to keep us from

booking that appointment. I get it, that desire to avoid those weird experiences or those negative feelings.

But here's the thing.

Avoiding a test doesn't make the risk disappear.

It just means fewer chances to catch something early when treatment is typically most effective.

So the question becomes, how do we make the healthy choice, the easier choice?

What if breast cancer screening didn't have to involve cold machines that squish, hospital

gowns that scratch us, or the kind of experience that makes you think twice before going

back?

Because if we can make prevention less painful, less embarrassing, and more accessible, more

people will actually do it.

Chemist and professor, Simone Franchisa, is tackling

that exact problem by looking for a way to screen for breast cancer using only a fingerprint.

You already leave fingerprints all over the place dozens of times a day. On a phone screen,

a glass of water, even a doorknob. What difference would it be to leave some at a doctor's

office where they could screen for tiny molecular clues about what's happening in your body?

Simone's TEDx-Manchester talk is about reimagining what's possible when we shift how we think

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