IRIC - Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer

Published on January 9, 2025

Madline Sauvage, a doctoral student in the laboratories of Delphine Bouilly and Sylvie Mader at IRIC, has been awarded a $6,000 bursary from the Recherche ton Impact entrepreneurial training of the Université de Montréal’s Millénium Québécor program.

Transforming a research project into a concrete solution for women’s health

Madline Sauvage’s doctoral project aims to develop a new sensor for personalized breast cancer monitoring. Ultimately, this tool will be able to detect markers of recurrence and of advanced stages of breast cancer, enabling therapies to be adapted according to the aggressiveness of the cancer. This innovative project has also opened the door to entrepreneurship for the doctoral student.

Driven by the ambition to export technology from the laboratory to have a direct impact on people’s lives, Madline Sauvage first completed the Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Development Program. Offered jointly by Montréal In Vivo, the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Pharmacy and Concordia University, this one-year program introduced her to the world of entrepreneurship in life sciences and health technologies. Madline Sauvage then enriched her experience by participating in other specialized programs, consolidating her expertise in entrepreneurship and innovation.

“I realized that many of the skills developed in the laboratory can be applied to entrepreneurship,” she explains. “Whether it’s time management, the ability to run several projects in parallel, or the ability to present results to a variety of audiences; I can transpose much of what I learned in my research training to entrepreneurship.”

Through these multiple programs and trainings, she benefited from the invaluable support of research professors Delphine Bouilly and Sylvie Mader, who helped her develop her project.

A successful trajectory

Madline Sauvage then joined the first cohort of the Recherche ton Impact program, offered to the Université de Montréal community by Millénium Québécor. This program aims to develop entrepreneurial skills and support the realization of business projects stemming from academic research. For seven months, Madline Sauvage lived an immersive experience, benefiting from resources to transform her idea into a company with a strong societal impact. This is how she launched the start-up SensÈn, while pursuing her doctorate.

At the final round of the program, the student had the opportunity to present her innovative idea to a panel of judges, resulting in a $6,000 award for her company. Thanks to the support of Delphine Bouilly and Sylvie Mader, Madline Sauvage plans to devote 100% of her time to SensÈn once she has completed her studies, and to continue co-developing the technology with them. Keen to further develop this promising project, she is also looking for motivated people to join the team and contribute to SensÈn’s growth.