The thing about cancer is that you need to catch it early. Once it spreads, it becomes harder and harder to treat. But part of the problem is making yourself go to the doctor in the first place; a lot of people would rather avoid finding out really depressing news, in some cases via invasive poking.

But what if you could detect cancerous cells and various other diseases in 60 minutes using your phone? A new start-up named Miroculus has made a device, “Miriam,” that hopes to allow you to do just that. In hugely simplified terms, cancer happens when a cell mutates and begins to multiply. MicroRNAs are the things that regulate how many cells your body creates, so by identifying MicroRNA patterns in your blood, Miriam can work out if anything abnormal is happening, and therefore whether you’re likely to have a disease.

You should, obviously, definitely, 100 percent still suck it up and go to the doctor if you think anything is wrong, but it can’t hurt to have something easily accessible that can give you a head start if you have a feeling that something’s up. I got in touch with Jorge Soto—Chief Technology Officer of Miroculus—to talk about Miriam and the new era of cancer diagnosis that the machine is looking to usher in.