By: Charity Meier | Novi Note | Published May 20, 2026
NOVI — A sixth grade student at Novi Meadows has created an app to detect and prevent gum disease.
After learning that her grandfather had suffered a stroke last year, Jenisha Rathod, now 12, began researching what could have caused it. Through her research, Rathod, an aspiring dentist, learned that there is a direct link between gum disease and strokes.
“I found out that one factor could be gum disease and so started to do this project, because I really wanted to help other families too,” Rathod said.
Rathod’s mom, Krutika, said she didn’t know about any of this until her daughter decided to research the possible cause of her father-in-law’s stroke, which led to paralysis.
“Gum disease is linked to heart disease, diabetes, cancer and stroke, and like many people don’t even know about it, so I decided to make an app so you can prevent gum disease,” Jenisha Rathod said.
She created the Disease Defenders app as a project for the after-school Invention Convention club she participates in. Invention Convention is a worldwide organization that works to educate K-12 students in problem identification, problem-solving, entrepreneurship and creativity skills. As part of the program, students think of a problem and create something to solve it.
Rathod’s app is designed to be user friendly. It works by taking a picture of someone’s mouth and then analyzing the gums to see if one has gum disease or is at risk of developing it.
In order to get a better understanding of gum disease and its link to major health issues, Rathod spoke with several medical professionals. She said she started by talking with her dentist, Dr. David Woody, DDS, and then googled and queried several other doctors who work in dentistry, neurology and cardiology, and nutritionists via email to further her understanding of the subject. She said she spoke to the first person in each of the categories who responded to her request.
She said that she wanted to speak with a cardiologist and a neurologist to understand more about how gum disease is related to the heart and the brain. She said the nutritionist helped her to understand how diet affects the gums.
“One thing I’ve learned from this is from all of the experts I’ve learned so much. It’s, like, really interesting,” Rathod said. “They told me that, like with gum inflammation, when your gums are, like, infected, the infection can enter your bloodstream and enter your brain and your heart too.”
Krutika Rathod said that through her daughter’s research, they learned that this is why people are often asked to have a dental screening prior to major surgeries.
In order to code the app, Jenisha Rathod enlisted the help of her older brother, Hemaksh, who competes with the high school robotics team, Frog Force. He said that his sister just told him what she wanted it to do, and he helped her develop the app, and taught her how to create the app so she could create her own later.
“It’s really cool. It’s really applicable to real life,” Hemaksh said.
Hemaksh is very advanced mathematically and said that it was a challenge for him to help his little sister.
“I wanted to help her, but I didn’t want to make it so complex that she couldn’t understand it,” he said. “I had to work with her to keep the app as simple as possible so that she could be able to create and improve it overall when she learned how to program.”
“It’s a very good combination having them both with different mindsets,” Harinkumar Rathod said of his children.
Rathod’s efforts to help people with gum disease have really paid off for her. She is the Michigan grand prize winner of Invention Convention and will be competing for the national title at The Henry Ford June 3-5.
“This year’s Nationals will be the largest in the event’s history, with 509 inventors from across the country competing for larger cash prizes and prestigious grade-level, category, patent, and specialty awards presented by national partners and industry leaders,” Katie Dallos, program specialist, Invention Convention Michigan, said in an email to parents and educators.
Rathod said she has been working to improve her app, which she plans to patent and put into action. She is hoping to have the app available for the public sometime in June.