After losing several family members and a close friend to cancer, Matthew Rhyner felt inspired to create better diagnostic tools for the disease.

Rhyner, who earned his PhD in biomedical engineering through a joint Georgia Tech/Emory program, has developed nanotechnology that may eventually enable doctors to diagnose cancer at much earlier stages when it’s easier and less expensive to treat. This patent-pending nanotechnology can detect cancer and other diseases through the injection of illness-hunting imaging probes into the body.

"In order for this research to impact people, it needs to be moved out of the lab into the marketplace," says Rhyner, who became involved with TI:GER®to help make his dream a reality.

He received help bringing his patent-pending nanotechnology closer to market from his TI:GER®teammates: Georgia Tech MBA student David Madden and Emory law students Meadow Clendenin and Tom Rafferty.

Calling their team TIGON, they convinced successful entrepreneurs and venture capitalists judging Georgia Tech’s 2007 Business Plan Competition of the great commercial potential of Rhyner’s patent-pending nanotechnology by placing first in the contest. They also finished in the top three of Nanochallenge 2006, an international business plan competition held in Venice, Italy.

While current technology can only detect tumors with at least 1 billion cells, TIGON’s nano probes can potentially find tumors with as few as 10,000 cells. TIGON products could also be used to determine if localized cancer was spread through metastatic lesions after the primary tumor was removed – a method of detection that is currently unavailable.

Rhyner believes his participation in TI:GER®has been instrumental in preparing his nanotechnology for market. “My team was tremendous, helping me communicate better (not just as a scientist) and develop strategies for marketing and mitigating intellectual property risks.”