The CYCU startup team TES Optical has won the 2025 Outstanding Startup Award and received NT$1 million in funding through the National Applied Research Laboratories’ FITI From IP to IPO Program. Their breakthrough innovation, the Visualized Nano-Microscopy Optical System, demonstrates the team’s ambition to “exceed the optical limits of Zeiss” and expand the world’s ability to visualize nanoscale interactions.
Since 2013, the FITI Program—guided by NSTC and organized by NARLabs—has trained over 1,000 academic startup teams and fostered 581 new ventures. After six months of structured training and a rigorous two-stage selection process, four teams were awarded top honors this year.
Led by Dr. Cheng-An Lin, Director of CYCU’s Center for Cancer Biomedical Engineering, the TES Optical team consists entirely of CYCU Biomedical Engineering faculty, students, and alumni. Their patented nano-microscopy system offers real-time imaging, simultaneous particle sizing and concentration analysis, and visualization of nano–cell interactions. The system can be easily attached to existing microscopes, providing an intuitive and instant upgrade and overcoming the limitations of traditional data-only nano-analysis tools.
Dr. Lin emphasizes that this technology surpasses century-old Nobel Prize-winning optical limits and represents a world-first innovation. FITI’s training further strengthened the team’s business development capabilities and validated strong market demand. The NT$1 million grant will support product development and commercialization.
The team’s technology has already won multiple international awards, including the Platinum Award at the 2023 Taiwan Innotech Expo and a Gold Medal at the 2025 iENA Nuremberg International Invention Fair. As a CYCU alumnus, Dr. Lin aims to lead younger peers in transforming campus research into impactful commercial solutions while giving back to CYCU.
Building on its growing momentum, TES Optical will continue advancing nano-imaging integrated with AI analysis and developing a next-generation nano-particle analyzer. Their goal is to make nano-detection accessible beyond specialized laboratories and into clinical and industrial settings—allowing more people to “see the unseen” and opening new possibilities for scientific and technological breakthroughs.
