‘Silicon Orchard’ Blossoms

Technology giants and startups are seeking out the offerings at Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners.

Words by Arlinda Smith Broady

As the term “Silicon Orchard” is becoming more recognized in tech circles, Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners is becoming more recognized as a hot spot for startups and international companies that utilize smart technology. It is unique in that it’s a publicly-funded living lab designed to provide a real-world test environment to advance next-generation intelligent mobility and smart city technology.

The proof is in the caliber of its collaborations with established powerhouses and emerging masterminds that put to work its all-electric autonomous shuttles, e-scooters, world-class solar roadway and mammoth EV charging hub to implement solutions that help build a greener, cleaner future for the planet.

If it ever really was a “hidden gem,” the word is out that Peachtree Corners is a place for innovation. The city recently announced that it was named the winner of the IDC Government Insights’ 6th Annual Smart Cities North America Award in the category of economic development, tourism, arts, libraries and culture open spaces.

To illustrate its diversity and commitment to supporting visionaries, take a look at two companies— one that’s locally born and been around since Curiosity Lab’s inception and another that is new to the “orchard” but has garnered international praise and has its applications in use across the globe.

Left, Erika Tyburski, CEO and co-founder of Sanguina, a company that spun out of Georgia Tech and Emory University in 2014 and Rob Mannino, Chief Technology Officer

Top middle, Rob Mannino

Top right, the Sanguina team

Above, screenshots of the company’s app

Sanguina

For her entire life, Erica Tyburski has had to keep tabs on the level of iron in her blood.

“I’ve had iron deficiency anemia my whole life. I’ve been working with it,” she said. “It’s pretty common for women to experience some sort of nutritional deficiency anemia. And I happen to be one of those people that, throughout the phases of life and different growth spurts, has had symptoms that would be a little bit scary.

“I’ve been to the emergency room a couple of times for this and have passed out during PE in grade school,” she shared.

While working on her degree in biomedical engineering from Georgia Tech, Tyburski started working on what she calls a “passion project” that turned into a technology startup — Sanguina.

“I was inspired to work on a solution that could help me better manage anemia at home,” she said.

Serendipitously, she was partnered with another student who also had an iron deficiency.

Robert Mannino, Sanguina’s chief technology officer, has anemia brought about from a genetic condition called beta thalassemia.

“He’s actually transfusion reliant. He’s anemic for a very different reason that I am, but we came together with the same passion and the same desire to create solutions for better anemia management at home,” said Tyburski.

The pair worked with Professor Wilbur Lamb, who is now chief medical officer in the company.

They started as a student/teacher group at the Georgia Institute of Technology with Mannino working on his PhD and Tyburski working on her bachelor’s degree.

“We worked on our technologies, and we now have a single-use disposable. We also have a smartphone app that can estimate hemoglobin levels,” said Tyburski. “We formulated the company out of the Georgia Tech and Emory University system. And we’ve done a number of things to really graduate to this point.

They moved the project out of the university, licensed their technology and IP from the university and were able to incorporate in 2019.

Home-grown talent

The Sanguina story is similar to many successful businesses in the Peachtree Corners area. Technology Park’s founder, Paul Duke, wanted to reduce the brain drain that was sending the best and brightest local college graduates out of the state.

“At our core, our company really goes to that initial founder’s passion. Our mission is to create and launch accessible tools for health and wellness. And our initial platform is all about anemia,” said Tyburski.

For people with anemia, this kind of breakthrough gives them a freedom they didn’t have before. Anemia affects many different types of people for different reasons. Hemoglobin levels are similar to vital signs like blood pressure or pulse heart rate, Tyburski explained.

“The first platform is our smartphone side,” she said. “We’re positioned just like other wear- ables. You see that there are smartwatches and apps out there that track these things, purely in the wellness arena, to give you another piece of information about your health, and for people struggling with nutritional deficiencies.”

The platform can also be used for someone who may be changing diets or for extreme athletes who need to carefully watch their regimen.

“It’s nice to be able to check and see if your symptoms match what’s going on in your body,” said Tyburski. “One of the things that was always so frustrating to me is to have your symptoms get to the point of needing an ER or an urgent care visit.”

She said she would have loved to be able to better track and monitor her condition prior to getting to the point where intervention from a medical practitioner was needed. Up until now, the only way to test iron levels in the blood has been through a lab.

Technology provides more equity of care

“I think the pandemic has certainly put us in a position to have these things more at home and in telemedicine practice as compared to before, but it really is about creating access for people and taking some of that burden off the healthcare system,” Tyburski said.

“If you think about it, the whole ‘get sick, feel bad and then get care’ model is breaking in the United States, and we really can’t afford using urgent cares and ERs for something completely preventable,” she added.

With low-income and rural patients unable to just drop into a lab or doctor’s office whenever they’re in need, the implications for such a breakthrough are immense.

“We’ve already reached 150,000 users with our app in the U.S. alone. We have over 750,000 uses on the app,” said Tyburski. “We’re starting to make a difference and we’re definitely seeing usage in areas that are underserved.

“Personally, that’s a huge win for me because that is part of the problem,” she continued.

“I think a lot of people with infinite resources and the best healthcare can just drop in whenever they want to get checked out. I think there’s a huge equity situation going on with people in rural and urban communities that I’d like to address. Anemia is very prevalent in those communities.”

Besides the app, Sanguina also has a single-use disposable blood test. It takes a small amount of blood from a finger stick, similar to blood glucose monitoring.

“We have a device cleared already with the FDA for laboratory use. And it’s a simple two-minute test,” said Tyburski. “It has a color result. You compare it to a color card. …This is the one that we’re hoping to get through the FDA for home use this year.”

Opportunity to help millions

The technology could be used for more people that have diseases that they’re managing. Anemia is the most common blood disorder, and according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. It affects more than 3,000,000 Americans.

“When I was growing up, I saw that diabetics were able to test themselves at home and I was like, ‘Gosh, why can’t I have something like that?’” Tyburski said.

A combination of having the right people supporting them and the right resources available is turning this dream into a reality. The team of Tyburski, Mannino and Lamb worked hard to obtain grants and win awards through Georgia Tech and Emory University, as well as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

“We’ve worked with Georgia Research Alliance quite a bit. We’ve kept a lot of things local, and I think having a really early start on that allowed us to create the resources in order to take this thing from a concept in a lab to fullon testing to an FDA clearance,” Tyburski said. To date, Sanguina has accumulated about $3.5 million in non-diluted grant funding. With that type of financing, they didn’t have to give up shares of the business.

“It wasn’t until spring of 2020 that we brought on any private investment and our company had been around a while before that,” she noted.

Finding a home

Another stroke of luck was the connection with Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), Georgia Tech’s technology business incubator. Sanguina was among the first businesses involved with the satellite location that became Curiosity Lab.

“They have a system where it’s a ‘build it, scale it and grow it’ kind of thing, and we started out with the very, very lower tier of membership — just a dedicated desk for me,” Tyburski said. “Then we were able to get several desks, and then I got a private office. Then we had a large office. We’ve been there pretty much since the inception.”

With her husband being from Dunwoody, Tyburski had planned to settle in this part of metro Atlanta.

“He actually picked out Peachtree Corners and, in parallel, this ATDC connection was happening. It’s almost a perfect storm of where we ended up. …I live five minutes away from the office and I’m huge into supporting Peachtree Corners,” she said.

“I’m very proud of our address here at Peachtree Corners. It’s a great place and a great bed of technology and brilliant minds.”

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Sanguina has launched a premium subscription for AnemoCheck, the first health app that estimates hemoglobin levels with a fingernail selfie.

The company is currently offering a free 30-day trial. No code is needed, and it is available on iPhone and Android.