When Eugene Cho sold microscopes for Nikon Instruments for a dozen years, he would always ask potential customers whether they needed an upright or an inverted microscope.
The uprights have the lenses on top and are typically used for looking down at glass slides.
Inverted lenses, which look up from below, are needed to examine cells or tissue in aqueous solutions, often at the bottom of petri dishes.
Many professional science labs need both systems, he said.
Cho wondered whether he could design and build a hybrid product that's two microscopes in one, so customers wouldn't need to purchase separate products, saving them both money and valuable lab space.
"We wanted to bring the microscope into the modern world," he said.
Cho went to work and founded Echo Laboratories in October 2013.
The San Diego-based firm won a Cool Idea! Award this year from Proto Labs in Maple Plain, which offers roughly six to eight awards for innovative projects each year.