The Development of High-Speed DNA Sequencing: Jurassic Park, Neanderthal, Moore and You
Yale Computer Engineering Seminar Series
Prof. Jonathan Rothberg
"The Development of High-Speed DNA Sequencing: Jurassic Park, Neanderthal, Moore and You"
Abstract: Since Watson and Crick's 1953 landmark discovery that biological information was encoded in DNA as a sequence of chemical building-block "letters", developing technology for reading—or "sequencing"—this chemical code has been fundamental to advances in biology and medicine. Techniques that first enabled this were invented by Sanger in 1978, and were taken to massively parallel form by 454 Life Sciences in 2003. This ushered in the current or "next-gen" era of genome sequencing technologies for research, medicine, and the emerging field of Genomic Personalized Medicine, in which healthcare is more fully informed by the individuals' personal genetic makeup. Dr. Rothberg's team at 454 Life Sciences pioneered and was first to commercialize DNA sample preparation by limiting dilution, and massively parallel sequencing on a solid substrate. These central ideas -- inspired by the "monolithic idea" of Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby – made large-scale sequencing affordable, and became the foundation of all next-gen sequencing technologies. 454 made it possible to sequence personal genomes – Dr. James D. Watson - as well as enabled a host of other firsts. If Sanger was the mainframe of sequencing, 454 was the minicomputer – smaller and faster and establishing the key guiding technical principals. To further scale, reduce cost and democratize the technology Dr. Rothberg turned back to the developments of Noyce and Moore, and developed the first semiconductor based, post-light, sequencing technology to make it truly personal. This technology, in the form of a single-use, disposable chip, is the core of the Ion Torrent DNA sequencing platform. This is the first semiconductor device capable of performing DNA sequencing, and the use of a scalable CMOS chip architecture allows for radical levels of economic scaling, and convenient new formats (from desktop to portable).
Bio: Dr. Jonathan Rothberg is best known for inventing high-speed, "Next-Gen" DNA sequencing. He founded 454 Life Sciences. Dr. Rothberg sequenced the first individual human genome (The Watson Genome, Nature), and initiated the Neanderthal Genome Project with Svante Paabo. Under his leadership, 454 helped understand the mystery behind the disappearance of the honey bee, uncovered a new virus killing transplant patients, and elucidated the extent of human variation—work recognized by Science magazine as the breakthrough of the year for 2007. The New England Journal described Dr. Rothberg's innovation as "The New Age of Molecular Diagnostics." Dr. Rothberg went on to invent semiconductor chip-based sequencing, and sequenced Gordon Moore (Moore's law) as the first individual to be sequenced on a semiconductor chip (Nature). In 2010, Ion Torrent was acquired by Life Technologies for $725 million, the largest acquisition of its kind. In addition to founding 454 Life Sciences and Ion Torrent, Dr. Rothberg founded CuraGen Corporation, Clarifi, RainDance Technologies, Lam Therapeutics, Quantum-Si, Hyperfine Research and Butterfly Networks. Dr. Rothberg was born in 1963 in New Haven, Connecticut. He earned a B.S. in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S., M.Phil, and Ph.D. in biology from Yale University.
Host: Prof. Richard Lethin, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Yale University
Thursday – October 15, 2015
3:00pm to 4:00pm
Dunham Lab, Room 220