Dozens of people died from this year's E. coli outbreak in Europe. It could have been worse if not for the very latest medical technology.
The Personal Genome Machine was able to decode that special strain of E. coli in three days instead of two weeks. And it was all done at the fraction of a cost.
Jonathan Rothberg is the inventor of the machine, and he now shares with us the personal motivation behind how he broke the mold.
I'm Jonathan Rothberg and I invented the Personal Genome Machine. The Personal Genome Machine is a fast method to read DNA.
The first map of the genome was done for [$]3 billion and it was 50 or more people come... collected together and we decoded what was common.
My vision was of something called personal medicine, where you would sequence an individual's genome and that individual, right at birth,
and we would be able to help that person through their whole life.
Now, I was motivated to sequence my son when he went to the newborn intensive care unit.
So that was breaking the mold because everybody said it's impossible,
that I needed a fast way to decode his genome, to have the code of life for my son,
so I'd understand why he was in the emergency room and how best to treat his condition.
And I created my first high-throughput sequencing company, and we were able to unravel a lot of mysteries that were based on DNA.
I was talking to my son, how my machine had been used to do the first personal genome, and he said, Dad, you know, why don't you make a new reader?
And I was telling him wouldn't it be better if you could tell what he was thinking or if you could like read his mind in some way?
And I had this moment when he said that, I said, my God, why don't I make a machine that reads chemistry?
And I said, hey, my cell phone has a little chip in it. Why don't I make a chip that sees chemistry?
And we were able to put the entire sequencing machine on a disposable chip.
And instead of taking weeks to get your results, you literally can take a specimen,
whether it's human or bacteria, put it on the chip, put it in the machine and two hours later, you have your result.
This is a new age. People wouldn't... don't argue with you if you say sequencing will be as big as medical imaging.
It will be a $100 billion business. But the most important thing, it will save money. Right now, I'm sequencing on working with Life Technologies.
I feel very confident that the next decade, this decade,
will see us unraveling the genetic code of cancer and making drugs that turn it into a chronic disease.
The highest level, it's personal. My daughter was diagnosed with a genetic disorder, tubular sclerosis.
She was six months old and a physician told me she may never speak. God forbid someone we love has cancer.
I want them to be able to use diagnostics that came from Personal Genome Machine sequencing.
So every day, I'm driven to make the world safer, better for the ones I love.