Life Tech Pushes Speed Of Small, Fast DNA Sequencer
DNA sequencing’s first attempt at a personal-computer-like console is about to get a whole lot faster. The Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine (PGM), launched with much fanfare (and a Forbes cover ) in December, will be 100 times more powerful than it was at launch by the third quarter, according to Life Technologies, the $3 billion life sciences company that makes it. Life Technologies' Personal Genome Machine That means that the PGM will be able to sequence 1 billion letters of DNA code in two hours, making it much more competitive with a rival machine, the MiSeq, developed by Illumina, which now dominates the sequencing business. Perhaps more importantly, this leap would fulfill the promise made by Ion Torrent founder Jonathan Rothberg, who has promised that because his device relies on the same kind of semiconductor factories used to make Xboxes and iPods its performance will be able to improve 10-fold every six months. As he told me last year: “There isn’t a technology that w...