http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre6bd1kn-us-genes-lifetech/
Ion Torrent releases its new gene sequencer later on Tuesday, a desktop-printer-sized machine that costs $49,000 -- one-tenth the price of other gene sequencing machines.
The company, which made a splash in February by sequencing genes in a Florida hotel room, is also offering seven $1 million prizes in an attempt to exploit crowd-sourcing to improve the sequencer.
"It really changes things. It is like a personal computer," company founder Jonathan Rothberg said in a telephone interview. "The prizes are recognition that, no matter how smart you are, there is always someone who is smarter. We want to leverage those people."
The key to the sequencer's speed and cheap price is that it works using a silicon chip.
"We literally use the same factories that make Xboxes," Rothberg said. "Any electronics maker can build our machines for us."
Rothberg, who founded Curagen, which was sold to Celldex Therapeutics Inc in 2009 and 454 Life Sciences, now owned by Roche, sold Ion Torrent to Life Technologies Corp (formerly Applera Corp) for $700 million in August.
Companies that make gene sequencers have been trying to make them faster, cheaper and more accurate since the 13-year-long $3 billion international Human Genome Project was completed with the help of a room the size of a football field filled with washing-machine-sized sequencers.
Ion Torrent's machine uses a silicon chip that detects hydrogen ions -- charged particles of hydrogen -- released by the A, C, T and G nucleotide bases that make up DNA. Scientists must still first pull the DNA from a sample, but after, that there are few moving parts to tussle with, Rothberg said.
"You put that DNA onto the chip, press go and within five minutes you see bases coming off and within two hours you are done," Rothberg said.
The machine is not powerful enough to sequence an entire human genome and Life Technologies is not yet trying to make the machine live up to its name -- the Personal Genome Machine. Instead, the hope is to sell it to as many research labs as possible.