Obama only gave gift baskets to two people [in attendance] my two youngest kids, Rothberg said. [2][28] In 2002, the couple started the nonprofit Rothberg Institute for Childhood Diseases which works on treatments for tuberous sclerosis, a rare disease that affects one of their children. Rothberg has come, over time, to recognize his own administrative shortcomings, and for the COVID-19 project he hired some proven mercenaries for help. In 2008, Rothberg and a research team used his technique to map and publish the first complete genome of a single individual, the geneticist James Watson. Jonathan Rothberg Net Worth. From his invention of revolutionary DNA sequencing technologies to hand-held medical imaging devices, his highly innovative contributions have had enormous impact. Rothberg is actually working on the COVID-19 response across multiple fronts, involving four of his seven startup companies. Detect is designed for use at your office, workplace, school and, down the line, even your home.. But I think its useful to think of it in a different frame of mind. In the case of Jonathan Rothberg, M.S., M.Phil, and Ph.D., it began when his daughter was diagnosed with a rare disease called tuberous sclerosis, which causes tumors or growths in the body. [17] The core technology is a silicon chip, contrasting with other ultrasound devices that use piezoelectric crystals. But Elana and the intern, Yale student Stephen Wang, are energized about the possibilities. The GENE MACHINE yacht is built with a steel hull and aluminum superstructure, with teak decks and a deckhouse. I wanted to read his genome. pic.twitter.com/P4PojWmC8o, Jonathan Rothberg ???? The Detect test differs from the antibody and antigen versions being developed by other companies. Jonathan was just thinking out loud at all times, and not random thoughts but practical ones, so having him drive a car wasnt really a safe thing to do, he said. The test tubes had to be shaken vigorously and then flickedwords that were not entirely self-explanatorybefore being placed in the heater. In order to create an image, a traditional ultrasound device has to be able to produce wavelengths from different perspectives. jonathan rothberg daughterthe renaissance apartments chicago. I stepped on a disinfectant mat, removed my shoes, and climbed the stairs to the main decks exterior corridor. He founded 454 Life Sciences, bringing to market the first new method for sequencing . He's active on social media, as is his crew. [18] In September, 2018, Butterfly Network raised $250 million from investors Fidelity, the Gates Foundation, and Fosun Pharma at an estimated $1.25 billion valuation. (Courtesy). had come around to this way of thinking. [3] It was able to read 10 million base pairs of DNA in two hours, and sold for $50,000. They hope the strands of DNA will offer leads for potential medical therapies, or other scientific discoveries, just as mapping human genomes has done over the past decade. Person Details. He and his wife, Dr. Bonnie Gould Rothberg, an assistant professor of medicine at Yale, have five children and live in Guilford. Each company also has a connection to his actual family. Rothberg, despite his general chutzpah, acknowledged that different people in different communities at different times and in different places will have different needs. Ultimately, for Rothberg, its all about benefiting those he loves, and helping the less fortunate. But the problem of coronavirus testingthe need for reliable diagnosis of an unprecedented sweepwas a high-stakes contest of immediate appeal. For my first invention, fast-DNA sequencing, my son was not breathing. Jonathan Rothberg is the founder of Butterfly and has served as the Chairman of New Butterfly's board of directors since February 2021. [29] The TSC project was based on technology known as the Drug Design and Optimization Lab (D2OL), which the institute sponsored through 2009, to use volunteers' personal computers to model interactions of drug candidates with their target molecules. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Rothberg's passion for biotechnology was spurred in part by his daughter's rare genetic disorder and, later, a life . [3] By the next year it had a market cap of $5 billion, bigger than that of American Airlines. With 454s technology, Dr. Rothberg sequenced the first individual human genome, and with Svante Paabo he initiated the first large-scale effort to sequence ancient DNA (The Neanderthal Genome Project). Rothberg lives and works in Connecticut, where his holdings include a biotech incubator, a vineyard, and a full-scale near-replica of Stonehenge, made of Norwegian granite and modified for celestial alignment with his childrens birthdays, but for the moment he was at sea. Actors, directors, and stagehands come together to keep the heart of the city alive while awaiting a physical return to the Broadway stage. (The word itself is derived from the forty days of isolation imposed by the Venetian authorities on incoming ships.) (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster), Jonathan Rothberg's portable MRI machine. The two-thousand-dollar machine that processed Quidels thirty-dollar antigen test kits was backordered for the foreseeable future; it was being used for parties in the Hamptons and by concierge medical services. Rothberg, a biotechnology pioneer, received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Barack Obama in 2016. The Gene Machine was moored at a distance from the other resting vessels, on the perimeter of a basin adjacent to the marinas active shipyard, where rusty fishing charters and stocky catamarans hung suspended in drydock. Jonathan Rothberg's income source is mostly from being a successful . Or maybe its not. She wanted to know what genes, chromosomes and proteins the building blocks of precision medicine could be hidden in this sea that seemed so crisp and bottomless and empty. (Courtesy), Jonathan Rothbergs portable MRI machine. Rothbergs original plan for 2020 had been to use one of his newer companies, Homodeus, to trawl for genetic evidence of panspermia, the not entirely disreputable idea that life on earth arrived in the form of ancient space dust. The family firm, Laticrete International, is now chaired by Rothbergs older brother David. Detect founder Dr. Jonathan Rothberg has a strong track record of building successful companies that solve important scientific challenges. The inventor and entrepreneur prophesies a future in which self-testing has become one more morning ritual between brushing our teeth and putting on a pot of coffee. No other machines. Over the next forty-eight hours, Rothberg live-tweeted the creation of a new enterprise, tracing his thought experiment with a steady but haphazard accretion of technical detail, earnest self-promotion, and premptive networking. There would never be such a thing as the COVID test. Remember those late-night infomercials for a knife that could do anythingthe guy cuts down a tree with it outside and then goes to work in his kitchen? he said. GUILFORD, Conn. Guilford based, a world-renowned scientist and engineer, Jonathan Rothberg, spent his quarantine developing an at-home Covid test kit in the lab aboard his superyacht. He stepped Inside the ICE House to lay out his mission to make healthcare accessible to everyone, beginning with the journey that . We have estimated Jonathan Rothberg's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets. Illumina is now a fifty-billion-dollar enterprise. He shelved these pursuits to work on a coronavirus test. He noticed a magazine cover celebrating the Pentium chip, and realized it should be possible to quicken genetic sequencing on the model of an integrated circuit. She notes that before penicillin was discovered in 1928, people sometimes used these bacterial viruses, or phages, to treat infections. height: 5px; in biology from Yale University and his B.S. Rothberg was not alone in his belief that America would continue to fail this testand that a days turnaround could still not guarantee a return to ordinary life. Prior to Rothberg's birth, his parents founded Laticrete International, Inc. a family-owned manufacturer of products for the installation of tile and stone. Teleguidance only available for iOS devices. Building companies around a virtuous circle of learning. Isolated in the Grenadines avoiding the virus, he wrote. Environmental scientists now say climate change is a fundamental and imminent threat to the lives of humans and thousands of other species. His product would not only do away with the machines required by his competitors antigen tests, it would approximate the diagnostic rigor of the PCR standard. for their antigen test in April, had not yet achieved regulatory approvalthere was no shortage of entrants to the field. As a chemical engineer, biologist, and professor of genetics at Yale University, Rothberg's response to his daughter's diagnosis and the lack of satisfactory medical solutions was to search for a cure himself. Jonathan Rothberg a pioneer in genetic sequencing technology, serial entrepreneur, Yale alumnus, and New Haven native will receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the White House announced Dec. 22. . When Rothberg bought his eldest daughter a watch that was supposed to warn of seizures, it produced so many false alarms that he decided to throw it away and start his own epilepsy firm. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, and serves on . Dr. Rothberg launched Detect in partnership with consumer electronics veteran and now Detect CEO Hugo Barra at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic with the goal of bringing pathogen testing into the home. For use by qualified and trained healthcare practitioners. In 2011, when his daughter, Alana, faced issues with her kidneys, he developed a monitoring ultrasound on a microchip under the company Butterfly Network. He prophesied a future in which his kits would be on sale at every Walgreens and CVS, a world in which self-testing has become one more morning ritual between brushing our teeth and putting on a pot of coffee. The nephew whod stowed away on the Gene Machine in the spring had recently gone off to his freshman year in college, in Miami; within a week, there were infections on the two floors above him, and before he knew it he was isolated in a hotel room. background-color: #c52026; Rothbergs predictions were almost immediately confirmed: a small Massachusetts startup, E25Bio, soon announced that they had raised millions of dollars of venture capital, and anticipated approval for their fifteen-minute at-home antigen test within two months. Please update your browser or switch to Chrome, Firefox or Safari. What kinds of space are we willing to. Rothberg, who received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from Yale in 1991, is founder of a string of successful Connecticut companies, including 454 Life Science, CuraGen, Ion Torrent, Raindance Technologies, Hyperfine Research, Butterfly Network Inc., LAM Therapeutics, and 4Catalyzer. (Courtesy), Jonathan Rothbergs home coronavirus test, Detect. Rothbergs best thinking generates new ideas at a berserk pace, often without regard for immediate feasibility, but his ambitions are warranted by a long history of unlikely successes. Unlike other news outlets, we havent put up a paywall. The Homodeus team had been invited to the campus of Roger Williams University, which cleaves to a peninsular hillside in Bristol, Rhode Island, to conduct a pilot. Faster PCR would be a tremendous help, but, so many months into the pandemic, any fantasy of national orchestration had been vacated, and by late July an alternative consensus had emerged in favor of widespread, frequent rapid testing. For the time being, the university would be relying on a testing program set up by the Broad Institute, in Cambridge, to support institutions in the area. Dr. Rothberg was born in 1963 in New Haven, Connecticut. The Butterfly iQ ultrasound, developed by Rothbergs startup the Butterfly Network, is seen as a way for individuals to treat themselves at home, including for COVID lung. Rothberg married Gould, a graduate of Yale's medical and public-health programs, in 1995; in 1996, their first child, a daughter, was born with a condition that can cause seizures. You might test all visitors to your home the way he tests all visitors to his boat. At Butterfly Network, we have built the world's first ultrasound-on-a-chip that's FDA cleared for 13 indications, priced at under $2000.Every healthcare provider now has access to an intuitive, powerful, whole-body medical imaging system that fits in their pocket. Prior to 454 Life Sciences, Dr. Rothberg founded and served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CuraGen Corporation from 1993 to 2004. Jonathan is that rare person who can do both, with aplomb. Goodbye, trusty stethoscope, hello mainstream medical imaging, powered by machine learning and backed by a global network. One of his latest companies, Butterfly Network, recently began. Moreover, the enzymes they needed were made by only about ten suitable venders in the world, and if a small company could even place an order the quotes came in high. Rothberg was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to Lillian Rothberg and Henry Rothberg, a chemical engineer. [24] Hyperfine went public in December 2021 and is listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker, $HYPR.[25]. New York City, NY. Xiaomi, currently the world's #1 smartphone manufacturer, held an initial public offering (IPO) in 2018 with a valuation of $54B, one of the largest technology IPOs of all time. Each decision we make, each and every one, make sure it saves the life of somebody you love., I do think my Jewish heritage [plays a part], he said, citing Yale professor Paul Johnsons book A History of the Jews. Maybe I feel, whenever were at forks in history, I have to do everything I can to help.. [12][2], In 2004, Rothberg founded RainDance Technologies, which used droplet-based microfluidics. [4] In 2012, Rothberg was awarded the Wilbur Cross Medal as a distinguished alumni from Yale University. There was, however, good-faith disagreement among experts about how to proceed. A standard PCR test normally costs about a hundred dollars, though the price is often subsidized; he wanted his available for ten. Dr Jonathan Rothberg is a man on a mission. But it still wasnt clear whether there was any practical way to test entire populations frequently enough to keep campuses, workplaces, and other congregate bodies open. The Gene Machine is equipped with a lab, and thats where Rothberg began his work. I think in everything I do, somewhere theres a personal motivation, Rothberg reflected at the STAT Summit. Detect is one of seven companies founded by Jonathan Rothberg, a scientist, entrepreneur and New Haven native who earned his his Ph.D. at Yale and spearheads the startup accelerator 4Catalyzer. I wanted to do all of that with a $2,000 device. Email. (He has also underwritten a variety of research labs and drug trials over the years, especially for rare diseases; the immunosuppressant that has left his daughter particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 emerged from a development program he and his wife funded twenty years ago.). in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S., M.Phil, and Ph.D. in biology from Yale University. Dr. Rothberg went on to invent semiconductor chip-based sequencing, and sequenced Gordon Moore (Moores law) as the first individual to be sequenced on a semiconductor chip (Nature). [19] In 2021 Quantum-Si went public on the NASDAQ under the ticker $QSI. The chair of the task force, Brian Wysor, a marine biologist who studies tropical seaweed and wore a mask patterned with red snails, told me that the goal was to make it to Thanksgiving; students would return home for the holiday and take their exams remotely. When he was giving a talk in lab meetings, Artavanis-Tsakonas said, he would have a little note at the bottom of the slide saying, This is proprietary information, which was annoying to me but was also very funny. Artavanis-Tsakonas went on, If he had an idea he would follow it up, not like many smart people in the lab who would think of something big, would start, and then with the first difficulty would let it go. Rothberg founded his first company, CuraGen, right out of grad school. Rothberg has led or been a major part of well-known sequencing projects including the first human genome (of Nobel laureate Jim Watson), the Neanderthal genome, and incorporation of sequencing technology on semi-conductor chips. As we sat and waited, Rothberg paced the length of the sundeck, discussing with his executive team the terms of the twenty-million-dollar financing round theyd just closed. With the yacht moored, he hiked three miles into the French islands rocky interior. Rothberg felt compelled to help with the pandemic response. breakthrough technologies, such as this virtual reality tool for addressing addiction. I do everything because I want to make a difference for somebody I love.. NOW machine, represented a whole new ballgame. Almost twelve weeks into the New York metropolitan areas lockdown, however, the machine, which costs thousands of dollars, remained a scarce commodity. [32], Rothberg was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Barack Obama in 2016 for his pioneering inventions and commercialization of next-generation DNA sequencing technologies, making access to genomic information easier, faster and more cost-effective for researchers around the world". He tagged researchers at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania. Husband and wife had to isolate from each other, not only because of her job, but because their daughter has a rare genetic disorder and needs to take immunosuppressive medication. Think of them as the tops of little drums, all residing on a single silicon chip. Many landlubbing researchers have had to drop everything this year to assist with the COVID-19 response, but Jewish-American scientist Jonathan Rothberg started his work fighting the pandemic at sea. Data-driven insights to improve the health of all Americans. [citation needed], Rothberg and his wife Bonnie, a physician who also holds a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Yale, have five children, whom Rothberg often refers to in his speeches. New York and New Jersey had the nations highest confirmed caseloads at the time, but the dozens of testing sites I called advertised a three-to-five-day wait for resultsif, that is, they accepted asymptomatic customers at all. Together with his wife Bonnie, they created the Rothberg Institute for Childhood Diseases. In February, Rothberg had been dumbstruck by the U.S. governments failure to marshal its resources in preparation for a comprehensive clinical-testing regime. I guess thats how I think, too, about this project. Dr. Jonathan Rothberg is best known for inventing high-speed, Next-Gen DNA sequencing. Rothberg was ranked 37th that year on the Fortunemagazine list of America's 40 richest under 40, with an estimated net worth of $168 million. He developed a high-speed "Next-Gen" DNA sequencing process, motivated by the opportunity to impact the lives of the people he loves. His contributions; cloning by limited dilution, and massively parallel DNA sequencing, are the basis of all subsequent high-speed sequencing methods. The company is working to get the Butterfly iQ ultrasound scanner into the hands of as many medical professionals as possible. With each passing week, the situation had grown increasingly dire. Ben Rosenbluth, a Homodeus co-founder and floppy-haired recent Yale grad who fell squarely into the category of kids who dont know that what theyre trying to do cant be done, had arrived early to conduct the pilot. Most people think viruses and bacteria are pathogens and disease-causing agents, and they are, Wang says. Hed give us hints, like what to do with the project, how to get the DNA out of the water, Elena recalled. Learn more Our philosophy Building companies around a virtuous circle of learning. He fell in love with them. When the roommate tested positive, he isolated from Rothbergs son and their other roommate which, according to Rothberg, prevented them from becoming exposed. At various points in his career hes considered a return to academia; in each case he has found himself haunted by a practical problem of some personal urgency, and has relapsed into commercial enterprise. Rothberg bought a boat, he told me, as night fell on the marsh and the black water below was lit with the bright neon of the Gene Machine logo, and installed a high-backed throne on the bow of the sundecka reminder, he says, that things tend to work out in the end. Elana Rothberg and Wang will use that same device to sequence the sea, using the DNA of waterborne bacteria and the viruses that inhabit them, called bacteriophages. For weeks, the team had been talking to various state governments, private colleges, large public-university systems, and major sports leagues. When I met with Kaye-Kauderer in mid-August, in a coffee shop near his home in Brooklyns Bushwick neighborhood, he had good news and bad news. Identifeye Health (formerly Tesseract Health) was founded in 2018 to build technology at the nexus of radiology and laboratory medicine on the diagnostic tree. Then I placed the tube in the small heater and clicked the timer, which was set for thirty minutes. Individuals interested in listening to . The circa-$50 Lucira COVID-19 All-In-One Test Kit will initially only be available in California and Florida and requires a prescription. He, his wife, and three of their five children had just arrived in the Bahamas, where they had planned to take the M/Y Gene Machine, their hundred-and-eighty-foot superyacht, on a spring-break cruise to Atlantis. But we cant wait for approval in terms of gearing up as Im speaking to you [were manufacturing] one million tests a month, financing 10 million tests a month. Simplified operating system, simplified use, and a technology that learns as it goes. Dr. Rothbergs qualifications to serve on New Butterflys board of directors include his significant scientific, executive and board leadership experience in the technology industry, as well as his knowledge of Butterflys business as Butterflys founder and former Chief Executive Officer. By the end of the first day, hed received an e-mail from a great manufacturer. On day two, he reported that hed made some general progress on the sample collection. He asked his followers, in a poll, whether they thought he should continue, and, for reasons that were not fully clear, he tagged the Gates Foundation. With 454 Life Sciences, Dr. Rothberg brought to market the first new way to sequence genomes since Sanger and Gilbert won the Nobel Prize for their method in 1980. Then, once the test tubes had been withdrawn from the heater, returned to their original chimneys, and broken open to saturate the readout strip, their results had to be interpreted in no fewer than five minutes and no more than tenany shorter and the lines might not yet have appeared, any longer and the results were no longer valid. I was going to give it to him anyway, she joked. Our companies NYSE: BFLY NASDAQ: HYPR NASDAQ: QSI But there is one thing even more prolific than microbes: the viruses that replicate inside of them. His initiatives include not only the Detect coronavirus test but also the Butterfly iQ, an ultra-portable, whole-body ultrasound that he describes as the top-selling in the world; a groundbreaking portable MRI; and a drug called LAM002 that he says shows promise against COVID-19. The pilot demonstrated that what Id done by myself with ease on the boat might prove less than straightforward when attempted en masse, and when Rosenbluth asked Sharp if she thought the test would suit their needs, she explained, with the patience and diplomacy of someone long accustomed to lab instruction, that she thought there was some work to be done before theyd be ready to roll it out on the order of fifteen hundred or three thousand students per day. Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel, 2023 The Times of Israel , All Rights Reserved, Jonathan Rothberg aboard his superyacht Gene Machine with his home coronavirus test, Detect. Rothberg prides himself on his ability to identify and recruit talent from academia, finance, and the health-care industry, and in the process has essentially re-created his own jostling family under cover of startup cultivation. Students were expected to return to the campus in a weeks time, and, despite the large white tent erected to replace indoor cafeteria dining, the expectant atmosphere was oddly normal. Published in Nature magazine, that genome was made publicly on GenBank and browsable via the efforts of Lincoln Stein's group contributing to personal genomics. With such a device, Rothberg wrote on Twitter, read-out would be in minutes - timer in App - read by camera in your smart phone. Still, Illuminas sequencing machines were large and unwieldythey often required special fortified floors for supportand sold for half a million dollars.