Jonathan Rothberg

Rothberg was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to Lillian Rothberg and Henry Rothberg, a chemical engineer. Prior to Rothberg's birth, his parents founded Laticrete International, Inc. a family-owned manufacturer of products for the installation of tile and stone.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/health/05gene.html|title=Rothberg Seeks to Make DNA Sequencing Common|last=Pollack|first=Andrew|date=2011-01-04|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-12-05|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} As a child Jonathan went on sales calls with his father. Rothberg's family laid the foundation for his scientific career.{{Cite web |title= Jonathan M. Rothberg |date= June 18, 2010 |work= 2010 Connecticut Medal of Technology bio |publisher= Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering |url= http://www.ctcase.org/medal_bios/rothberg.pdf |accessdate= November 14, 2016 |archive-date= March 20, 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120320005232/http://www.ctcase.org/medal_bios/rothberg.pdf |url-status= dead }}

Rothberg earned a BS in chemical engineering with an option in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1985. He then went on to earn an MS, MPhil, and PhD in biology from Yale University.{{cite web | title = Jonathan Rothberg, PhD | url = https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/jonathan_rothberg/ | website = Yale School of Medicine | date = 15 July 2019 | access-date = 26 December 2021}}

Rothberg himself holds more than 100 patents.{{Cite web|url=https://www.boatinternational.com/luxury-yacht-life/owners-experiences/on-board-with-jonathan-rothberg-owner-of-55m-explorer-yacht-gene-machine--37919|title=On board with Jonathan Rothberg, owner of 55m explorer yacht Gene Machine|website=Boat International|language=en|access-date=2018-12-05}}

While a graduate student at Yale, he founded CuraGen, one of the first genomics companies in 1991.{{Cite web|last=Park|first=Andrea|date=2022-02-15|title=Quantum-Si taps founder Rothberg, prolific medtech entrepreneur, as interim CEO|url=https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/quantum-si-taps-founder-rothberg-prolific-medtech-entrepreneur-interim-ceo|access-date=2022-02-22|website=Fierce Biotech|language=en}} CuraGen went public in 1999.{{Cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0117/features-jonathan-rothberg-medicine-tech-gene-machine.html|title=Gene Machine|last=Herper|first=Matthew|website=Forbes|language=en|access-date=2018-12-05}} By the next year it had a market cap of $5 billion, bigger than that of American Airlines. Rothberg resigned as chief executive of CuraGen in 2005.

In 2000, 454 Life Sciences was founded as a subsidiary of CuraGen; Rothberg was the CEO of CuraGen at the time.{{cite web|title=Curagen Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2000|url=https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1030653/000092701601500076/d10k.htm|publisher=SEC}} The idea for 454 Life Sciences came when Noah, his second child, was born in 1999, and had to be sent to the neonatal intensive care unit because of breathing troubles. Noah turned out to be fine, but Rothberg was frustrated that doctors did not have a rapid test to ensure his son did not have an inherited disease. Rothberg brought to market a machine for massively parallel DNA sequencing. 454 Life Sciences and the Baylor College of Medicine Genome Center were the first to complete and make public the sequence of an individual human genome (James D. Watson[http://www.bio-itworld.com/newsitems/2007/may/05-31-07-watson-genome Project Jim: Watson’s Personal Genome Goes Public] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207104151/http://www.bio-itworld.com/newsitems/2007/may/05-31-07-watson-genome |date=2012-02-07 }} at Bio-IT World.com{{Cite news |title= Genome of DNA Pioneer Is Deciphered |author= Nicholas Wade |work= The New York Times |date= May 31, 2007 |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/science/31cnd-gene.html |accessdate= November 14, 2016 }}). 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.[http://jimwatsonsequence.cshl.edu/cgi-perl/gbrowse/jwsequence/ James Watson's Personal Genome Sequence] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081203165136/http://jimwatsonsequence.cshl.edu/cgi-perl/gbrowse/jwsequence/ |date=2008-12-03 }} Rothberg lost control of 454 Life Sciences by 2007. The company was acquired by Roche Diagnostics in 2007 for $140 million then closed down by Roche in 2013 after other approaches to sequencing rendered the underlying technology noncompetitive.{{cite news|url=http://www.fiercebiotech.com/medical-devices/roche-to-close-454-life-sciences-as-it-reduces-gene-sequencing-focus|title=Roche to close 454 Life Sciences as it reduces gene sequencing focus|last1=Hollmer|first1=Mark|date=October 17, 2013|work=Fierce Biotech}}

In 2004, Rothberg founded RainDance Technologies, which used droplet-based microfluidics.{{Cite web|url=https://www.weforum.org/about/list-of-technology-pioneers-2008|title=List of Technology Pioneers 2008|website=World Economic Forum|access-date=2018-06-27}} RainDance was acquired in 2017 by Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.{{Cite web|url=https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005405/en/RainDance-Technologies-Sold-Bio-Rad|title=RainDance Technologies To Be Sold to Bio-Rad|date=2017-01-16|website=www.businesswire.com|language=en|access-date=2018-12-05}}

Rothberg founded Ion Torrent in 2007, which developed ion semiconductor sequencing, a technology utilized by their Personal Genome Machine (PGM) DNA sequencer.[http://www.iontorrent.com Ion Torrent Official Webpage.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121106192756/http://www.iontorrent.com/ |date=2012-11-06 }} He founded the company with an undisclosed amount of his own money and later took in $23 million in venture capital. After experiences at CuraGen and 454 Life Sciences, he made sure to retain supervoting share majority so he could not be forced out. At the time, the PGM device was the smallest and cheapest DNA decoder to hit the market. It was able to read 10 million base pairs of DNA in two hours, and sold for $50,000. In 2010, Ion Torrent was acquired for $375 million in cash and stock upfront, plus as much as $350 million later if sales were to reach certain levels.

Rothberg established a startup accelerator called 4Catalyzer in Guilford, CT, in the early 2010s. The companies focus on using inflection points in medicine, such as deep learning, next-generation sequencing, and the silicon supply chain, to address global healthcare challenges. 4Catalyzer companies include Butterfly Network, Quantum-Si, Hyperfine, Tesseract Health, Liminal Sciences, Detect, AI Therapeutics, and Protein Evolution, Inc.{{Cite web |last=Hoffman |first=Christopher |date=2015-02-01 |title=Guilford incubator 4Catalyzer aims for game-changing medical products |url=https://www.nhregister.com/connecticut/article/Guilford-incubator-4Catalyzer-aims-for-11361050.php |access-date=2018-12-05 |website=New Haven Register}}

In 2011, Rothberg founded Butterfly Network after seeing a talk by MIT physicist Max Tegmark, who was becoming fascinated by artificial intelligence.{{Cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2017/10/27/an-entrepreneur-aims-to-peer-inside-the-body-with-a-small-simple-cheap-device/|title=An Entrepreneur Aims To Peer Inside The Body With A Small, Simple, Cheap Device|last=Herper|first=Matthew|website=Forbes|language=en|access-date=2018-12-05}} Rothberg brought in one of Tegmark's smartest students, Nevada Sanchez, a co-founder of the company who was named among Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2015. Butterfly Network sells a hand-held ultrasound imaging device that connects to an iPhone, called the iQ. The core technology is a silicon chip, contrasting with other ultrasound devices that use piezoelectric crystals. The use of silicon makes the device far cheaper to manufacture. The iQ received 13 different device clearances from the Food and Drug Administration. The iQ sells for just over $2,000, and is now commercially available.{{Cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2018/09/27/aiming-to-revolutionize-medical-ultrasound-butterfly-raises-250-million-at-a-125-billion-valuation/|title=Aiming To Revolutionize Medical Ultrasound, Butterfly Raises $250 Million At A $1.25 Billion Valuation|last=Herper|first=Matthew|website=Forbes|language=en|access-date=2018-12-05}} In September, 2018, Butterfly Network raised $250 million from investors Fidelity, the Gates Foundation, and Fosun Pharma at an estimated $1.25 billion valuation. In February 2021 Butterfly Network was publicly listed on the NYSE under the ticker $BFLY.

Rothberg founded Quantum-Si in 2013 with the mission of transforming single molecule analysis and democratizing its use by providing researchers and clinicians access to the proteome, the set of proteins expressed within a cell.{{Cite web |title=Investor Relations - Quantum-Si Incorporated |url=https://ir.quantum-si.com/ |access-date=2022-08-06}} In 2021 Quantum-Si went public on the NASDAQ under the ticker $QSI.{{cite web | url=https://www.privateequitywire.co.uk/2021/06/11/301725/quantum-si-closes-usd1bn-spac-deal-highcape | title=Quantum-Si closes USD1bn+ SPAC deal with HighCape | date=11 June 2021 }}

In February 2022, Rothberg became interim CEO of Quantum-Si.

In 2014, Rothberg, along with Ronald Walsworth, and Matthew Rosen founded Hyperfine to develop the world's first portable MRI scanner{{Cite web|last=trellisdev|date=2021-02-11|title=MRI: Going Mobile for the Masses|url=https://admin.giving.massgeneral.org/mri-going-mobile-for-the-masses/|access-date=2021-09-02|website=Massachusetts General Hospital Giving|language=en}} {{Cite web |title=MRI for all: Cheap portable scanners aim to revolutionize medical imaging |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/mri-all-cheap-portable-scanners-aim-revolutionize-medical-imaging |access-date=2023-06-13 |website=www.science.org |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Hyperfine Begins Trading on the Nasdaq Global Market |url=https://ece.umd.edu/news/story/hyperfine-begins-trading-on-the-nasdaq-global-market |access-date=2023-06-27 |website=ece.umd.edu |language=en}} that can be transported easily between patients and costs a fraction of traditional MRI.{{Cite web|date=2019-10-25|title=A serial entrepreneur wants his portable MRI to transform medicine|url=https://www.statnews.com/2019/10/25/smaller-lighter-cheaper-a-serial-entrepreneur-wants-his-portable-mri-to-transform-medicine/|access-date=2020-12-08|website=STAT|language=en-US}} Hyperfine received FDA clearance in 2021 to add deep-learning algorithms to boost the quality of images.{{Cite web|last=Hale|first=Conor|date=2021-11-30|title=Hyperfine's portable MRI nets FDA clearance for deep-learning-powered imaging|url=https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/hyperfine-s-portable-mri-nets-fda-clearance-for-deep-learning-powered-imaging|access-date=2022-02-22|website=Fierce Biotech|language=en}} The Hyperfine Swoop is commercially available and saving lives on multiple continents around the world, including limited resource settings in Africa and Asia where access to MRI was never before possible.{{cite press release | url=https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hyperfine-announces-receipt-of-additional-3-3-million-grant-to-improve-access-to-neonatal-and-pediatric-brain-imaging-in-low-resource-settings-globally-301413566.html | title=Hyperfine Announces Receipt of Additional $3.3 Million Grant to Improve Access to Neonatal and Pediatric Brain Imaging in Low-Resource Settings Globally }} Hyperfine went public in December 2021 and is listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker, $HYPR.{{cite web | url=https://www.massdevice.com/hyperfine-liminal-to-go-public-in-580m-spac-deal/ | title=Hyperfine, Liminal to go public in $580M SPAC deal | date=8 July 2021 }}

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.

Detect’s first product is the FDA-authorized Detect Covid-19 Test, which they brought to market in 18 months from company founding. The customer reception{{cite web | url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykarcz/2021/12/29/detect-combines-lab-quality-covid-testing-with-at-home-convenience/?sh=2afc8d101bb8 | title=Detect Combines Lab-Quality Covid Testing with At-Home Convenience | website=Forbes }} and press coverage{{cite web | url=https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/12/28/detect-ceo-hugo-barra-on-how-its-covid-test-differs-from-a-rapid-antigen-test.html | title=Detect CEO Hugo Barra on how its Covid test differs from a rapid antigen test | website=CNBC | date=28 December 2021 }} of the product has been overwhelmingly positive.

Identifeye Health (formerly Tesseract Health) was founded in 2018 to build technology at the nexus of radiology and laboratory medicine on the diagnostic tree. The company aims to support the screening, diagnosis, and monitoring of disease, both affordably and non-invasively using "the power of data in the human eye".{{cn|date=March 2023}}

Rothberg founded Liminal in 2018 with the goal of building a wearable brain monitor for acute and chronic conditions including stroke, traumatic brain injury, hydrocephalus, and epilepsy. Inspired by both the utility and the limitations of EEG (electroencephalogram), Liminal has invented AEG, a new modality that combines blood flow measurement with the existing technology that monitors the electrical activity of the brain. Liminal enables critical “brain vital signs” to make brain monitoring as ubiquitous as heart monitoring.{{cn|date=March 2023}}

Protein Evolution was founded in October of 2021 with the mission to help the chemicals and materials industries transition to a lower-carbon, more circular economy. Leveraging recent breakthroughs in synthetic biology and artificial intelligence, the company designs enzymes capable of breaking down end-of-life textile and plastic waste into the raw materials of new textile and plastic products. These raw materials are indistinguishable from the petroleum-derived alternatives used today for new plastic production, and thus the company sees immediate applications within the petrochemical industry, global consumer packaged goods companies, textile manufacturers and others that are looking to significantly reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.

In the middle of 2022, the company completed its first outside capitalize raise of approximately $25 million.

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.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/13/garden/the-monoliths-next-door.html|title=The Monoliths Next Door|last=Green|first=Penelope|date=2005-10-13|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-12-05|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} 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. The institute ran a distributed computing project called Community TSC until April 2009.{{Cite web|url=http://www.childhooddiseases.org/download_contents.new.html|title=The End of an Era|date=April 9, 2009|publisher=Rothberg Institute for Childhood Diseases|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090216111756/http://childhooddiseases.org/download.html|archivedate=February 16, 2009|url-status=dead|accessdate=November 14, 2016}} 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.{{Cite web|url=http://www.d2ol.com/|title=On April 15, 2009, the D2OL distributed computing project will officially end operations|work=D2OL web site|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090419072718/http://www.d2ol.com/|archivedate=April 19, 2009|url-status=dead|accessdate=November 14, 2016}}

Rothberg sponsors the Rothberg Catalyzer Prize at four universities: Carnegie Mellon University, Yale University, Brown University, and University of Pennsylvania.{{Cite web|url=https://news.yale.edu/2018/03/20/alumnus-rothberg-enlists-students-solve-next-healthcare-challenges|title=Alumnus Rothberg enlists students to solve next healthcare challenges|last=Belli|first=Brita|date=2018-03-20|website=YaleNews|language=en|access-date=2018-12-05}}

Rothberg had his own version of Stonehenge, which he calls the Circle of Life, built near his home in Guilford, CT, using 700 tons of granite imported from Norway. Interested in wine-making, he acquired Chamard Vineyards in nearby Clinton, CT. Rothberg owns a yacht called Gene Machine, which is equipped with a lab on board, and its support vessel, Gene Chaser. {{Cite web|url=https://www.sunny-lagoon.com/who-owns-the-yacht-gene-chaser/|title=Who owns the yacht GENE CHASER?|last=Bunting|first=Mark|date=2022-07-06|website=SunnyLagoon|language=en|access-date=2022-08-31|archive-date=2022-08-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220831224254/https://www.sunny-lagoon.com/who-owns-the-yacht-gene-chaser/|url-status=dead}}

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".{{Cite web|url=https://www.nationalmedals.org/laureates/jonathan-marc-rothberg|title=NMTI Laureate|last=Rothberg}}

Rothberg received the Connecticut Medal of Technology in 2010. In 2012, Rothberg was awarded the Wilbur Cross Medal as a distinguished alumnus from Yale University.{{Cite web|url=https://gsas.yale.edu/news/graduate-school-honors-four-alumni-wilbur-cross-medals|title=Graduate School Honors Four Alumni with Wilbur Cross Medals {{!}} Yale Graduate School of Arts & Sciences|website=gsas.yale.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-06-04}} Rothberg made Fortune Magazine's 2001 list of the 40 richest Americans under 40. Rothberg was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 for the application of engineering principles to the mining of genomic information for the discovery and development of new drugs.{{Cite web |title=Dr. Jonathan M. Rothberg |url=https://nae.edu/30834/Dr-Jonathan-M-Rothberg |access-date=2022-08-06 |website=NAE Website}} In 2018, he received the Award for Excellence in Molecular Diagnostics from the Association for Molecular Pathology.{{Cite web |title=Past Recipients |url=https://www.amp.org/membership/awards-grants-honors/amp-award-for-excellence-in-molecular-diagnostics/past-recipients/ |access-date=2023-04-12 |website=Association for Molecular Pathology |language=en}}

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Category:1963 births

Category:Living people

Category:21st-century American biologists

Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering

Category:Carnegie Mellon University College of Engineering alumni

Category:Carnegie Mellon University trustees

Category:Yale University alumni

Category:National Medal of Technology recipients