Pacific Biosciences
Encyclopedia
Pacific Biosciences is a biotechnology company founded in 2004 that develops and manufactures systems for gene sequencing
Gene sequencing
Gene Sequencing may refer to:* DNA sequencing* or a comprehensive variant of it: Full genome sequencing...

 and some novel real time biological observation. They describe their platform as single molecule real time sequencing
Single Molecule Real Time Sequencing
Single molecule real time sequencing is a parallelized single molecule DNA sequencing by synthesis technology developed by Pacific Biosciences. Single molecule real time sequencing utilizes the zero-mode waveguide , developed in the laboratories of Harold G. Craighead and Watt W. Webb at Cornell...

 (SMRT), based on the properties of zero-mode waveguide
Zero-mode waveguide
A zero-mode waveguide is an optical waveguide that guides light energy into a volume that is small in all dimensions compared to the wavelength of the light....

s. Their first commercial product, the PacBio RS, has been sold to a limited set of customers in 2010 and is expected for public release in early 2011.

History

The company was founded based on research done at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, that combined semiconductor processing and photonics with biotechnology research. It was initially founded under the name Nanofluidics, Inc. The company raised nearly $400 million in six rounds of primarily venture capital financing, making it one of the most capitalized startups in 2010 leading up to their public offering in October of that year. Key investors included Mohr Davidow Ventures
Mohr Davidow Ventures
Mohr Davidow Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early stage technology companies. For over 28 years, Mohr Davidow has helped to build more than 250 startup companies. The firm has $1.85B under management...

, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers ' is a world-leading venture capital firm located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park in Silicon Valley. The Wall Street Journal has called it one of the "largest and most established" venture capital firms in the world...

, Alloy Ventures
Alloy Ventures
Alloy Ventures is a private equity firm focusing on early-stage venture capital investments in Life Sciences, Information Technology and Cleantech companies...

, and Wellcome Trust
Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13.9 billion, it is the United Kingdom's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research...

.

Recognitions

The company received the Technology Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum in 2009.

In 2010, The Scientist magazine named the company and their first product the top life science innovation of the year and the company received the 2010 Advanced Sequencing Technology Award from the National Human Genome Research Institute. Technology Review magazine included them in their list of the top 50 most innovative companies for both 2010 and 2011. Founder and Chief Technical Officer Dr. Stephen Turner was awarded the 2010 Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Outstanding Postdoctoral Entrepreneur award for his work at the company.

Going public

They raised approximately $200 million in an initial public offering of stock on October 27, 2010. They are listed on NASDAQ under the symbol PACB.

Products

The company’s first scientific instrument, called the “PacBio RS”, was released to a limited set of ten customers in late 2010. The product is expected for a wider public commercial release in early 2011. To use the instrument, customers must also purchase reagent packs for DNA preparation and sequencing and small plastic cells called “SMRT Cells”. Each cell is slightly less than one centimeter square and contains thousands of zero-mode waveguide
Zero-mode waveguide
A zero-mode waveguide is an optical waveguide that guides light energy into a volume that is small in all dimensions compared to the wavelength of the light....

s. The cells are sold in packs of eight. Their secondary analysis bioinformatics product, called “SMRT Portal”, is open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

.

In May 2010, they published an article in Nature Methods
Nature Methods
Nature Methods is an academic journal covering new techniques for science. It began in 2004. It is published monthly by the Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd...

, showing that their instrument can detect methylation of DNA strands without altering the DNA.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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