It slowly dawned on Rothberg that a sensor like that could be used for DNA sequencing.
Rothberg's creation is still on the market but has been crushed by machines from rival Illumina.
Rothberg's machine could change all that through speed of analysis and wider dissemination of tools.
The idea evolved into 454 Life Sciences, a Curagen subsidiary Rothberg created to commercialize the new machine.
While still at Curagen Rothberg realized that better technology was needed to make genetic medicine a reality.
One big question: will Rothberg, who still serves as chief executive of the Ion Torrent division, stick around?
FORBES: What Does This $14 Billion Deal Mean For The Future Of DNA Sequencing?
Rothberg grew up in New Haven, Connecticut in a family of science-oriented entrepreneurs.
Rothberg's contribution was to come up with a sensor that directly reads telltale electrical signals produced as DNA copies itself.
Invented by engineer and entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg, such desktop gene machines could transform medicine, agriculture, nanotechnology and the search for alternative fuels.
Ironically, perhaps, the first iteration of Rothberg's genome machine is poorly suited to the one market closest to his heart: rare inherited diseases.
"I can create a fanatical user base, and people will start coming up with more and more applications for the technology, " says Rothberg.
The problem, Rothberg says, is that technology hasn't been powerful enough to decode the genetic secrets lurking behind diseases like cancer, lupus and autism.
Rothberg's answer is that, like in radiology, there will be armies of trained physicians using specialized machines, as gene scanning hits the medical mainstream.
Ultimately Rothberg's machine may not win--the PGM could be quickly eclipsed.
Although genomics stocks are crashing, I think we picked the right character in Rothberg, who has been part of the DNA sequencing race from the beginning.
Noah turned out to be fine, but Rothberg was frustrated that doctors didn't have a rapid test to ensure his son didn't have an inherited disease.
"Sequencing is going to affect everything, " says Rothberg, 47.
Rothberg, addressing the boy as he would a peer, told him the best way to do that would be to create a tiny chemical sensor that could read electrical signals passing between brain cells.
The PGM uses a semiconductor chip to sequencing DNA, a technology that Ion Torrent founder Jonathan Rothberg says will allow his machine to increase in speed at a rate of 10-fold every six months.
Ion Torrent entered this market in 2010, the brainchild of biotech entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg. (I wrote a Forbes cover story about him in 2011.) Rothberg figured out how to make a DNA sequencer using semiconductor parts that would be significantly cheaper than the machines Illumina sold.
FORBES: What Does This $14 Billion Deal Mean For The Future Of DNA Sequencing?
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.
Rothberg's 14-year-old daughter, the oldest of his five kids, has a mild form of an inherited disease called tuberous sclerosis complex, a relatively rare disorder (50, 000 or so Americans have it) that can cause benign tumors in the heart, kidney, skin, lungs, eyes and brain, where seizures can occur.
While the Internet has made it easy to apply for work, career experts say that offline networking efforts to meet people and get introductions are a far more effective way to land jobs especially since 80% of jobs aren't publicly advertised, says Steven Rothberg, founder of job-search website CollegeRecruiter.com in Minneapolis.
Using DNA sequencing, Rothberg says, doctors in the not-too-distant future will finger genetic weak spots in tumors and treat cancer patients with customized drugs. (This is already happening at some cancer centers.) Kids born with rare diseases will get large portions of their genome decoded to pinpoint the cause, eliminating guesswork and misdiagnoses.
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