Kevin McKernan

So we got in this big race with Craig Venter to sequence the human genome as quickly as possible. Right, right, right. I was on the government side. And then when that came to a close, I ended up dropping out of a PhD program and starting a company.

So we got in this big race with Craig Venter to sequence the human genome as quickly as possible. Right, right, right. I was on the government side. And then when that came to a close, I ended up dropping out of a PhD program and starting a company.

So we got in this big race with Craig Venter to sequence the human genome as quickly as possible. Right, right, right. I was on the government side. And then when that came to a close, I ended up dropping out of a PhD program and starting a company.

We started this company called Agincourt, which took a lot of the technologies we built in the genome project and commercialized them and started selling them to every biotech company that wanted to catch up, if you will, to what they were doing down at MIT to sequence this quickly.

We started this company called Agincourt, which took a lot of the technologies we built in the genome project and commercialized them and started selling them to every biotech company that wanted to catch up, if you will, to what they were doing down at MIT to sequence this quickly.

We started this company called Agincourt, which took a lot of the technologies we built in the genome project and commercialized them and started selling them to every biotech company that wanted to catch up, if you will, to what they were doing down at MIT to sequence this quickly.

So that company, a few years later, Francis Collins funded it for an obscene amount of money to be one of the five genome centers in the country. I think we were probably the only private one that was in there. It was Eric Lander at the Whitehead had one of the grants. Baylor had one of the grants with Richard Gibbs, who's a hilarious guy. You should have him on one day. And then there was St.

So that company, a few years later, Francis Collins funded it for an obscene amount of money to be one of the five genome centers in the country. I think we were probably the only private one that was in there. It was Eric Lander at the Whitehead had one of the grants. Baylor had one of the grants with Richard Gibbs, who's a hilarious guy. You should have him on one day. And then there was St.

So that company, a few years later, Francis Collins funded it for an obscene amount of money to be one of the five genome centers in the country. I think we were probably the only private one that was in there. It was Eric Lander at the Whitehead had one of the grants. Baylor had one of the grants with Richard Gibbs, who's a hilarious guy. You should have him on one day. And then there was St.

Louis, Wash U, St. Louis had a genome center, ours, and then Venture they also funded. So we ended up becoming a sequencing shop, specializing in that. And in the course of doing that, we decided to just change sequencing, like reinvent the whole thing and build a new sequencer. Also received a grant for that.

Louis, Wash U, St. Louis had a genome center, ours, and then Venture they also funded. So we ended up becoming a sequencing shop, specializing in that. And in the course of doing that, we decided to just change sequencing, like reinvent the whole thing and build a new sequencer. Also received a grant for that.

Louis, Wash U, St. Louis had a genome center, ours, and then Venture they also funded. So we ended up becoming a sequencing shop, specializing in that. And in the course of doing that, we decided to just change sequencing, like reinvent the whole thing and build a new sequencer. Also received a grant for that.

So the Agicorp company got acquired in 2005 by Beckman Coulter for the genetics pipeline and all the magnetic bead tools we built to purify DNA. There are these little magnetic particles you can use to capture DNA and rip them out of solution. It's really handy for studying viruses. And everything else. And that was kind of the cornerstone of the IP that we had at Agincourt.

So the Agicorp company got acquired in 2005 by Beckman Coulter for the genetics pipeline and all the magnetic bead tools we built to purify DNA. There are these little magnetic particles you can use to capture DNA and rip them out of solution. It's really handy for studying viruses. And everything else. And that was kind of the cornerstone of the IP that we had at Agincourt.

So the Agicorp company got acquired in 2005 by Beckman Coulter for the genetics pipeline and all the magnetic bead tools we built to purify DNA. There are these little magnetic particles you can use to capture DNA and rip them out of solution. It's really handy for studying viruses. And everything else. And that was kind of the cornerstone of the IP that we had at Agincourt.

But when that happened, we also had played around with taking those beads and putting them down on glass slides under microscopes and sequencing DNA individually off of every single bead. So that we, instead of doing 96 things at a time, we're doing 100 million things at a time. It was a massively, just totally different way of doing it.

But when that happened, we also had played around with taking those beads and putting them down on glass slides under microscopes and sequencing DNA individually off of every single bead. So that we, instead of doing 96 things at a time, we're doing 100 million things at a time. It was a massively, just totally different way of doing it.

But when that happened, we also had played around with taking those beads and putting them down on glass slides under microscopes and sequencing DNA individually off of every single bead. So that we, instead of doing 96 things at a time, we're doing 100 million things at a time. It was a massively, just totally different way of doing it.

We couldn't get the read lengths that we're used to getting, which we used to be able to read like 600 bases or so with these older tools. But this thing, you can get like maybe 30 to 50 bases, but you can get 100 million of them at once in the same timeframe. So it was a total game changer in the sequencing field. Ultimately, we were getting genomes.

We couldn't get the read lengths that we're used to getting, which we used to be able to read like 600 bases or so with these older tools. But this thing, you can get like maybe 30 to 50 bases, but you can get 100 million of them at once in the same timeframe. So it was a total game changer in the sequencing field. Ultimately, we were getting genomes.