Pacific Biosciences

Yeah, I was a scientist.

I was at PacBio in the sample prep team working on developing protocols and assays.

So basically anything that the DNA did before it touched the sequencer, I was working on optimizing those protocols.

My biggest product that I had a hand in launching is Amplify, which I was really proud of.

I worked really well with my manager and like it's a big proud moment for me to say I have like a product that I contributed really so much to and made long read sequencing accessible.

I think at that point I'd been two years out of grad school.

So I went to Michigan to get my PhD and PacBio was my first job out of grad school.

So I was there for two years.

the new CEO of PacBio, next on the show.

Welcome to Mandel's Pod, everyone.

I'm Thurl Timpson.

Mark Van Ohn is here.

He joined PacBio in 2021 as COO and helped oversee the development and launch of Revio, Vega, and most recently, the new chemistry, Sparknext.

Before that, he spent 15 years at Illumina, eventually working his way up from sales rep to chief commercial officer as that company turned sequencing into a global business.

Mark began his career as a scientist studying molecular genetics and cystic fibrosis.

Welcome to Mendel's Pod as CEO.

Longweeds have really transformed what we're going to do in terms of genomics over the next decade.

And I use Oxford Nanopore, but other manufacturers are available, as we know, like PacBio and now actually Roche.

It has a couple of advantages.

The genome is enormously repetitive, which people don't always know.

But over the years, long read accuracy has just gotten better and better and better.

With PacBio, it was really a big jump in accuracy when PacBio largely transitioned to just using what they call HiFi reads, which are multiple passes of the same molecule, so you can get a really nice consensus.

And so PacBio, Modern PacFi reads are not error-prone at all.

They're great.

They have a very low error rate.