Healthcare >> CEO Interviews >> September 14, 2001
JONATHAN M. ROTHBERG is the Founder, Chairman, President and Chief
Executive Officer of CuraGen Corporation, a genomics-based
pharmaceutical company. He founded CuraGen in 1993 at the intersection
of information technology and molecular biology to manage the vast
amount of information being generated by the Human Genome Project. Dr.
Rothberg's vision was to develop technologies to industrialize the drug
discovery and development process and systematically mine the genome to
develop novel, genomics-based pharmaceutical products to treat unmet
medical needs. From 1991 to 1993, Dr. Rothberg served as a postdoctoral
Fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Boyer Center for
Molecular Medicine. Dr. Rothberg earned a BS in Chemical Engineering
from Carnegie Mellon University and an MS, M. Phil. and PhD in Biology
from Yale University. Since founding CuraGen, Dr. Rothberg has grown the
company into one of the industry's largest genomics-based pharmaceutical
companies. Expanding on his vision for the future of life sciences, Dr.
Rothberg has established two new innovative organizations. In June 2000,
he founded 454 Life Sciences, a majority-owned subsidiary of CuraGen, a
leader in developing novel instrumentation and sub-nanoliter
technologies for whole genome sequencing. In the fall of 2001, Dr.
Rothberg founded The Rothberg Institute for Childhood Diseases, a non-
profit research institute dedicated to discovering cures for childhood
orphan diseases. The institute leverages distributed computing power to
screen drug targets in silico and funds the 'wet science' validation of
these in silico discoveries at the institute's own research center and
through alliances with Yale, Harvard and the Chase Cancer Center.
Currently, with more than 3,000 users, the distributed research effort
has more computing power than the largest biotech companies, and in less
than one year, has identified four drug leads. As a result of his work
and accomplishments, Dr. Rothberg was inducted into the National Academy
of Engineering, was named an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year
and was a recipient of The Irvington Institute's Corporate Leadership
Award in Science. He is the author of numerous publications and has been
issued a number of patents covering his scientific inventions. Profile
Dr. Rothberg: CuraGen has positioned itself as a leading genomics-based
pharmaceutical company. Historically we felt we
