Gen News: Radoje (Rade) Drmanac, CSO of MGI, was a co-founder of Complete Genomics, which ..launched in 2008 with its novel DNA NanoBalls (DNB) platform. .. (A)fter going public (it) was acquired by BGI for about $117 million in 2013. MGI (is) the company’s next-gen subsidiary.

Gen News: What made (you) think of using an antibody?

Radoje Drmanac: It just hit me, like, why in the world are we trying to do this indirectly when antibodies can recognize the base?

Gen News: Drmanac says that it is very cheap, highly specific and there is no cross talk. Not doing this earlier, he explains, was “a simple mental block in our inventions.”

Technology Review: The Shenzhen company says the low cost will be possible with (Drmanac’s) “extreme” DNA sequencing system .. capable of decoding the genomes of 100 000 people per year.

Radoje Drmanac: (This) is not going from bad to good - it‘s going from excellent to extremely excellent.

Gen News: CoolMPS (MPS stands for massively parallel sequencing) is the first nucleobase-specific antibody-based sequencing chemistry.