"What you need is something you can throw away!"
At first thought, such a statement seems an unlikely premise to model a successful company on. It was the summer of 1986, and the advice was given to a young European scientist with a good idea but little experience of market requirements. It came from Michael Hunkapiller, head of research at the California firm Applied Biosystems, and it turned out to be absolutely spot-on.
The young scientist, Metin Colpan, took the counsel of his experienced colleague to heart. On the flight back to Germany he began revising his ideas for a new product. Colpan's idea was to place the materials needed for isolating and purifying nucleic acids into small plastic vessels instead of the stainless steel columns that were currently used. Miniaturization might solve all the problems besetting the nucleic acid isolation and purification in one go. A ...
