Perlegen Sciences' CEO Brad Margus with his sons Quinn (left) and Jarrett (right).
Few people would envision a former Florida shrimp processor leading a multimillion-dollar Silicon Valley biotechnology company. But Brad Margus is no ordinary shrimp processor. Margus, the CEO of Perlegen Sciences in Mountain View, Calif., has two sons with ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T), a rare genetic disorder that causes neurological decline and early death, most often in the mid-20s. In 1993, when his toddler sons were diagnosed, Margus was a Harvard MBA heading up a south Florida company that sold shrimp to restaurants, cruise lines, and hotels.
After the boys' diagnosis, Margus and his wife Vicki founded the nonprofit A-T Children's Project, and in seven years raised $7 million to help identify the gene that causes the disease, which affects about 500 children in the United States. In 2000, Stanford geneticist David R. Cox was working with Affymetrix CEO Steve ...
