Matthew Rabinowitz

Matthew Rabinowitz
Born	(1973-02-04) February 4, 1973 Johannesburg, South Africa
Nationality	South African
Education	University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, Stanford University, United States
Occupation	Engineer, entrepreneur
Years active	1998-present
Home town	San Francisco, United States

Matthew Rabinowitz (born 4 February 1973) is an engineer, entrepreneur and founder of Natera, a genetic testing company based in San Carlos, California.^[1] Rabinowitz completed his B.A., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees at Stanford University.^[2] He is the founder of Panopticom, an e-commerce startup that was sold for more than $100 million in 2000, Rosum Corporation, which developed a technology using TV signals to augment GPS,^[3] and Natera, which specializes in analyzing microscopic quantities of DNA for reproductive health indications including non-invasive prenatal testing.^[4][5]

Early life and education

Rabinowitz grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. His father was Chief of Surgery at Baragwaneth Hospital. His mother was also a medical doctor and an alternative medicine practitioner. In addition she was a Senator in the post-apartheid South African government.

Rabinowitz attended the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in South Africa (1991) for a year and half. He received a scholarship to attend Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA in 1992 and graduated with a B.A in Physics and and an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering in 1996. He was presented with the Levine Award and Terman Award for outstanding research and academics in the Department of Physics and the School of Engineering. He was granted a graduate fellowship to the Stanford School of Engineering, and went on to complete a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering.^[6]

Career

Panopticon Inc. (1998-2000)

In 1998 Rabinowitz co-founded Panopticon, an intelligent online merchandising company, which sold for $100 million in 2000.^[7]

Rosum Corporation (2000-2004)

In 2000 he founded the Rosum Corporation and became the CEO, and the CTO a few years later. Rosum developed a location technology using digital TV signals to augment GPS for positioning indoors and urban areas where GPS signal is not active.^[8]

Natera Inc. (2005-present)

In 2003 his sister’s child was born with Down Syndrome, and passed away soon after. This prompted him to assemble a team of experts in medicine, engineering, data analytics, and genetics to research and develop a non-invasive screening test for this condition.

Natera is a genetic testing company that develops and commercializes non-invasive methods for analyzing cell-free DNA. Natera has commercialized five genetic screening tests that support decision-making in the prenatal setting. The best known of these tests is Panorama—a noninvasive screening test that relies upon SNP technology, to uniquely distinguish fetal and maternal DNA,^[9] which provides families information on their baby’s risk for common aneuploidies such as Down Syndrome, and microdeletions such as the 22q syndrome. Natera also offers the Horizon test that screens for the carrier status for up to 274 conditions in the preconception or prenatal settings, to assess the risk to the child being affected by one of these conditions.^[10] Natera is currently developing technologies for the early detection and treatment of certain cancers.^[11]

Awards and honors

• Levine Award, Stanford University Department of Physics, 1996
• Terman Engineering Scholastic Award, Stanford School of Engineering
• Innovators Under 35, MIT Technology Review, 2005^[12]
• Scott Helt Memorial Award, IEEE, 2006
• 100 Technology Pioneers award, World Economic Forum

Research and publications

Dr. Rabinowitz has published papers on topics ranging from genome prediction to economic analysis of cell-free DNA to specific adaptive algorithms. Selected Peer-Reviewed Publications (reverse chronological order):

1. Kumar A, Ryan A, Kitzman JO, et al. (Rabinowitz M. last author). Whole genome prediction for preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Genome Med. 2015;8;7(1):35.^[13]
2. Benn P, Curnow KJ, Chapman S, et al. (Rabinowitz M. last author). An economic analysis of cell-free DNA non-invasive prenatal testing in the US general pregnancy population. PLoS One. 2015;10(7):e0132313. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0132313.^[14]
3. Simon A, Su B, Demko Z, et al. (Rabinowitz M. third to last author). Detection of a complete molar pregnancy by single nucleotide polymorphism-based noninvasive prenatal testing. Ultrasound Obstet. Gyncol. 2015, Mar 23. doi: 10.1002/uog.14854. Epub ahead of print. Further reading.^[15]
4. McCoy R, Demko Z , Ryan A, et al. (Rabinowitz M. third to last author). Common variants spanning PLK4 are associated with mitotic-origin aneuploidy in human embryos. Science. 2015;348(6231):235-238.^[16]
5. Wapner RJ, Babiarz JE, Levy B, et al. (Rabinowitz M. third to last author). Expanding the scope of noninvasive prenatal testing: detection of fetal microdeletion syndromes. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2015;212(3):332.^[17]
6. Curnow KJ, Wilkins-Haug L, et al. (Rabinowitz M. penultimate author). Detection of triploid, molar, and vanishing twin pregnancies by a single-nucleotide polymorphism-based noninvasive prenatal test. J Obstet Gynecol. 2015;212(1):79.^[18]
7. Dar P, Curnow KJ, Zimmermann B, et al. (Rabinowitz M. penultimate author). Clinical experience and follow-up with large scale single-nucleotide polymorphism-based non-invasive prenatal aneuploidy testing. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2014;1(5):527.^[19]
8. Pergament E, Cuckle H, Zimmermann B, et al. (Rabinowitz M. last author). Single-nucleotide polymorphism-based noninvasive prenatal screening in a high-risk and low-risk cohort. Obstet Gynecol. 2014;124(2 Pt 1):210-208.^[20]
9. Levy B, Sigurjonsson S, Pettersen B, et al. (Rabinowitz M. last author). Genomic imbalance in products of conception: single nucleotide polymorphism chromosomal microarray analysis. Obstet. Gynecol 2014;124(2 Pt 1):202-209.^[21]
10. Hall MP, Hill M, Zimmermann B, Sigurjonsson S, Westemeyer M, Saucier J, Demko Z, Rabinowitz M.. Non-invasive prenatal detection of trisomy 13 using a single nucleotide polymorphism- and informatics-based approach. PLoS One. 2014;9(5):e96677.^[22]
11. Samango-Sprouse C, Banjevic M, Ryan A, et al. (Rabinowitz M last author). SNP-based non-invasive prenatal testing detects sex chromosome aneuploidies with high accuracy. Prenat Diagn 2013;33:1-7.^[23]
12. Zimmermann B, Hill M, Gemelos G, et al. (Rabinowitz M last author). Noninvasive prenatal aneuploidy testing of chromosomes 13, 18, 21, X, and Y using targeted sequencing of polymorphic loci. Prenat Diagn. 2012;32:1233-1241.^[24]
13. Ryan A, Baner J, Demko Z, et al. (Rabinowitz M last author). Informatics-based, highly accurate, non-invasive prenatal paternity testing. Genet Med 2013;15(6):473-7.^[25]
14. Lathi RB, Loring M, Massie JAM, et al. (Rabinowitz M last author). Informatics-enhanced SNP microarray analysis of 30 miscarriage samples compared to routine cytogenetics. PLoS One. 2012;7:e31282.^[26]
15. Rabinowitz M, Ryan A, Gemelos G, et al. Origins and rates of aneuploidy in human blastomeres. Fertil Steril. 2012;97(2):395-401.^[27]
16. Johnson DS, Cinnioglu C, Ross R, et al. (Rabinowitz M penultimate author). Comprehensive analysis of karyotypic mosaicism between trophectoderm and inner cell mass. Mol Hum Reprod. 2010;16:944-949.^[28]
17. Johnson D et al. (Rabinowitz M last author). Preclinical validation of a microarray method for full molecular karyotyping of blastomeres in a 24-hour protocol. Human Reproduction. 2010;5(4):1066-75.^[29]
18. Demko Z, Rabinowitz M, Johnson D. Current methods in preimplantation genetic diagnosis. J Clin Embryol 2010;13:11-22.^[30]
19. Rabinowitz M, et al. Accurate prediction of HIV-1 drug response from the reverse transcriptase and protease amino acid sequences using sparse models created by convex optimization. Bioinformatics 2006;22:541-549. Further reading.^[31]
20. Rabinowitz M, Spilker J. An internet-based system for achieving reliable indoor positioning using broadcast television synchronization signals. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, 2005;51:51-61.^[32]
21. Rabinowitz M, Spilker J. Augmenting GPS with television signals for reliable indoor positioning. Navigation: J Institute of Navigation 2004;51:Winter 2004.^[33]
22. Rabinowitz M, Gutt GM, Franklin GF. An adaptive Gauss-Newton algorithm for training multilayer nonlinear filters that have embedded memory. circuits systems and signal processing. 1999;18(4).^[34]
23. Rabinowitz M, Gutt GM, Franklin GF. Adaptive Post-Linearization of Dynamic Nonlinear Systems with Artificial Neural Networks. ASME J Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control.1999;121(1).^[35]
24. Rabinowitz M, Franklin GF, Gutt GM. The design of multi-layer nonlinear adaptive filters. NASA Technical Briefs 1996;MFS-26500.^[36]

Peer-Reviewed publications using Natera technology (reverse chronological order)

• Lathi RB, Gustin SL, Keller J, Maisenbacher MK, Sigurjonsson S, Tao R, Demko Z. Reliability of 46,XX results on miscarriage specimens: a review of 1,222 first-trimester miscarriage specimens. Fertil Steril 2014;101:178-182.^[37]
• Nicolaides KH, Syngelaki A, del Mar Gil M, Soledad Quezada M, Zinevich Y. Prenatal detection of fetal triploidy from cell-free DNA testing in maternal blood. Fetal Diagn Ther 2013;doi:10.1159/000355655.^[38]
• Nicolaides KH, Syngelaki A, Gil M, Atanasova V, Markova D. Validation of targeted sequencing of single-nucleotide polymorphisms for non-invasive prenatal detection of aneuploidy of chromosomes 13, 18, 21, X, and Y. Prenat Diagn 2013;33:1-5.^[39]

Patents

1. M. Rabinowitz, “System and method for cleaning noisy genetic data from target individuals using genetic data from genetically related individuals” US Patent 9,424,392; 9/23/2016.^[40]
2. M. Rabinowitz, et al. “Methods for non-invasive prenatal ploidy calling” US Patent 9,228,234; 1/5/2016.^[41]
3. M. Rabinowitz, et al. “Methods for non-invasive prenatal ploidy calling” US Patent 8,949,036; 2/3/2015.^[42]
4. M. Rabinowitz, “System and method for cleaning noisy genetic data from target individuals using genetic data from genetically related individuals” US Patent 9,430,611; 3/27/2014.^[43]
5. M. Rabinowitz, et al. “System and method for cleaning noisy genetic data from target DNA using genetic data from genetically related individuals.” US Patent 8,682,592; 3/25/2014.^[44]
6. M. Rabinowitz, et al. “Methods for non-invasive prenatal ploidy calling” US Patent 8,825,412; 2/9/2014.^[45]
7. M. Rabinowitz, “Method for determining the number of copies of a chromosome in the genome of a target individual using genetic data from genetically related individuals” US Patent 8,532,930; 9/10/2013.^[46]
8. M. Rabinowitz, et al. “System and method for cleaning noisy genetic data and determining chromosome copy number.” US Patent 8,515,679; 8/20/2013.^[47]
9. M. Rabinowitz, et al. “Methods for non-invasive prenatal ploidy calling” US Patent 9,163,282; 7/11/2013.^[48]
10. M. Rabinowitz, “System and method for improving clinical decisions by aggregating, validating and analyzing genetic and phenotypic data” US Patent 8,024,128; 9/20/2011.^[49]

References