science

Macrogen

Macrogen is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Macrogen rather than just read about it. In short: Macrogen, Inc. is a South Korean public biotechnology company. The company's headquarters are located in Seoul.

Key takeaways

Macrogen belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Macrogen to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Macrogen from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Macrogen, Inc. is a South Korean public biotechnology company. The company's headquarters are located in Seoul. The company was founded in 1997 by Jeong-sun Seo, a professor at Seoul National University. It was venture capital-backed until its initial public offering (IPO) and subsequent listing on the KOSDAQ market in 2000, making it the first Korean biotechnology firm to raise funds through an IPO. The company announced plans in 2010 to map the "Korean genome" based on the notion that United States-backed genome mapping efforts up to that time were representative of the "Caucasian genome" rather than the "Human genome" as claimed. By 2015, the company was described by one news outlet as "a global leader in personalized genomic medicine".

Business model Macrogen's business model focuses on providing research services to other firms engaged in biotechnology research and development. As of 2005, 50% of the firm's revenue was derived from DNA sequencing services. Prior to its 2000 IPO, the company aimed to be the low-cost leader in providing research services; after the IPO, Macrogen turned to DNA sequencing technology development as a way to distinguish itself from competitors. Consistent with the post-IPO competitive technology strategy was Macrogen's being among the first customers to purchase a HiSeq X Ten System from Illumina in January 2014, purported to be the first sequencing system to enable cracking the $1,000 genome boundary. Macrogen operates worldwide through a network of branch offices and subsidiaries. In 2004, it founded Macrogen Corp. in the US, which in 2019 became Psomagen Inc. In 2008, it established its first European branch office in Amsterdam, which in 2017 became a subsidiary, Macrogen Europe BV.

Corporate governance As of 2014, HyungTae Kim held the role of chief executive officer (CEO) at Macrogen. By early 2015, however, the CEO role had been filled by Hyon-yong Chong. With respect to the company's Board, founder Jeong-sun Seo remained Chairman as of 2015. According to KOSDAQ statistics, over 90% of the company's outstanding stock is held by individual investors.

Strategic and tactical relationships In late 2014, Macrogen licensed Clarity LIMS from GenoLogics, a system "built specifically for the needs of clinical or research genomics and mass spec laboratories". Initial integration with service offerings was to be through the USA-based Macrogen Clinical Laboratory. In 2014 and 2015, Macrogen won competitive bidding rounds to provide genome analysis services to the University College London.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Macrogen

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Macrogen claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Macrogen before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Macrogen ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Macrogen

In research: Macrogen appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Macrogen in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Macrogen is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Biotechnology companies established in 1997, Biotechnology companies of South Korea, Companies based in Seoul, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Macrogen outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Macrogen in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Macrogen means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Macrogen out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Macrogen in simple terms?

Macrogen, Inc. is a South Korean public biotechnology company. The company's headquarters are located in Seoul.

Why does Macrogen matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Macrogen?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Macrogen.