Earlier this year at the February AGBT Conference, a person from QIAGEN came over to the Ion Torrent suite and asked me a few questions about the Ion Proton and in particular the upcoming Ion Chef unit. (The Ion Chef for those not familiar with it can replace the OneTouch 2 automated template preparation instrument with another one that will not only perform the emulsion PCR but also enrich the ion sphere particles, and load the chips as well.)