Anne Wojcicki
Mar25

Accelerating Discoveries through Genetic Data

Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe CEO and co-founder

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For more than a decade 23andMe has empowered individuals with direct access to their genetic information - millions of people have discovered how their DNA may impact their health, and what it says about their ancestry. 23andMe also powers the world’s largest crowd-sourced genetic research platform, with more than 80% of its customers contributing to research, answering over 2 billion survey questions to date. Studying massive amounts of de-identified genetic information alongside survey data has led to 1,500 novel genetic discoveries and 130-plus peer-reviewed publications. This has allowed researchers to advance our understanding of common conditions like motion sickness, asthma and allergies, to more serious health implications such as Parkinson’s disease and various types of cancer. 23andMe also uses information from its research platform and machine learning to uncover and provide new, personalized genetic information to its customers on an ongoing basis. Anne will discuss the company’s discovery process, current applications and potential for future insights.

About Anne Wojcicki

Anne Wojcicki

Anne co-founded 23andMe in 2006 after a decade spent in healthcare investing, focused primarily on biotechnology companies. Her hope was to empower consumers with access to their own genetic information and to create a way to generate more personalized information so that commercial and academic researchers could better understand and develop new drugs and diagnostics. Presently, 23andMe has built one of the world’s largest databases of individual genetic information. Its novel, web-based research approach allows for the rapid recruitment of participants to many genome-wide association studies at once, reducing the time and money needed to make new discoveries, and the company has created a proven and standardized resource for finding new genetic association and confirming genetic loci discovered by others. Under Anne’s leadership 23andMe has made significant advances in bringing personalized medicine directly to the public. Anne graduated from Yale University with a BS in Biology. Getting access to and understanding her own genetic information had always been one of her ambitions.

Audience: Public

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