Anne Wojcicki

Wojcicki was born in Palo Alto, California, and has two older sisters, Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube,[3] and Janet Wojcicki, a PhD anthropologist and epidemiologist.[4] Her parents are Esther Wojcicki (née Hochman), an educator of Jewish descent, and Stanley Wojcicki, a Polish-born physics professor emeritus at Stanford University. The three sisters consequentially grew up on the university’s campus.[3] Anne also learned to figure skate at a young age, which she paid for herself.[3]

When she was two, she learned how to figure skate, and later started playing ice hockey.[5]

Wojcicki attended Gunn High School, in Palo Alto, California, where she edited the school newspaper The Oracle, and won a scholarship for her sports stories.[4][6]. She holds a B.S. in biology which she received from Yale University in 1996. During her time there she played on the varsity women's ice hockey team.[7][8][9] She has also conducted molecular biology research at the National Institutes of Health and at UC, San Diego.[6]

After her graduation, Wojcicki worked as a health care consultant at Passport Capital, a San Francisco-based investment fund[6] and at Investor AB.[5] She was a health care investment analyst[7] for 4 years, overseeing health care investments, focusing on biotechnology companies. Disillusioned by the culture of Wall Street and its attitude towards health care,[10] she quit in 2000, intending to take the MCAT and enroll in medical school. Instead, she decided to focus on research.[5]

Wojcicki is best known as the co-founder and CEO of 23andMe, a privately-owned, direct to consumer DNA testing company, which allows for consumers to test for ancestry and health risks.[7][11] Anne founded the company in 2006 with Linda Avey and Paul Cusenza,[12] with a goal of solving the pain point that a majority of people do not have access to their genetic information, which could provide information on cures for diseases or treatments, especially with the help of Glaxo and their $300 million investment.[11] Anne has expressed interest in “revolutioniz[ing] health care” with DNA testing,[11] as it could provide consumers with sufficient enough information as to predict potential genetic illnesses.

Consumers can purchase testing kits for $99, $199, and $499 which provide information on ancestry, health, and genetic traits. The company takes saliva samples that are mailed in by buyers, and processes the genetic information, posting the results online for the buyer to view.[13]

The company is named for the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a normal human cell. The company's personal genome test kit was named "Invention of the Year" by Time magazine in 2008.[14] From 2015, the FDA started to give approval to 23andMe's health-related tests, including risk from cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, certain cancers, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and coeliac disease.[15][16] In 2018, 23andMe entered into a four-year collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline to develop new medicines.[17][11]

Wojcicki is a member of the Xconomists, an ad hoc team of editorial advisors for the tech news and media company, Xconomy.[18] In October 2013, Fast Company named Wojcicki "The Most Daring CEO".[5][19] She is a co-founder and board member of the Breakthrough Prize.[20]

Wojcicki married Google co-founder Sergey Brin in May 2007.[7] They have a son, Benji Wojin, born in December 2008, and a daughter, Chloe Wojin, born in late 2011.[21] Wojcicki is not religious.[22] The couple stopped living together in 2013,[23] and they divorced in 2015.[24]

Brin and Wojcicki, although divorced, still jointly run The Brin Wojcicki Foundation.[25] They have donated extensively to The Michael J. Fox Foundation and in 2009 gave $1 million to support the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.[26]

Her grandfather, Franciszek Wójcicki, was a People's Party and Polish People's Party politician who had been elected MP during the Polish legislative election, 1947.[27] Her grandmother, Janina Wójcicka Hoskins, was a Polish-American librarian at the Library of Congress who was responsible for building the largest collection of Polish material in the United States.[28]

GlaxoSmithKline:

As part of a four year joint collaboration, Glaxo invested $300 million in 2018, granting the company access to the 23andMe database. This is a step forward for potential illness prevention, as Glaxo is a pharmaceutical company and has developed a leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) receptor inhibitor, which could provide major benefits to Parkinson’s treatments, as the LRRK2 gene is an aspect of the pathology of Parkinson’s. [11]

Controversies:

23andMe has had controversies regarding data privacy. Wojcicki has noted that consent over data privacy is a top priority, and consumers can opt out, although once this data has been sent to companies it can never be retrieved.[11] Similar concerns have been posted about Glaxo having access to consumer data. Consumers are also upset that Glaxo’s investment does not benefit individual’s whose genetic data has been used for research.[11]