Linda Avey

The age of 'precision' healthcare, where an individual's personal metrics are used to target therapy and design preventive recourse, is still in its infancy, but Linda helped push it forward. In 2006 she co-founded 23andMe, the leading personal genetics company. Simply by providing a saliva sample, individuals can learn about themselves through the lens of their DNA. There are now over 1 million people enrolled, making it the world’s largest genetic database with online ties to its participants, 80% of whom contribute to the company’s research mission. 23andMe was chosen as Invention of the Year in 2008 by TIME magazine.

Linda’s current start-up is We Are Curious, Inc., which she co-founded in 2011 with Heather Anne Halpert and Mitsu Hadeishi. Curious is an online platform where diverse data from sensors, wearables, trackers, apps, social media, biometrics, and other sources of personal data can be gathered, explored, and shared. The proliferation of these devices and the accumulation of personal data can be overwhelming; Curious provides analytics, a social graph, and an infrastructure for people to get the most out of that data.

Prior to her start-up experience, Linda spent over two decades working in the pharma/biotech and biomedical research field, directly interfacing with scientists who sequenced the human genome to protein biochemists mapping the proteome. Those experiences motivated her to create new and disruptive research strategies.

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