Newsmaker

Every Friday, we choose an alum who has been making headlines—for better or for worse.
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Anne Wojcicki ’96

By the staff | 10:18am October 31 2008

When Anne Wojcicki ’96 and her husband, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, have their first child in November, they’ll have more than a family tree to put in the baby book. The tot will have access to a wealth of information based on DNA samples supplied by Brin and Wojcicki and analyzed by 23andMe, a company founded by Wojcicki and Linda Avey. (Google put up $3.9 million of the company’s estimated $10 million in capital.) 23andMe (named for the number of chromosome pairs humans carry) offers a $399 saliva test that can tell you about your ancestry and about your predisposition to some 90 inheritable conditions ranging from psoriasis to schizophrenia. Time magazine calls the company’s retail test the Invention of the Year for 2008, and the company has been collecting the saliva of the rich and famous at “spit parties,” at the World Economic Forum in Davos and more recently in New York.

Filed under alumnae, inventions
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