Taking Risks in the Name of Change

Anne Wojcicki is being honored as a Champion of Change in the Fight Against Parkinson's Disease.

I am humbled to be named one of the White House Champions of Change and to be in the company of such luminaries in the quest to conquer Parkinson’s.  

Taking risks in the name of change is important, especially in health care.

I co-founded 23andMe with the belief that the combination of science, social media and you, the consumer, could change research and ultimately create new paths for treatment and prevention. In a short time we have built what is now the world’s largest community of genotyped Parkinson’s patients. This has allowed researchers to discover dozens of new genetic associations for Parkinson’s, and helped give scientists new insight into the disease .Our researchers are investigating not just the genetics that increases one’s risk for Parkinson’s, but what genetic variants may be protective against the disease. We have partnered with non-profit organizations, academic researchers and pharmaceutical companies all in a multi-front effort to make breakthroughs.

I am most inspired by the members of our Parkinson’s research community. They contribute something far more valuable than money: information about themselves. By enabling individuals to come together and share their genetic information and information about themselves, we have the opportunity to make new discoveries and cures at a much faster pace. This is what most excites me about the novel research platform 23andMe pioneered.

Directly involving consumers in researchers is new, and what we have learned is that people are eager to participate in research. Sometimes the best of humanity comes out when we are sick; no one wants to see another suffer in illness. When 23andMe asks people for information about themselves to contribute to research on disease, we see significant participation.  So what I have learned after eight years is that there is incredible opportunity before us to gather enough knowledge from the community that we can transform our understanding of health and disease.

My own family has a genetic risk for Parkinson’s, so this mission is personal. Discovering how to prevent or how to treat Parkinson's disease is important for my family and my children. I don’t want to wait for the system to come up with an answer. I want to be part of the solution.

I want to thank the 600,000+ individuals who are currently participating in 23andMe research. They have helped power breakthrough discoveries in Parkinson’s and other diseases. That is incredibly important to me, and hopefully the information I have contributed about me will power the discoveries that help the disease research that is incredibly important to you. We’re all in this together.

Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe, helped co-found the direct to consumer genetics testing company in 2006 after a decade spent investing in healthcare. 23andMe has built one of the world’s largest databases of individual genetic information.