consumer-genomics
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Tomohiro Takano
Tomohiro Takano is the co-founder and CEO of Genomelink (operated by AWAKENS, Inc.), a Berkeley-based consumer genomics company building what he calls a 'DNA App Store.' The platform lets people who have taken tests from services like 23andMe or AncestryDNA upload their raw DNA data to unlock ancestry breakdowns, ancient-DNA comparisons, hundreds of trait analyses, and DNA matching. Takano started the company in 2016 as a weekend project in Japan with co-founders he met at university, moved to the Bay Area with no visa and little funding, and won a spot at Berkeley SkyDeck one day before the team was set to fly home and shut down. He frames himself as a 'risk manager' rather than a risk taker, and credits a liberal arts education for teaching him to ask the right questions.
Kian Sadeghi
Kian Sadeghi is the founder and CEO of Nucleus Genomics, a New York biotech building consumer whole-genome sequencing that aims to put your DNA in your pocket. He dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania at 20, taught himself genetics across 18 notebooks in a Brooklyn year he hid from his parents, won a Thiel Fellowship, and raised roughly $32 million from Peter Thiel, Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six, Balaji Srinivasan and Founders Fund. His mission traces to a cousin who died young of a suspected heart-rhythm disorder, and his blunt embrace of 'genetic optimization' has made him one of the most debated young founders in biotech.