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No person should face discrimination for who they are, which is why 23andMe is joining more than 100 of America’s leading companies in speaking up in support of trans youth. You are part of our family.
23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki talks to Harvard Business Review's Editor-in-Chief Adi Ignatius about her goals for 23andMe and the challenges she has faced.
Our CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki recently joined the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion™ pledge which is the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion within the workplace. “Creating a more inclusive work environment and product is a lifelong journey that will require continuous input and feedback,” Anne said. “Joining this pledge will allow us to collaborate and learn from other organizations so that we can all build more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces and products.”
In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, 23andMe employees got to hear from Kathy Leong, text author of the book “San Francisco’s Chinatown”. During her presentation, Kathy discussed the history of Chinatown and some heroes in the community that have helped sustain it. She also spoke about the impact recent events have had on the AAPI community and the hope San Francisco’s Chinatown still has for the future. Kathy is pictured with Dick Evans who took the photographs for “San Francisco’s Chinatown”.
Last Friday was 23andMe’s 6th annual Moving Day fundraiser to support the Parkinson's Foundation. 23andMe has a longstanding connection to Parkinson’s Disease, and the Parkinson’s Foundation is one of the largest Parkinson's Disease charities in the US. Although we are still virtual, employees came together for a silent auction, bake sale and a video talent show. This year’s talents included singing, mountain biking, piano playing and more! The final leg of our fundraiser was the national Moving Day Walk event, which took place last Saturday, May 22 in cities across the country (also virtually).
Most of us have at least one genetic variant that alters how our bodies process certain commonly prescribed medications. And 23andMe is the first and only direct-to-consumer company with FDA-authorized pharmacogenetic reports that test for some of those variants. This week, as part of our 23andMe+ Membership Service, we released two new Medication Insights* on citalopram and clopidogrel, two widely prescribed medications used for treating depression and heart disease. We hope that our members can share these reports with their doctor and make smarter decisions about their medications together.
We are committed to helping doctors and other healthcare professionals keep up with evolving patient conversations around genetics. That is why we collaborated with Osmosis - Knowledge Diffusion Osmosis to create a series of educational videos that discuss direct-to-consumer genetic testing, interpreting results and more. “The content in the videos is designed to address specific practice-based competencies that all physicians are expected to have in order to provide a standard of care to patients around genetic issues,” said Anne Greb, MS, Certified Genetic Counselor, and 23andMe Medical Education Team lead.
This week 23andMe employees heard from Dr. Walter Conwell, MD, MBA, and Associate Dean for Equity, Inclusion and Diversity at Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine. He discussed the historic and current role of race and racism in medicine and science and how understanding it allows us to better serve patients and our communities.
For 23andMe's 15th anniversary, employees got to celebrate at a social distancing Anniversary Celebration at the San Francisco Zoo. From animals, to train rides, to picnicking with co-workers, it was a fun break for employees and their families.
A new national sleep survey by 23andMe found that many people have had sleep issues over the last year. Eric Rasmussen, 23andMe’s Head of Consumer Insights, notes that, “The survey offers another proof point for the impact of the pandemic. What we don't know yet, but something 23andMe scientists would like to know, is how much of an impact these disruptions might have on people's long-term health.”
