Darwin’s Ark broadened its focus to cats in 2024, and whereas it’s too quickly for any outcomes, even the analysis strategies are proving fascinating. The same old strategy to extract DNA from a residing animal is by swabbing the within of a cheek. Canine don’t thoughts the method, however cats aren’t as amenable to having issues caught of their mouths. Nor do cats admire having hairs plucked out with their follicles, one other potential supply of DNA for sequencing. So Chad Nusbaum, PhD ’91, one other Human Genome Venture colleague that Lieu recruited, helped the Darwin’s Ark crew determine how you can successfully extract DNA from fur or hair that has been shed—a giant breakthrough for the sector. (This implies, in follow, that cats’ DNA is collected by brushing their fur. Now the cats “not solely don’t thoughts pattern assortment—a few of them actually get pleasure from it,” Nusbaum says with fun.)
That’s good for cats, however it may even have far-reaching implications on the earth of conservation, the place acquiring DNA from endangered or delicate animals by way of blood or pores and skin samples may be prohibitively tough or distressing to the animals. With the ability to rely as an alternative on a couple of strands of naturally shed hair may unlock new frontiers for conservationists working with delicate species.
The data that progress on such essential points may come from inside or exterior the group was what led Lieu and Karlsson to construction Darwin’s Ark as a nonprofit and make its information out there free of charge to researchers exterior industrial settings. Whereas it already periodically shares its sequence information in numerous public repositories, these repositories are managed by totally different entities, making it harder for scientists to make use of the knowledge. So researchers should typically write in, clarify what they’re attempting to do, and put in a customized request.Darwin’s Ark simply acquired a grant that can enable it to start constructing a public portal for the information, making it far simpler for researchers to entry, match, and use.
“Our hope is that we might have the ability to create a knowledge set that scientists all over the world would have the ability to leverage to elucidate no matter it’s that they’re doing,” Lieu says. “Whether or not you’re a most cancers scientist or a neurological scientist or an immunology-focused scientist, any variety of advanced illness areas may very well be helped by having very huge information units.”
For Lieu, Darwin’s Ark is however the newest line in an extended and wide-ranging résumé that features stints at Amazon and NASA. “The thread that ties all of it collectively is massive information,” she says.
After residing and respiratory information in her work on the Human Genome Venture, Lieu tackled a really totally different massive information problem at Amazon on a crew that collected information on warehouse success. Drawing on her organic sciences background, she developed an evolutionary algorithm for outbound logistics that made it attainable—with out always analyzing the information—to dynamically optimize storage and dramatically decrease success prices. The founder or cofounder of at the least a dozen ventures thus far, she constructed on her expertise at Amazon together with her most up-to-date startup, a logistics firm referred to as AirTerra that helps e-commerce retailers streamline supply by bringing collectively extremely fragmented last-mile transport suppliers below one umbrella. Formally based in 2020, it shortly achieved unicorn standing and was acquired by the style firm American Eagle Outfitters in 2021. Whereas Lieu chalks a few of that success as much as luck (“You begin a transport and logistics group within the pandemic—in fact you’re going to get acquired”), her cofounder Brent Beabout, MBA ’02, is fast to level to the ability and work ethic that made her “luck” attainable.
In addition to being “extremely collaborative” and “tremendous educated,” Lieu gave her all in a approach that set her aside, based on Beabout. “She is a passionate individual,” he says. “I’ve by no means seen an individual that labored as many hours as Charlie did … I don’t suppose she ever slept.”
Lieu jokes that she’s in a “midlife disaster” as she kinds out what to do subsequent, as a result of there’s a lot she may do. So she’s on the lookout for the “greatest factor” she will do for the world.
Although Lieu has made out properly as an entrepreneur, she grew up “properly under the poverty line.” Each these experiences formed the sort of investor she’s turn into: one who’s distinctly fascinated about serving to different entrepreneurs confront limitations. “I wished to look again on all of the obstacles that I had confronted arising,” she says. “Not simply as a lady, not simply as an individual of coloration, however [also] the financial limitations of not having the community, not having the ability to entry different individuals who have been profitable, not even understanding the fundamentals of monetary markets.” To that finish, she’s spent a lot of her profession attempting to offer again by way of mentorship and direct funding in ventures began by founders from underrepresented backgrounds.
