Low refocused on time with family and considered what she could do next to continue making a difference. Answers emerged in 2018 when she heard from Richard Scheller, PhD (PhD ’80), with whom she’d worked at biotechnology company Genentech. He had launched a drug development arm for 23andMe, up until then known as a consumer genetic testing business, and he thought Low might be interested in joining.

The potential to improve human health by drawing insights from a massive trove of genomic data was irresistible. “It was incredibly inspiring,” Low says. “The possibilities were so exciting, I wanted to be part of it.”

Today, Low is the head of therapeutics development at 23andMe, where her team contributes to a pipeline of drug candidates targeting genetic markers associated with disease. More than 11.9 million customers have agreed to participate in research, powering the endeavor with the world’s largest database of its kind, 20-plus times bigger than the largest public DNA database (the UK Biobank, with 500,000 participants). “If we were a telescope looking into the biological universe, we can see 20 times farther,” she says.

As overall momentum grows to personalize health care, millions of genetic profiles let 23andMe view connections between genes and disease with unprecedented resolution. Low notes—important for privacy concerns—that neither her team nor 23andMe’s pharmaceutical industry collaborators can access individual customer records. Rather, they work from reports containing complex DNA analyses pointing the way to potential drug targets. The data imparts speed. Just a little more than six years after the therapeutics division’s start, one 23andMe program has already begun a phase 1 clinical trial in partnership with GlaxoSmithKline, and another program was licensed to Almirall. A third, wholly owned by 23andMe, should begin trials in early 2022.