DNA Catalyst Awards 2010

So often awards are created from those on top and handed down. This award comes from the bottom-up.

One of the huge benefits of starting a company is that it provides an opportunity to engage with many brilliant people. So often when a start-up succeeds the credit goes to the Founding team (who in DNA Guide's case have incredible endurance), CEO or lead investor. As Founder of pre-funded startup ... I can tell you it's the kindness of strangers that allows a startup to succeed. It's the people I approached "cold" who put in the effort to understand something that didn’t previously exist and then offered what they could to help make it happen that mattered. For everyone who offered time, expertise and effort - thank you!

The DNA Guide Catalyst Award is intended to acknowledge the brilliant and generous people I've had the pleasure of interacting with this past year. To let 2010 pass without their gift would be a mistake and if by chance DNA Guide is a huge success....these folks can use this list as proof that I owe them a favor.

The winners on this list below appear roughly by chronology …starting with the Personalized Medicine World Conference in January 2010.

DNA Catalyst Awards for 2010

* Melanie Swan – Founder DIYgenomics.org,, for offering her own genetic data to work with.
* David Ewing Duncan for offering us his own genetic data to work with.
* Raymond McCauley, Illumina for lunch and offering his genetic data to work with.
* Rade Drmanac, Complete Genomics for spending a large chunk of his time with us at Personalized Medicine World conference and having us come in to Complete Genomics afterwards.
* Jordanna Joaquina - Founder of Access DNA (now Inheritied Health) and Ash Damle CEO of MEDgle.com for sharing the startups panel at PMWC2010.
* Thomas Li from Hoffman La Roche – for encouraging feedback.
* Roy Varshavsky, Microsoft Israel Innovation Labs for encouragement.
* Sean David from Stanford School of Medicine for suggesting he’d like DNA Guide software in a clinical setting to help get smokers to stop by viewing their SNPs.
* Matthew Hudes of Deloitte for consumer survey info.
* Lisa Thornquist, for information on the grants.
* Yelena Shevelenko – ITechomics (previously with Rosetta Inpharmatics) for sharing a ride to the airport and expressing interest in working on the project.
* Wolfgang Daum, Boston Heart Lab for the intro to Knome.
* Jorge Conde and Sundar Subramaniam for fitting in a web-ex conference.
* Tom Eddington for kind advice
* Richard Resnick, Genome Quest for reaching out to discuss collaborations.
* Nola E. Masterson and Martin Reese for encouragement.
* Remi Brouard, for tremendous endurance at BayBio round table and offering a referral to Eric Topol.
* C. Rachal Winger, K&L Gates for some fun phone calls.
* Cong-Qiu Chu, MD, PhD for wanting our software for his clinical practice.
* Nathan Lillegard of Flora Genex for suggesting DNA Guide might be helpful for plant genomes.
* Lewis Rumpler of Signature Genomics for seeing DNA Guide's potential.
* Alisha Holloway from J. David Gladstone Institutes for invitation for to give a tutorial at International Conference on Computational Systems Bioinformatics - Stanford 2010.
* Marcie Newman and Timothy Rezendes of British Consultate for lining up meetings for Bill Kimmerly in the UK.
* Ted Driscol for a pleasant meeting.
* Claire KinLaw of Northern Silicon Valley Partnership for the chance to present to Michael Brahan of Kaiser Permanente Ventures.
* Sonia Sousa of Spectro Scape for an offer of intro’s to other investors.
* Arno Boer for intro to Mark Jacobsen which led to meeting with Tim O'Reilly.
* John Boyce for offering DNA Guide a slot on the technology breakthrough panel at the Consumer Genetics Conference in Boston.
* Christopher Tsai, GenHealth for running our technology by Krishna Yeshwant at Google Ventures.
* Jeff Protentis – for the intro to Mark Boguski and coming on board as our sales rep @ 100% commission
* Paul Slowey of Oasis Diagnostics for reaching out.
* Maren Connary and Sean Chai for a great tour of Kaiser’s Innovation Facility during Health Camp.
* Mandy Gamarra and Jackie Kleinman of WISE for a fun night of pico punch.
* Rajesh Desai for some helpful walks.
* Nancy Mize for a way into Astia which opened other doors.
* Bernard Slede of HP - for putting a lot of effort into understanding what we’re doing.
* Peter Tonellato of Laboratory of Personalized Medicine, Harvard for invite to Clinical Genomics Intern Symposium
* Mark Boguski, Harvard – for letting me come speak at Harvard Med and being an advisor.
* Lauren Briere, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, for valuable input on feature specs for genetic counselors and pathologists.
* Jamie Heywood, Patients Like Me for picking up the phone during our meeting and trying to reach Jason Bobe .
* Deborah Kessler – for her willingness to serve as CEO.
* Dan’l Lewin, Microsoft – for a good handoff
* George Morrison, Microsoft – for an encouraging phone call
* Jim Karkanias at Microsoft – for a meeting that made all the hard work seem worthwhile.
* Peter Southwood at Autodesk for software help.
* Lee Zhi, for encouragement to present at World DNA Day at Dalian, China.

Also these Twitter users for their "follows" and tweets:

@knome @SOLiDSequencing @TGEN @iontorrent @nanopore @sagebio @lindaavey @QB3 @23andme @dnanexus @GenomeScience @dgmaccarthur @genomicslawyer @westr @bachinksy @Eurogene @labbase @DivaBiotech @ExistenceG, @jensmccabe @DIYgenomics @EdwardWinstead, @duncande @jwoodman @gfry @GenomeScience @BrandonColby_MD @SigneBioPharma @kshameer @genomeweb_news @InheritedHealth @Sociallifeofdna @ResoundinHealth, @BayBIFX @signebiopharma @pgx_reporter @xgencongress @xgenseq @founderspace @gencounsenews @paulblaser @priscillaoppy @jdudley @biotechbythebay @debbiekennett @LaBlogga .

and a few more:

* Matthew Bolt, Indu Subaiya and Lizzie Dunklee for selecting DNA Guide to be a part of Health 2.0 Launch panel Fall 09.
* Jim Plante of Pathway Genomics for a great exchange at Health 2.0 SF.
* To Kevin Kelly and Gary Issac Wolf for the chance to present to the Quantified Self San Francisco meetup.
* Bill Davenhall of ESRI for putting me touch with SJ Camarata
* Richard Ciccarelli for his contribution of art.

For those others who reached out that I didn't get a chance to connect with ... let's try for next year!

My sincere thanks!

Alice Rathjen, Founder DNA Guide, Inc.