Using big data for good

A photogenic green-eyed Russian Blue named Petra might just be the world’s most sequenced cat. Petra was rescued from an animal shelter in Reno, Nevada, by Charlie Lieu, MBA ’05, SM ’05, a data whiz, serial entrepreneur, investor, and cofounder of Darwin’s Ark, a community science nonprofit focused on pet genetics. Since becoming Lieu’s furry friend, Petra has had her DNA fully sequenced six times and extracted nearly 60 times, all in the name of science. 

Petra is just one of more than...