The “Google of genomics” meets the techbashers of antitrust

IN 2013 MEREDITH HALKS MILLERDNAGRAILGRAILGRAILCEO, a laboratory director at Illumina, the world’s biggest gene-sequencing firm, spotted something odd as she examined the blood of expectant mothers, looking for abnormalities in the fetuses they carried. In some cases, the of the unborn children was normal, but that of the mothers was not. Suspecting the women had cancer, she went to her superiors, only to be met with scepticism. She pushed nonetheless. “I was determined to bring this to light. As a doctor, I really wanted to help these women,” she says. Her intuition proved right. “Sure enough, every person I predicted had cancer had cancer.”Her hunch led to the foundation of , a pioneering company focused on detecting cancers using blood tests even before any symptoms have emerged. Illumina spun it out in 2016 (tech tycoons such as Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates were early backers), only to repurchase it again in a $7bn deal last month, shortly after released a test in America that screens for up to 50 cancers from a sample of blood. And yet until a recent blog post by her daughter, noting how infrequently female scientists get credit for their work, Dr Halks Miller’s role was mostly airbrushed out of ’s story. When contacted by your columnist, she says she received no extra bonus or promotion for her efforts. Even today, Francis deSouza, Illumina’s , refers to her simply as Meredith, and when asked about her says only that she has retired.