Darwin’s Ark broadened its focus to cats in 2024, and while it’s too soon for any results, even the research methods are proving interesting. The usual way to extract DNA from a living animal is by swabbing the inside of a cheek. Dogs don’t mind the process, but cats are not as amenable to having things stuck in their mouths. Nor do cats appreciate having hairs plucked out with their follicles, another potential source of DNA for sequencing. So Chad Nusbaum, PhD ’91, another Human Genome Project colleague that Lieu recruited, helped the Darwin’s Ark team figure out how to effectively extract DNA from fur or hair that has been shed—a big breakthrough for the field. (This means, in practice, that cats’ DNA is collected by brushing their fur. Now the cats “not only don’t mind sample collection—some of them really enjoy it,” Nusbaum says with a laugh.)
That’s good for cats, but it could also have far-reaching implications in the world of conservation, where obtaining DNA from endangered or sensitive animals via blood or skin samples can be prohibitively difficult or distressing to the animals. Being able to rely instead on a few strands of naturally shed hair could unlock new frontiers for conservationists working with sensitive species.
The knowledge that progress on such crucial issues could come from inside or outside the organization was what led Lieu and Karlsson to structure Darwin’s Ark as a nonprofit and make its data available for free to researchers outside commercial settings. While it already periodically shares its sequence data in various public repositories, those repositories are managed by different entities, making it more difficult for scientists to use the information. So researchers must often write in, explain what they’re trying to do, and put in a custom request.Darwin’s Ark just got a grant that will allow it to begin building a public portal for the data, making it far easier for researchers to access, match, and use.
“Our hope is that we would be able to create a data set that scientists around the world would be able to leverage to elucidate whatever it is that they’re doing,” Lieu says. “Whether you’re a cancer scientist or a neurological scientist or an immunology-focused scientist, any number of complex disease areas could be helped by having very massive data sets.”
For Lieu, Darwin’s Ark is but the latest line in a long and wide-ranging résumé that includes stints at Amazon and NASA. “The thread that ties it all together is big data,” she says.
After living and breathing data in her work on the Human Genome Project, Lieu tackled a very different big data challenge at Amazon on a team that collected data on warehouse fulfillment. Drawing on her biological sciences background, she developed an evolutionary algorithm for outbound logistics that made it possible—without constantly analyzing the data—to dynamically optimize storage and dramatically lower fulfillment costs. The founder or cofounder of at least a dozen ventures to date, she built on her experience at Amazon with her most recent startup, a logistics company called AirTerra that helps e-commerce retailers streamline delivery by bringing together highly fragmented last-mile shipping providers under one umbrella. Officially founded in 2020, it quickly achieved unicorn status and was acquired by the fashion company American Eagle Outfitters in 2021. While Lieu chalks some of that success up to luck (“You start a shipping and logistics organization in the pandemic—of course you’re going to get acquired”), her cofounder Brent Beabout, MBA ’02, is quick to point to the skill and work ethic that made her “luck” possible.
Besides being “highly collaborative” and “super knowledgeable,” Lieu gave her all in a way that set her apart, according to Beabout. “She is a passionate person,” he says. “I’ve never seen a person that worked as many hours as Charlie did … I don’t think she ever slept.”
Lieu jokes that she’s in a “midlife crisis” as she sorts out what to do next, because there’s so much she could do. So she’s looking for the “biggest thing” she can do for the world.
Though Lieu has made out well as an entrepreneur, she grew up “well below the poverty line.” Both those experiences shaped the kind of investor she’s become: one who is distinctly interested in helping other entrepreneurs confront barriers. “I wanted to look back on all the obstacles that I had faced coming up,” she says. “Not just as a woman, not just as a person of color, but [also] the economic barriers of not having the network, not being able to access other people who have been successful, not even understanding the basics of financial markets.” To that end, she’s spent much of her career trying to give back through mentorship and direct investment in ventures started by founders from underrepresented backgrounds.