Cathy Tie
Born1995 or 1996 (age 27–28)[1]
NationalityChina / Canada
Known forThiel Fellowship, Ranomics, Cervin

Cathy Tie is a Canadian bioinformatician and entrepreneur, the founder of Ranomics, a genetic screening company, and of Locke Bio, a telemedicine company, both based in Toronto.

Background and education

Tie's family moved from China to Canada when she was four years old.[2] Her father has a master's degree in chemical engineering, but she describes both parents as "entrepreneurs."[3] Growing up in Mississauga, Ontario,[4] she attended the Glenforest Secondary School (International Baccalaureate Diploma Program).[5]

At 15, she worked on an immunology project with researchers at the University of Toronto,[2] work that was published the next year in the Canadian Young Scientist Journal as a single-author manuscript.[6] Further research using yeast as a gene variant model was published by a larger team in 2018.[7]

During her first year as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, Tie worked at Mount Sinai Hospital, in the genetic research laboratory of Frederick Roth.[3] After hearing about a competition for a biotech startup, she teamed up with Leo Wan, a graduate student in Roth's lab, to create a business plan for a genomics start-up. They later presented their business plan to IndieBio, an accelerator run by SOSV, who gave them $100,000 of funding. Tie took a leave of absence in 2014 after less than a year of college to work on the project in San Francisco with IndieBio.[8]

In 2015, Tie was one of only four Canadians to win a Thiel Fellowship,[4][9] which encourages college undergraduates to leave college and instead further their education by building a startup company.

Career

Tie founded Ranomics as its CEO in 2015. In a JLabs profile,[10] Tie explained that the company's focus was to investigate variants of unknown significance (VUS) that caused genetic tests to fail or misdiagnose patients. Ranomics worked for external genetic testing firms in a business-to-business arrangement to analyze oncogene mutations.[2][11][12] In 2016, Ranomics published a database of 2,000 variants of the BRCA1 gene, whose mutants are tied to breast and ovarian cancer. Clinicians who detected an unknown variant could get it tested by Ranomics, in comparison with functionality data for these 2,000 variants, in order to predict if the new one is harmful or benign.[13]

In 2018, Tie was named a partner in SF-based Cervin Ventures, an early-stage venture firm based in San Francisco.[14][15]

In 2019, Tie founded Locke Bio, a telemedicine and data-mining company based in Toronto that offers online telemedicine and telepharmacy services to consumers, while building health datasets.[16][17] In 2020, Tie and Locke Bio published a free online COVID-19 assessment tool that allows people to check their symptoms online by filling out an online symptom questionnaire and consulting with a doctor over video chat.[18] [19]

Awards

In 2015, Tie was selected as a Thiel Fellow. That same year, she and Ranomics co-founder Leo Wan won a $100K USD incubator mentorship through SOSV's incubator IndieBio.[20][8]

In 2017, the Kairos Society chose Ranomics as one of its "Kairos 50" for "improving the understanding of human genetics."[21]

In 2018, Forbes magazine listed Tie as one of its Healthcare "30 under 30".[22] In 2019, Forbes also included Tie among its "30 under 30" innovators in Canada.[14]

References

  1. ↑ Baker, Micaela. "College-aged Women that Should be Celebrated for Women's History Month". Her Campus. Retrieved 27 April 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 Kavilanz, Parija (August 6, 2018). "At 18, she launched a startup. At 22, she's blazing a trail in the VC world". CNN. Archived from the original on 2018-11-28. Retrieved November 27, 2018.
  3. 1 2 Dingman, Shane (June 5, 2015). "Record number of Canadians take $100,000 to drop out of school". Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on 2015-06-05. Retrieved November 27, 2018.
  4. 1 2 Otis, Daniel (June 5, 2015). "Four young Canadians ditch school for $100K fellowships". The Star. Archived from the original on 2015-06-06. Retrieved November 27, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Cathy Tie: Characterizing RNF20 and RNF40 in Class Switching of B Cells". Youth Science Canada. 2013. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  6. ↑ Tie, Cathy (2013-09-18). "Characterizing RNF20 and RNF40 in the Class Switching of B Cells1". Canadian Young Scientist Journal. 2013 (2): 43–51. doi:10.13034/cysj-2013-007. ISSN 1913-1925.
  7. ↑ Sun, Song; Yang, Fan; Tan, Guihong; Costanzo, Michael; Oughtred, Rose; Hirschman, Jodi; Theesfeld, Chandra; Bansal, Pritpal; Sahni, Nidhi (2016-03-14). "An extended set of yeast-based functional assays accurately identifies human disease mutations". Genome Research. 26 (5): 670–680. doi:10.1101/gr.192526.115. ISSN 1088-9051. PMC 4864455. PMID 26975778.
  8. 1 2 Wang, Sandy (January 19, 2015). "U of T undergrad secures $100,000 for startup". The Varsity. Retrieved November 27, 2018.
  9. ↑ Leber, Jessica. "Meet the Last "Class" of Thiel Fellows". Fast Company. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
  10. ↑ Johnson, Johnson &. "International Women's Day". J&J JLabs. Johnson & Johnson. Archived from the original on 12 November 2018. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
  11. ↑ "Ontario-developed technology for screening variant libraries comes of age - Ontario Genomics". Ontario Genomics. 2018-01-18. Retrieved 2018-11-13.
  12. ↑ "Resolve the Genome's Known Unknowns". GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News. 2016-12-30. Retrieved 2018-11-13.
  13. ↑ Fletcher, Bevin (May 2, 2016). "Biotech Startup Provides Functional Studies on Thousands of Breast Cancer Gene Variants". Start Up Here Toronto. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  14. 1 2 Coyne, Marley; Wilson, Alexandra (October 10, 2019). "Best Of Canada: These Are The Forbes Under 30 Innovators You Need To Know". Forbes. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  15. ↑ Venture, Cervin. "Cervin Ventures Team". Cervin Ventures. Cervin. Archived from the original on 12 November 2018. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
  16. ↑ Pitchbook profile of Locke Bio
  17. ↑ Locke Bio website
  18. ↑ Davidson, Sonya (2020-04-06). "19Check.com COVID-19 health assessment tool developed by Torontonian". Toronto Guardian. Archived from the original on 2020-08-06. Retrieved 2020-12-31.
  19. ↑ "Canada's Digital Response to COVID-19". BornDigital.com. March 17, 2020. Archived from the original on 2020-08-13. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  20. ↑ Kosner, Anthony Wing. "IndieBio Will Accelerate Synthetic Biology To Tech Startup Speed". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-11-17.
  21. ↑ "50 Startups Aimed at Changing the World Join Kairos Society". TechCo. 2017-05-02. Retrieved 2018-11-17.
  22. ↑ "30 Under 30 - Healthcare 2018: Cathy Tie". Forbes. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
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