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Hacking Precision Medicine: The Story of a Previvor Turned Hacker

Andrea Downing is a Community Data Organizer, a Previvor, and a BRCActivist. Her works exists at the intersection of precision medicine, policy, cybersecurity, and genetics.

Andrea tested positive for a BRCA1 mutation when she was 25. After struggling through her own experiences navigating health care, she began to apply her background in technology to learning more about BRCA data-sharing. Andrea began her work in patient advocacy in 2013, as media spokesperson for one of the plaintiffs in Association of Molecular Pathology vs. Myriad Genetics, a Supreme Court Case which decided whether human genes could be patented. Looking through the lens of her own BRCA mutation, Andrea’s talk will focus on stories of how data-sharing in precision medicine can be both life-saving and life-threatening.

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