Giulia KennedyPhD
MillenniumChapter 02 · Strand A · Company

Millennium Pharmaceuticals

A scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals in the 1990s, applying genomic and genetic approaches to uncover diabetes susceptibility genes. Dates within the decade are not sourced.

1999 – 1999SCIENTIST, DIABETES SUSCEPTIBILITY GENESMILLENNIUM PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.

Overview

After her postdoctoral work on insulin gene transcription, Giulia Kennedy moved into industry. Veracyte’s investor-relations biography describes her as a scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals who “implemented genomic and genetic approaches to uncover diabetes susceptibility genes”.1 An earlier Veracyte biography, preserved on an aggregator site, uses the same words.2 Veracyte’s 2013 registration statement confirms the employer, naming Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Chiron Corporation as the two biotechnology companies where she held scientific roles before joining Affymetrix in January 2000.3

Contributions

The sources describe the work in one sentence: genomic and genetic approaches to diabetes susceptibility genes. It is a direct continuation of the subject of her 1995 Nature Genetics paper, which examined how a minisatellite at the IDDM2 diabetes susceptibility locus regulates insulin transcription. No Millennium-affiliated publication or Millennium-assigned patent naming her was found, so the specific genes, methods and outcomes of the programme are not recorded here.

Open questions

The dates of the role are not stated anywhere. The two Veracyte biographies also differ on sequence: the investor-relations page lists Affymetrix, then Chiron, then Millennium, which would make Millennium the earlier of the two; the older biography says she was at Chiron “before Millennium”.2 This site follows the investor-relations order and dates the chapter to the end of the decade as a placeholder, bounded by her sourced January 2000 start at Affymetrix. The placement should be read as “1990s, before 2000”, not as a known year.

From the record

Facts

  • Was a scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where she implemented genomic and genetic approaches to uncover diabetes susceptibility genes.123
  • The Millennium role preceded her January 2000 start at Affymetrix; Veracyte's Form S-1 names Millennium and Chiron as the two biotechnology companies where she held scientific roles before Affymetrix.3

Research

  • Gene regulation and gene discovery

    1992 – 1999

    Kennedy's first research programme ran from insulin gene transcription to disease gene discovery. As a postdoctoral scientist in William J. Rutter's laboratory at UCSF she identified Pur-1, a zinc-finger transactivator of the insulin promoter (PNAS, 1992), and showed that the minisatellite at the type 1 diabetes locus IDDM2 regulates insulin transcription (Nature Genetics, 1995). At Millennium Pharmaceuticals she implemented genomic and genetic approaches to uncover diabetes susceptibility genes, and at Chiron Corporation she led colon and breast cancer gene discovery efforts that identified oncology markers for therapeutic drug development.