Anu Acharya was in her twenties when the human genome was first mapped in its entirety. In 2000, the young Indian entrepreneur was just breaking into the biotechnology arena with her first start-up — the genomics and bioinformatics company Ocimum Biosolutions in Hyderabad. She saw the Human Genome Project’s achievements as opening up a new world of possibilities in personalized medicine, informed by an individual’s genetic profile and predispositions — but at the time, the field of genomic medicine was dominated by Western science.