Molecular biologist · Diagnostics innovator
Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, PinkDx
Giulia C. Kennedy is a molecular biologist and diagnostics innovator with deep expertise in genomics, bioinformatics and translational research. She is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of PinkDx, a women's health company developing less invasive diagnostics for gynecologic cancers.
A career read as a genome.
The career genome
Strand A carries the organisations: the universities, the companies, the boards. Strand B carries the science: research programmes, landmark papers, patents, the tests that reached patients. The rungs are where they meet.
B.S. Applied Science; Ph.D. Biochemistry; postdoctoral training in biochemistry
A B.S. in Applied Science from Youngstown State, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Case Western Reserve, and postdoctoral training at UCSF, where her earliest papers traced how the insulin gene is switched on (1980s–early 1990s).
Learn moreScientist, diabetes susceptibility genes
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.
Learn moreScientific leader, colon and breast cancer gene discovery
Scientific leader for Chiron's colon and breast cancer gene discovery efforts, which identified oncology markers for therapeutic drug development; named inventor on Chiron patent filings on colon-cancer polynucleotides.
Learn moreSenior Director; led the Genomics Collaborations and Genotyping Technology R&D groups
Eight years as Senior Director at Affymetrix (January 2000 – March 2008), leading the Genomics Collaborations and Genotyping Technology R&D groups behind the GeneChip Mapping arrays.
Learn moreFirst author and co-author of the GeneChip Mapping array methods papers
The methods papers behind array-based SNP genotyping: Nature Biotechnology 2003, Genome Research and Nature Methods 2004, and the Bioinformatics genotype-calling algorithms of 2003 and 2005.
Learn moreChief Scientific Officer; Chief Medical Officer from 2018; Global Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Medical Officer from 2022
Bonnie Anderson's first executive hire at Veracyte in 2008. As Chief Scientific Officer, then Chief Medical Officer, she led the science behind Afirma, Percepta and Envisia over fourteen years.
Learn moreChief Scientific Officer, Veracyte
Veracyte's first product: a gene expression classifier that tells benign thyroid nodules from suspicious ones when cytology cannot. Launched January 2011, validated in the NEJM in 2012, 100,000 tests by 2018.
Learn moreChief Scientific Officer, Veracyte
Veracyte priced its initial public offering on October 30, 2013 at $13.00 a share and began trading on NASDAQ as VCYT, five years after Kennedy joined as its first executive hire.
Learn moreChief Scientific Officer and Chief Medical Officer, Veracyte
Genomic classifiers for the lung: Percepta for suspicious nodules after an inconclusive bronchoscopy (2015), Envisia for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis without surgical biopsy (2016), and a nasal swab test for lung cancer risk.
Learn moreChief Scientific Officer and Chief Medical Officer, Veracyte
The second-generation Afirma: RNA sequencing and ensemble machine learning, validated in JAMA Surgery in 2018, finding at least a third more benign nodules than the original test, with the Xpression Atlas reading variants and fusions from the same sample.
Learn moreCo-inventor
Co-inventor on more than 20 patents. The Veracyte family runs from a 2009 priority date on molecular profiling of thyroid nodules to grants in 2024 and 2025, with separate lines on sample classification and detecting usual interstitial pneumonia.
Learn moreMember, Board of Directors
Four months after leaving Veracyte, Kennedy joined the board of Acuamark Diagnostics, a company developing high-throughput qPCR technology for blood-based early detection of cancer.
Learn moreCo-founder and Chief Scientific Officer
Co-founded with Bonnie Anderson, PinkDx launched on April 25, 2024 with a $40 million Series A, upsized to $45 million in 2025, to build less invasive diagnostics for gynecologic cancers from Daly City, California.
Learn moreCo-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, PinkDx
The PNK001 study showed that molecular signals of endometrial cancer can be read from a vaginal swab by whole-transcriptome sequencing and machine learning, published in April 2026; the PROACTION study is validating the test.
Learn more
DNA life growth bloom. Every nucleotide of the career leaves the strand and falls toward the ground as a petal.
33 sourced accomplishments across 3 dimensions. Each one cites its source on the chapter it belongs to.
Methods, discoveries and the record that documents them.
Led the research and development organisation that built and validated the Afirma Gene Expression Classifier, the first of three commercialized tests credited to her at Veracyte.
Chapter: AfirmaSecond author of the 2012 NEJM validation study of the classifier.
Chapter: AfirmaCredited by Veracyte with overseeing the development of Percepta and Envisia, its second and third commercialized genomic tests.
Chapter: Percepta and EnvisiaAn author of the Envisia validation studies published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine (2019) and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (2021).
Chapter: Percepta and EnvisiaCo-author of the JAMA Surgery 2018 validation of the Afirma GSC and last author of the BMC Systems Biology 2019 paper on identifying Hürthle cell cancers with a trio of machine learning algorithms.
Chapter: Afirma GSC and the Xpression AtlasDescribed the ensemble machine learning behind the GSC as deriving "from years of thoughtful scientific research, data analysis and statistical modeling".
Chapter: Afirma GSC and the Xpression AtlasCo-inventor, with Bonnie H. Anderson, Darya I. Chudova, Eric T. Wang, Hui Wang, Moraima Pagan, Nusrat Rabbee and Jonathan I. Wilde, on the thyroid molecular-profiling patent family that underlies Afirma.
Chapter: A patent familyCo-author of the first peer-reviewed evidence that endometrial cancer signals can be detected from a non-invasive vaginal swab (International Journal of Gynecological Cancer, 2026).
Chapter: Reading endometrial cancer from a vaginal swabChiron colon-cancer polynucleotide patent filed
Chapter: patentUS 7,300,788 granted: Method for genotyping polymorphisms in humans
Chapter: patentUS 8,541,170: Methods and compositions of molecular profiling for disease diagnostics
Chapter: patentUS 8,669,057: Methods and compositions for diagnosis of thyroid conditions
Chapter: patentUS 10,446,272: Methods and compositions for classification of samples
Chapter: patentUS 11,639,527: Methods for nucleic acid sequencing
Chapter: patentUS 11,976,329: Methods and systems for detecting usual interstitial pneumonia
Chapter: patentUS 12,110,554: Methods for classification of tissue samples as positive or negative for cancer
Chapter: patentUS 12,297,503: molecular profiles associated with thyroid cancer
Chapter: patentUS 12,305,238: Methods for treatment of thyroid cancer
Chapter: patentTests built, validated and used in patient care.
Led colon and breast cancer gene discovery efforts whose output included oncology markers for therapeutic drug development.
Chapter: Chiron CorporationLed the R&D groups whose whole-genome sampling assay and GeneChip Mapping 10K and 100K arrays were described in Nature Biotechnology (2003), Genome Research (2004) and Nature Methods (2004).
Chapter: AffymetrixCo-inventor on Affymetrix genotyping patents, including US 7,300,788 and US 8,679,758.
Chapter: AffymetrixOversaw the development of three commercialized genomic tests (Afirma, Percepta, Envisia) that help reduce unnecessary surgeries by resolving diagnostic uncertainty.
Chapter: VeracyteBy 2026 her biography credited her with leading the development and commercialization of eight genomic diagnostic tests at Veracyte.
Chapter: VeracyteVeracyte's 2023 proxy statement described her as instrumental in developing the company's innovative products.
Chapter: VeracyteCommercial launch of Afirma
Chapter: milestoneVeracyte initial public offering
Chapter: milestone100,000th Afirma genomic test
Chapter: milestoneMedicare coverage for the Envisia Genomic Classifier
Chapter: regulatoryCompanies founded, built and advised.
Co-founded a women's health diagnostics company whose first programme, a vaginal swab test for endometrial cancer, reached peer-reviewed publication in 2026.
Chapter: PinkDxAppointed to the board of Acuamark Diagnostics
Chapter: appointmentPinkDx $40 million Series A
Chapter: fundingPinkDx Series A upsized to $45 million
Chapter: fundingJoined the Scientific Advisory Board of Wisdom Bioscience
Chapter: appointmentThe ability to use genomic testing – such as the Percepta GSC – to determine which patients need intervention and those who may be safely monitored with routine imaging can help improve patient outcomes.