A few weeks ago, I asked Clara Wu Tsai a hard question: Would you rather build the first billion-dollar WNBA team or make a major scientific discovery about human performance? <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to do both,\u201d she laughed. And, she pointed out, they\u2019re connected. Wu Tsai is the owner of the New York Liberty and the Brooklyn Nets. She\u2019s been a force in growing the WNBA<\/a>, with the Liberty capitalizing on its position in the world\u2019s biggest media market to drive fandom and dollars on the way to a billion-dollar valuation<\/a>. <\/p>\n Less known is that she and her husband, Joe Tsai, committed $220 million in 2021 to build the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance at Stanford (hence the second part of my question). The premise is that studying professional athletes\u2014human beings at peak performance\u2014can both drive success in professional sports and help the rest of us live healthier lives too. <\/p>\n Five years in, Wu Tsai is ready to share more about the work the Alliance has been doing. Headquartered at Stanford, the Alliance now encompasses more than 500 scientists across seven institutions. Scientists within this group have published 850 pieces of research, filed 28 patents, and have three drugs seeking FDA approval. <\/p>\n This is a research area that really needs private\u2014billionaire\u2014philanthropy. Federal funding goes toward the study of disease, not health, explains Scott Delp, the director of the alliance and a professor of bioengineering, mechanical engineering, and orthopaedic surgery at Stanford. \u201cWhen I write a proposal the NIH, somebody has to be very sick or hurt or have a disease and then we swoop in with the science and save the day,\u201d he says. \u201cThis really flips that discussion to understand health.\u201d Wu Tsai realized that gap. \u201cOne of the key tenets of our philanthropy is to find quote-unquote white spaces, places where funding doesn\u2019t exist, but it\u2019s a subject matter of great importance, and if funded could lead to some breakthrough for a wide swath of population,\u201d she says. \u201cThis fit that.\u201d <\/p>\n One of the Alliance\u2019s most exciting discoveries is related to muscle regeneration. In sports, this will help answer questions about why female athletes suffer more ACL injuries and how to better treat and prevent them. But it\u2019s also led to the discovery of a new molecule involved in the regenerative capacity of muscle that is now part of a drug in an FDA trial that would maintain muscle health, mass, and strength with age. <\/p>\n Kate Ackerman, director of the Women\u2019s Health Sports and Performance Institute, leads the Alliance\u2019s work connecting this research back to female athletes. Like the rest of women\u2019s health, female athletes are under-researched<\/a> and have had training and recovery protocols that were built for male athletes. That\u2019s of special interest to Wu Tsai, while she works to win championships for the Liberty. \u201cResearch is great, but impact comes when you are able to translate the findings onto the court or the field,\u201d Wu Tsai says. The Tsais have already integrated new best practices for long-range travel, sleep, and nutrition for the Liberty and the Nets. Eventually, they\u2019d like the entire NBA and WNBA to get involved. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen you come up with an incredible breakthrough that you can translate to players, it means they can be on the floor longer, miss fewer games, and that means more fans can see their favorite athletes play more,\u201d Wu Tsai says. \u201cThat just leads to a better product, more fan engagement, more excitement. And it\u2019s really good for business.\u201d <\/p>\n Emma Hinchliffe The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune\u2019s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n ALSO IN THE HEADLINES<\/p>\n King Charles and Queen Camilla visit the White House.\u00a0At their state dinner, guests included Google’s Ruth Porat, London-based new BP CEO Meg O’Neill, Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick, and Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott. Six Supreme Court justices were there<\/a>\u2014only the conservatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n And in more SCOTUS news…\u00a0The Supreme Court just struck down Louisiana’s voting map in a 6-3 decision split along idealogical lines. The liberal wing of the court sees the decision as a decimation of the Voting Rights Act. Justice Elena Kagan wrote in their dissent<\/a>: “The court\u2019s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The FCC ordered a review of ABC’s local station broadcast licenses.\u00a0It’s an unprecedented step<\/a> that puts pressure on ABC and parent Disney, under new CEO Josh D’Amaro<\/a> and chief creative officer Dana Walden. Last week, host Jimmy Kimmel made a joke calling Melania Trump an “expectant widow;” it was before the shooter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and Kimmel said referred to their age gap. But President Trump called for Kimmel to be fired. Kimmel, of course, has already been a Trump target after the Charlie Kirk incident last year (which Walden was key to navigating).\u00a0<\/p>\n The Ms. Foundation gets a new leader.\u00a0Tracy Sturdivant is taking over from Teresa Younger. It’s a handoff between two Black women\u2014and the foundation is on strong footing with a $100 million endowment, despite funding challenges for organizations that work on women’s issues and racial equity. “We need all hands on deck to make sure that we\u2019re supporting women in the midst of what I call this perfect form of instability that they\u2019re experiencing,” the foundation’s new leader says<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n ON MY RADAR<\/p>\n Olivia Rodrigo rises\u00a0Cosmopolitan<\/a><\/p>\n Why are so many influencers speaking at Harvard Business School?\u00a0Vogue Business<\/a><\/p>\n What\u00a0The Devil Wears Prada\u00a0taught its stars about being a boss\u00a0NYT<\/a><\/p>\n PARTING WORDS<\/p>\n “We are literally 100% female. That\u2019s not really by design. We would interview people, and the right person for the job was always a woman.”<\/p>\n
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\n