Category Archives: DTC personal genomics

About four years ago I posted my genotype data for anyone who wanted it. This included the raw export files from consumer genomics firms + my VCF file generated by […]

Read more

Just noticed that 23andMe and Ancestry have “Prime Day” deals.
Will be super curious if the sales are off from last year. It seems that DTC as a sector is leveling off. Perhaps saturation, or the privacy issues?

Read more

A very long piece on the “personal genomics industry.” Lots of quotes from my boss Spencer Wells, since he has been in the game so long. The piece covers all the bases. I actually think some of the criticisms of direct-to-consumer genetics are on base. I just don’t think they’re insoluble problems, or problems so […]

Read more

There’s a debate that periodically crops up online about the utility, viability, and morality of returning results from genetic tests to consumers. Consumers here means people like you or me. Pretty much everyone. If you want to caricature two stylized camps, there are information maximalists who proclaim a utopia now, where people can find out […]

Read more

In case you were sleeping under a rock, 23andMe got FDA approval for DTC testing of markers related to BRCA risk. Obviously, this is a pretty big step, in principle. But the short-term implications are not that earth-shaking. From the FDA release: The three BRCA1/BRCA2 hereditary mutations detected by the test are present in about […]

Read more

There are some personal genomics questions I get over and over via email. I thought I would post an answer so that Google could pick it up. One of them usually has do with if someone is “really” related to someone who comes up as a 5th cousin on a DTC service. What does “really” […]

Read more

As someone who is part of the personal genomics sector, I keep track of media representations of the industry very closely. There is the good and the bad, some justified and some not. But there is one aspect which I need to weigh in on because it is close to my interests and professional focus, […]

Read more

As someone who is part of the personal genomics sector, I keep track of media representations of the industry very closely. There is the good and the bad, some justified and some not. But there is one aspect which I need to weigh in on because it is close to my interests and professional focus, […]

Read more

It has been a while since I posted an update on my genotype. Since then I’ve been tested on most of the major platforms. I don’t see any harm in releasing this to the public or researchers who want to look at it (though I don’t know why anyone would). You can download all the files here. […]

Read more

Will try to keep self-interested product placement to a minimum normally, but I thought I’d pass on that Helix has a $100 off sale for the next 72 hours. That means that the company I work for has a Neanderthal app on sale for $9.99. The regular price is $29.99, and added $80.00 for exome+ […]

Read more

Four years ago my friend David Mittleman and I wrote Rumors of the death of consumer genomics are greatly exaggerated. The context was the FDA crackdown on 23andMe. Was the industry moribund before it began? The title gives away our opinion. We were personally invested. David and I were both working for Family Tree DNA, […]

Read more

For some reason The New York Times tasked Gina Kolata to cover genetic genealogy and its societal ramifications, With a Simple DNA Test, Family Histories Are Rewritten. The problem here is that to my knowledge Kolata doesn’t cover this as part of her beat, and so isn’t well equipped to write an accurate and in […]

Read more

If you’ve been hiding under a rock, please see Baby Genome Sequencing for Sale in China: A Boston-based DNA sequencing company is offering to decode the complete genomes of newborns in China, leading some to ask how much parents should know about their children’s genes at birth. Veritas Genetics says the test, ordered by a doctor, […]

Read more

Today I got an email from 23andMe that they’d hit the 2 million customer mark. Since they reached their goal of 1 million kits purchased the company seems to have taken its foot off the pedal of customer base growth to focus on other things (in particular, how to get phenotypic data from those who […]

Read more

The last week has seen a lot of chatter about the slapping down of the diagnostic patent by Sequenom, Judge Invalidates Patent for a Down Syndrome Test: A federal judge has invalidated the central patent underlying a noninvasive method of detecting Down syndrome in fetuses without the risk of inducing a miscarriage. The ruling is […]

The post The future always advances appeared first on Gene Expression.

Read more

Slate reposts a piece from New Scientist, Do You Really Want To Know Your Baby’s Genetics? It is arranged as a series of questions which might arise from the new information. For me my frustration with this sort of discussion is rooted in reviewing o…

Read more

Genomes Unzipped points me to a Nature survey on personal genomics for scientific researchers. With price points down to $200 or so many scientists have been at least genotyped. Though it varies by domain. Many molecular biologists seem intrigued by the novelty of personal genotyping services. In contrast, in a room of a dozen or […]

Read more

I was having a discussion with some friends who have all expressed interest in being genotyped or have been about putting their information into the public domain. They were a pretty savvy lot (half of the six had been genotyped), but one expressed the…

Read more

Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Tests Neither Accurate in Their Predictions nor Beneficial to Individuals, Study Suggests:
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests give inaccurate predictions of disease risks and many European geneticists believe that some of…

Read more

I’ve been pretty vocal about the impending specter of genetic paternalism in relation to personal genomics, which I believe to be futile in the long term, and likely to squelch innovation in the United States in the short term. Like any new produ…

Read more

20/23
Razib Khan