Well, kinda sorta. 23andMe, one of the more popular personalized genomics companies, is having a DNA Day sale today. Usually the price to get your genome analyzed (more on this in a bit) is $199 for the kit and $9 a month for a year for their update service – where they’ll rerun your data when new research comes out. But today you can get the kit for free!
I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time but was prohibited by the price, but this is a deal I can’t pass up – so my kit is ordered. I’m prepared to muster up a lot of saliva and then still have some left over to drool over the data. Yep, not only do they give you general interpretations, but you can access the raw data – something a geneticist like me can actually have a lot of fun fiddling around with.
But before everyone runs off and buys their own kit…a warning. I honestly don’t think I’d recommend 23andMe (or any other type of personalized genomics) to a non-geneticist. Not yet, at least. There are a couple reasons:
1. The technology in this area is greatly improving. They just upgraded from a 550,000 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chip to the 1 million SNP chip. That means they’re looking at a million sites in your genome that are known to be variable across humans. While that may seem like a lot, it’s really just the tip of the iceberg. Pretty soon you’ll be able to have your whole genome sequenced. You may want to wait to get the biggest bang for your buck.
2. Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) sort of suck, and that’s what a huge chunk of their data, especially the medical stuff, is based off of. GWAS look for SNPs that are associated with a trait, usually disease. The thing is, usually an association can explain a tiny percent of cases of that disease – something like 1%, or even less. And often times that SNP doesn’t always produce a certain trait – for example, having the infamous BRCA gene doesn’t mean you’ll get breast cancer for sure. And almost all studies are done with people of European ancestry, so if you’re not, your results will likely be very inaccurate. So tl;dr, it’s really wishy washy.
3. Because of that, you need to take your results with a grain of salt – which is hard for people without genetic or statistical backgrounds. And that can result in a lot of self-diagnosing that really can’t replace just going and talking to your doctor and giving them a medical history.
People ask if I’m afraid I’ll find out something I don’t want to know – but I’m the type of person who rather know. I’m going to be honest – If I’m predisposed to some horrible disease that will kill me in my 30s, I would not be sitting in a laboratory pipetting or programming. I very much have the view that I want to live life to it’s fullest, and I want to know if I have significantly less years to do so. That and I think learning more about my biology and my ancestry is worth the risk. I’m a scientist and a skeptic – what’s more interesting than the truth?
I obviously won’t share all of my data since much will be very personal, but definitely expect more blog posts about the subject in the future.
Excellent! I cashed in on their Christmas sale, and the results have been pretty great so far. I would recommend fooling around with the test browser so you can see the type of data you’ll be able to access. They break it down really nicely, comparing your disease risk to that of the general population, and highlight where their are significant differences in either direction. You can then click on each marker and open up a simplified explanation of the disease and your results with links to the primary literature.
Oh, and the ancestry viewer is pretty neat, too. Mine was such a scatter that I wasn’t too impacted by the results, though. I’m so glad they’re offering both health and ancestry results together now, too. It was too hard to decide before!
Hear hear. I do not understand people who say that they’d rather not know such things.
Glad you mentioned this. I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while, and with this sale, my husband and I decided to go ahead and purchase kits. While it may not be as extensive, it would be neat just to get it done. Perhaps later, when the technology improves, we’ll get it done again.
Very cool. I just ordered my kit. I see the doom-and-gloom aspect of it (in light of the poor quality of current GWAS) as being in the league with Phil Plait’s “Death from the skies.” All the bad outcomes are possible, but none of them, individually, is very likely.
Does this mean that you’ll be dreaming up genetic modifications? Gills? Wings? Opposable Toes? Retractable Claws? You’ll be the first kid on the block to have toys nobody’s mom can buy them!
My genetics class did this my senior year in high school. I’m pretty sure it was BS though- it basically told you what your maternal ancestry was supposed to be. Apparently I’m Portuguese, lol.Someone got Neanderthal, LOL.
Technically, due to some interbreeding between Neanderthas and our primary ancestors, we’re all decendants of Neanderthal…. So how far back did that maternal ancestry go that someone went as far as Neanderthal Man and you only went as far as ancient Portugal?
Plus if you shared all the data, someone could LITERALLY STEAL YOUR IDENTITY.
That’s a tough call. As a biologist, I’m interested in finding out these things about myself. But I’m also concerned about privacy issues. Can they really be trusted to protect the information and destroy the original samples?
Uh, I don’t know why you wouldn’t encourage us all to do this. Think of it as BlagHag yearly survey on steroids. How did you find my blog?What level of Education do you have?Send me your genome.
Oh, thanks for alerting everyone to the sale. Now I know what to do with all the birthday money I received yesterday :)This is hands down best gift for an evolutionary biology PhD candidate, besides seeing the Creation Museum shut down!
Will you make the data public?Not that I’m planning to grow my own Jen in a vat. No, sirree bob, no, not me, never.
WTH they won’t take my spit “23andMe is currently unable to process saliva samples collected in or mailed from the state of New York. The New York Department of Health considers our Personal Genome Service a test requiring a lab license and direct physician involvement”damn it there goes my fun
I had a 12 marker test done through the National Geographic Genome Project five years ago…I recently upgraded to a 37 marker test (they used my original sample) with Family Tree…now I’ve been able to cross reference my exact DNA matches with my last name, and I have my paternal direct line all the way back to 1607, Somerset, Eng……not to mention the 30,000 history of my particular Haplogroup….fun stuff.
they just won’t take samples that are collected in and mailed from New York. Therefore, I’m getting it, and then I’m going to send it out from New Jersey. If you live close to the border like I do, it’s an easy way around it
Unfortunately I don’t live near the border so that’s not really workable for me…unless I find someone going out of state , I need to go make some calls.
$62.95 shipping to the UK.Still a good deal, but I can’t afford it right now. Oh well.
Blerg. Hispanic here, so I guess that counts me out anyway!
That’s great. May I buy your genome and clone you? I think it would be great to have lots of Jen’s running around the world spreading atheism.
Mail it to an out-of-state friend first?
Thanks for pointing this out! I am quite excited about getting my data…
New York has a dumb rule that all laboratory samples collected in the state must be tested in the state. That’s why my company doesn’t have any facilities there, our lab is in Texas.
Since moving back to where my mom’s cancer treatment was, part of me has been interested in contacting the facility to see if they’d be interested in checking me out again. They examined me for a few hours when I was a few months old since prior to that they didn’t think a woman who had gone through that much radiation and chemo would be able to have children. My mom has also included updates on me in her annual report to the doctors.What would be really interesting would be a comparison of the genomes of my siblings (born before my mom had cancer), mom, and I to see how much of her’s mutated and how much was passed on to me.I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that another part of me doesn’t want to know what genetic land mine might be there… Jen, under those circumstances, with increased odds of something weird being there, would you still want to know?
Not sure if it was mentioned elsewhere in the comments, but my recollection is that illumina is already offering whole genome resequencing for humans. I think it requires a doctor’s recommendation (I assumed for the counseling side when it turns out you are very likely to be something or other). My memory is that it was ~$15,000. Not free, but every time you see someone in the bay area in an A4 ask “wouldn’t it be better to have a used VW, your genome sequence, and 10k in the bank than that car?”
nah, someone could *fake* Jen’s identity, in some ways. but this isn’t a whole genome sequence, so they would only have bits of her.Although I suppose that given the fact even identical twins (same DNA) have different fingerprints, even the full DNA identity wouldn’t be enough for much identity fakery. /pedantic facts.I’m looking forward to your take on the 23andme thing. I’m very tempted by it, although I wasn’t at first. I don’t much care about my ancestry, but the more I read about it the more intrigued I became. I’m interested in the macular degeneration and other health risk info. On the other hand, I *do* care about my son’s ancestry (his father was adopted, so it’s much more mysterious) AND health risk. And while *I’m* the kind of person who would rather know than not know… what if he grows up and he isn’t? Could I avoid the temptation to not tell him? I am ethically conflicted.