Genetic analysis start-up 23andMe, known for its star-studded "spit parties" and a controversial investment from Google, announced Thursday the debut of a new initiative to bring together women who have been affected by breast cancer or who may be genetically at risk.
October is the 23rd annual National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Using its Web-based social network, 23andMe hopes to "reach out to, and build a community around, women who have encountered breast cancer, thereby increasing the scientific understanding of the inherited aspects of a disease that affects 200,000 newly diagnosed individuals per year." Women who purchase the $399 testing kits will have the option to participate in surveys, and the start-up's research arm, called "23andWe," will build a community for the swapping of knowledge, advice, and support.
Representatives from 23andMe said that the project does not yet have any external research organizations as partners, and remains "primarily a social-networking community" at the time. The genetics community has been reluctant to embrace consumer DNA-analysis companies, and the state of California asked 23andMe, along with other companies in the same field, to stop selling tests until they could be fully compliant with health regulations.
At the end of August, 23andMe announced that California authorities had granted it a license to continue selling its tests. In a blog post, 23andMe's founders described the agreement as "only the start of the dialogue between regulators and genomics companies that offer direct-to-consumer services."
This post was updated at 1:04 p.m. PT to clarify the state of 23andMe's negotiations with the state of California.
Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki of the genetic testing service 23andMe gave a perplexing demo this morning at the D6 conference. The service, launched last November, costs users $1,000 ($599 with current discounts) and provides a growing amount of information based on your genetic profile: predisposition to certain diseases, a profile of your overall racial makeup, and your relationship to another genetic profile in the database if you have access to it (it will tell you if you're related to your father, for example).
23andMe co-founders Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki
(Credit: Dan Farber / CNET)As more of the human genome is decoded, the 23andMe service will continue to get more useful, especially in regards to health care issues like drug allergies.
Today at D6, Avey and Wojciki announced the service's new "Gene journal" feature, which lets users refine their data by answering questions that indicate broader genetic trends, such as lactose intolerance and a like or dislike of foods like cilantro. The team also showed a cute 10-question quiz that you can use to compare your genetic profile to others. This part of the demo was perplexing: if you pay $600 or $1000 for a genetic test, why should you also have to take a quiz?
At the tail-end of the presentation, Avey and Wocjciki discussed their company's new project, 23andWe, a new research platform based on the 23andMe genetics data. The idea is that users fill out surveys (which, I guess, earlier quizzes on the site have softened them up for), which are correlated with the genetics, and which can be used for medical research. Surveys could be created by researchers and end up getting peer-reviewed, or could be set up by concerned groups on the service, like parents of children with particular syndromes.
The service is still too expensive to generate reliable, broad-based data, but the new direction opens up 23andMe to research grants that can be applied to collecting genetic information from people who would otherwise not participate in the service.
The growth of genetic testing like this for more people is inevitable, and the price will continue to drop. If you want your genome sequenced but don't want to spend this kind of dough for it, just hang tight.
23andMe has sequenced Rupert Murdoch's genome. Lactose intolerance: negative. Presence of freckles: positive.
(Credit: Dan Farber / CNET) See also:
The cheek is in the mail: Ancestry launches DNA testing
DNA dating site predicts chemical romance
Click here for full coverage of the D: All Things Digital conference.
The first dating service to use lab-based genetic profiling launched online last week. Scientific Match promises to pair up people who will be physically attracted to each other because their DNA is different.
Well-matched couples will like each others' natural scents, have more fun in bed, and bear healthier children than those who are genetically similar, the company claims.
The service, available only in the Boston area, charges $1,995 for a year-long subscription.
"I strongly believe this will dominate the future of dating services," said founder Eric Holzle, a mechanical engineer.
Members swab their cheeks and send in saliva samples. A lab spends two weeks analyzing the immune system genes, and then the company matches individuals with genetic profiles that are unalike.
"We look at six specific genetic reference points on DNA, and none of those six can match to make a match," Holzle explained.
He was inspired by a well-known "sweaty T-shirt" study of a dozen years ago, in which biologists found that women liked the smell of dirty shirts worn by men who were immunologically dissimilar to themselves.
As with other online dating sites, Scientific Match's users can fill out written profiles and upload photographs. Genetic details are not displayed, except to indicate a match. The service runs criminal background checks to exclude anyone who has committed crimes involving violence or identity theft.
Scientific Match is open to straight and gay people. However, women taking the birth control pill are turned away because some studies show they are more attracted to men with similar immune system genes.
The success or failure of the service can't be measured, however, with only a handful of customers so far. Although Holzle doesn't guarantee finding one's true love, he insists that people paired by Scientific Match will at least smell appealing to each other.
The romantic role played by scent is well-documented in poetry and science. Perfumers even add synthetic versions of pheromones, suspected aphrodisiacs found naturally in the body, to fragrances that include Paris Hilton's eponymous perfume.
But the ability to bottle attraction or to predict it through genetic profiling remains unproven by science.
Scientific Match sounds more like pseudoscience to Dean Hamer, the molecular biologist and author credited with discovering "gay genes."
"That sounds like a complete and utter rip-off that preys on people's lack of knowledge of causation and correlation," he said, adding that people could wrongly write off a potentially great mate due to genetic discrimination. "Why don't they just smell their underarms?"
Nevertheless, entrepreneurs are sure to try to capitalize on advances in genomics and biotechnology to reshape the landscape of high-tech matchmaking. The field is wide open. For instance, nobody has tried to set up couples based upon genes that have been linked to promiscuity or libido strength.
And Googling a date's full genetic code could be on the distant horizon. The cost of sequencing someone's DNA has dropped to the low six figures.
The latest online services to incorporate genetic testing include startup 23andMe, Ancestry.com, and the Genographic Project, which sell swab-and-send testing kits for uncovering the deep roots of a family tree.
Genetics pioneer Craig Venter took the stage at the Web 2.0 Summit with organizer Tim O'Reilly. What's a biologist doing at a Web 2.0 conference? Talking about how information and biology are converging (and have been for a while).
(Credit:
J. Craig Venter Institute)
Interesting tidbits: Venter's own DNA was sequenced as part of his research. It cost, he estimates, about $70 million. Today it costs only $300,000 to sequence a person's DNA, and the $100,000 benchmark is in sight. It's an information processing problem, he said. In other words, Moore's Law and genetics are tightly tied. It won't be long before your genome--and your likelihood to get various diseases, live long, be athletic, etc.--will be available in a standard medical test.
The implications for medicine, and its evil twin the insurance industry, are vast. Despite the privacy issues, Venter is in favor of transparency in genomics, so that, for example, you'll be able to "Google a date's DNA," as O'Reilly remarked. Scary? Sure. But "a good idea," Venter said. "Especially if you plan to have children."
In other news, apparently we are "weeks to months away" from growing a living, but completely synthetic bacteria in the lab. If you find this terrifying and fascinating, I recommend the novel, The Deus Machine by Pierre Oullette (Amazon link).
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