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Commentary on human genetics and evolution, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, and the personal genomics industry.
Daniel MacArthur
I write about the genetic and evolutionary basis of human variation, and the companies trying to sell you information about your genome.
Daniel also blogs about personal genomics at Genomes Unzipped.
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Category: personal genomics
Personal genomics company 23andMe has made some fairly major announcements this week: a brand new chip, a new product strategy (including a monthly subscription fee), and yet another discount push. What do these changes mean for existing and new customers?
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 8:45 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: direct-to-consumer genetic testing
Two days ago I reported a rumour that the FDA might have convinced genotyping chip provider Illumina to stop providing its products to direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies - a move that would effectively prevent these companies from being able to...
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 5:30 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: personal genomics
Following up on the rumours I posted about yesterday regarding a potential bid by the FDA to choke of direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies' supply of genotyping chips, I received the following statement by email from 23andMe's PR firm: 23andMe is...
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 6:00 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: FDA
An article in the Washington Post by reporter Rob Stein includes several "negative experiences" from personal genomics customers. The fact that so few such experiences could be found tells us something about the general satisfaction of customers with their personal genomic data - and a blogger claims that even these anecdotes have been exaggerated in the article for dramatic effect.
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 7:50 AM • 19 Comments •
Category: genome-wide association studies
As an addendum to my previous post on the controversial "longevity genes" study, you should go and check this out. It's a post on the blog of personal genomics company 23andMe, and it's a pretty impressive piece of scientific dissection of...
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 9:30 PM • 6 Comments •
Category: consumer-driven research
After a year in review, a manuscript from direct-to-consumer genetic testing company 23andMe describing novel genetic associations obtained by mining their customer database has been published by PLoS Genetics.
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 6:30 AM • 9 Comments •
Category: errors
Personal genomics company 23andMe has revealed more details about the cause of its embarrassing sample mix-up last week, which resulted in the wrong data being returned to 96 customers.
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 7:30 PM • 7 Comments •
Category: direct-to-consumer genetic testing
Personal genomics company 23andMe has revealed that it accidentally mixed up the samples from up to 96 customers, resulting in genetic data being returned to the wrong individuals. If the industry is to survive it needs to ensure these mistakes don't happen; but customers also need to play a role as watchdogs of their own genetic data.
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 6:00 AM • 31 Comments •
Category: commercial genetic testing
The last week has seen the beginning of a likely massive regulatory crackdown on the personal genomics industry, with investigations into the field launched by the FDA and the US Congress. It seems likely that the result will be major regulatory burdens placed on the industry - an outcome that would do lasting damage to innovation in the nascent field of personalised medicine.
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 8:35 PM • 67 Comments •
Category: personal genomics
A colleague just pointed me to an entry on Brad Templeton's blog where Templeton reveals some bizarre connections between people he has met as distant cousins via 23andMe's Relative Finder algorithm. Nothing too spooky, but a precursor of things...
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 4:45 PM • •
Tim Lambert 02.01.2012
PZ Myers 02.02.2012
ERV 11.26.2011
Orac 01.26.2012
Jason Rosenhouse 02.12.2012
