To Be or Not to Be: 23andMe
Yesterday I opened my mailbox to find a package from 23andMe, a new Silicon Valley start-up that offers a personal genotyping service, which contained the “spit kit” that will eventually unlock all sorts of secrets that lurk in my chromosomes. “This is your early birthday gift,” my brother-in-law told me when he signed me up for the service. Since he works for the company that makes the chip which reads the DNA, he was offered a discount for friends and family–$250 for a $1000 value—not bad to be a part of the ground-breaking, ubercool generation of folks who are the first to participate in this process. Or is it?
23andMe was founded by Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki, the wife of none other than Sergey Brin of Google fame. Coincidently, Google gave 23andMe $3.9 M in their Series A round of financing. Now that I am satisfied the company will never go out of business, I am left with an excited yet uneasy feeling about all of this. 23andMe promises that I will be able to find out things like my propensity toward certain types of cancer and illness such as diabetes, Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and heart disease, whether or not I have the “sprinter’s gene,” and where my ancestors came from. I will then get raw access to all my genetic information via the website and will be able to compare it with the rest of my family and other people across the globe.
I have always thought of myself as young and healthy, and the young part grows more grim with each passing day. Do I really need something telling me that I can eliminate the healthy part, too? I am still reading through the documents that accompanied the spit kit which detail considerations I should take before participating. It would be difficult enough to find out that I have a genetic variation for imminent death, never mind being denied health insurance because of it. On the other hand, I feel that this is the next-generation of self-discovery, and ignoring the facts doesn’t make them go away. 23andMe is social networking on steroids, and let’s be honest–how many people out there don’t have a Facebook or LinkedIn profile?
I think I am going to courageously mail my spit-kit back to 23andMe tomorrow and await my results. Hopefully I will live long enough to post again on my findings.
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Comments (3 Responses)
[...] I haven’t come across too many bloggers that are decoding their genomes using services like 23andMe and blogging their experiences. The only bloggers I’ve come across so far that are also using 23andMe are Mike at TechCrunch with Step 1 and Step 2 using 23andMe, Mark Fletcher of Wingedpig.com, and Lara at LaunchSquad. [...]
Hey Lara, I’ll definitely keep checking in with your 23andMe updates. I’m also blogging my 23andMe journey. Good luck with your results!
The Latest on 23andMe » The Genetic Genealogist
Posted on December 13th, 2007 at 12:01 am.
[...] To Be or Not to Be: 23andMe LaunchSquad received their 23andMe kit in the mail, causing them to ponder the benefits, considerations, and services involved in genetic testing. After introspection, they decide to spit and mail. [...]