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The term "At Home" is very disingenuous. Spitting in a tube at home and then mailing your DNA to a lab is not At Home. A proper at-home test would be a kit th

The term "At Home" is very disingenuous. Spitting in a tube at home and then mailing your DNA to a lab is not At Home. A proper at-home test would be a kit that allows you to decode your DNA at home without a single strand DNA or byte of data landing on a system that does not belong to you.

colordrops 8y ago
How long until this is feasible? I've heard of DNA sequencing machines for $2k, but are not easy or reliable.
- Varcht 8y ago
  I think you guys are onto something. At $100 a pop, my family, just counting out to first cousins, could buy a pretty nice sequencer.
- pbnjay 8y ago
  The MinION is approaching this but you need really good prep work to get reliable results.
- LinuxBender 8y ago
  I would gladly pay $2k to keep my data at home. To me, that is much cheaper than what it would cost to remove genetic data from multiple corporations and governments, if that is even feasible.
  - make3 8y ago
    a genome is useless without a huge set of algorithms and datasets to analyse the genome
    - LinuxBender 8y ago
      Agreed. That needs to be open source code, checked into a public repo with instructions that the average person can follow. After a few years, I would expect that code to run on the device that enumerates the DNA. Perhaps a RasPi with a daughter card or USB device that reads the DNA, similar to blood sugar testers.
- lipman 8y ago
  The analysis of your sequence is key. While there are some open source resources (hard for non-experts to use), the big consumer testing companies far and away have better analytical tools.
  - colordrops 8y ago
    When anyone can sequence their DNA at home I expect this to change.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  It wasn't that long ago that sequencing a single genome was several billion dollars. I bet it won't be that many more years until we will have home sequencing machines. Probably we'll chuckle at how we ever thought it was so complicated.
- make3 8y ago
  and then you have the genes, but zero algorithm to analyse them. feels unlikely that any company would rent offline copies of their analysis solutions, but you never know
skellera 8y ago
Are the services that ancestry and ‘23 and me’ do provided at a loss and made up with the data or is it profitable? Why aren’t there companies out there doing this at a higher cost without the privacy implications? Just give the user their data and decoding software that is regularly updated with current information. Seems like low end machines are about $100,000 so it seems like this would work? I would pay 3-4 times as much if I knew I controlled the results.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  Where are the privacy implications, most of these privacy "breaches" are just opt-in features, which you don't have to sign up for. Even this one, which is the most extreme by so far: > While the FBI does not have the ability to freely browse genetic profiles in the library

colordrops 8y ago

How long until this is feasible? I've heard of DNA sequencing machines for $2k, but are not easy or reliable.

Varcht 8y ago
I think you guys are onto something. At $100 a pop, my family, just counting out to first cousins, could buy a pretty nice sequencer.
pbnjay 8y ago
The MinION is approaching this but you need really good prep work to get reliable results.
LinuxBender 8y ago
I would gladly pay $2k to keep my data at home. To me, that is much cheaper than what it would cost to remove genetic data from multiple corporations and governments, if that is even feasible.
- make3 8y ago
  a genome is useless without a huge set of algorithms and datasets to analyse the genome
  - LinuxBender 8y ago
    Agreed. That needs to be open source code, checked into a public repo with instructions that the average person can follow. After a few years, I would expect that code to run on the device that enumerates the DNA. Perhaps a RasPi with a daughter card or USB device that reads the DNA, similar to blood sugar testers.
lipman 8y ago
The analysis of your sequence is key. While there are some open source resources (hard for non-experts to use), the big consumer testing companies far and away have better analytical tools.
- colordrops 8y ago
  When anyone can sequence their DNA at home I expect this to change.
rootusrootus 8y ago
It wasn't that long ago that sequencing a single genome was several billion dollars. I bet it won't be that many more years until we will have home sequencing machines. Probably we'll chuckle at how we ever thought it was so complicated.
make3 8y ago
and then you have the genes, but zero algorithm to analyse them. feels unlikely that any company would rent offline copies of their analysis solutions, but you never know

skellera 8y ago

Are the services that ancestry and ‘23 and me’ do provided at a loss and made up with the data or is it profitable? Why aren’t there companies out there doing this at a higher cost without the privacy implications? Just give the user their data and decoding software that is regularly updated with current information. Seems like low end machines are about $100,000 so it seems like this would work? I would pay 3-4 times as much if I knew I controlled the results.

ehsankia 8y ago
Where are the privacy implications, most of these privacy "breaches" are just opt-in features, which you don't have to sign up for. Even this one, which is the most extreme by so far: > While the FBI does not have the ability to freely browse genetic profiles in the library