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Anyone surprised? For this and other reasons I've refused to use their service and other services like theirs. Here's a service. Pay to get your panel/exome/wh

Anyone surprised? For this and other reasons I've refused to use their service and other services like theirs. Here's a service. Pay to get your panel/exome/whole genome sequenced, put your data on gcp/aws/azure, user open source to do variant analysis and pay a specialist for their computer aided analysis. Guess what, you own your data end to end. I imagine the above could be had for less than $2k. Some startup will write the software stack to do this and simply sell licenses for software you run anywhere you want.

Lyle-Cantor 7y ago
No one should be surprised, their database is extremely valuable. They have a labeled database of millions of genomes. Once they sequence them all, then they just need to buy Luminosity (which is basically a site full of IQ tests) and find their common customers. If they have a millions common customers, then they can build a predictive model for IQ. Repeat with any other trait you want to predict. Hell, buy a video game company and embed behavioural tests within it. Sell it for use in embryo selection, employee profiling, to governments.
- zxcb1 7y ago
  Huxley?
dahfizz 7y ago
I think that's an incredibly small niche. So few people care that much about privacy or have the technical awareness. This solution costs a lot more and requires more work from the user.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Symmetry 7y ago
Not surprised, contributing to our understanding of genetics was half the reason I signed up for 23andMe.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
epistasis 7y ago
There's a lot of churn in that market of startups doing it and stopping doing it. The scientific community has already created all the tough parts of the software stack, and everything has been commoditized already, there's just not much of a customer base. The customers that it's really really useful for are those with rare phenotypes that want to learn more, and they can't find a doctor with expertise, and there's no lab specialized in genetic testing for that. However, those are also the cases where the off the shelf software/sequencing doesn't always give the right answer because it's not a simple small change, and then you need specialists both on the biology and bioinformatics side to really make it useful.
testvox 7y ago
Federal law requires that labs retain the results of genetic testing for a minimum of 10 years. > Reports of genetic testing must be retained for at least 10 years. Electronic records are acceptable. Specific regulations for specimen retention are not proposed, but each laboratory must have a written policy defining its own specimen retention policy. http://clinchem.aaccjnls.org/content/45/5/739 http://clinchem.aaccjnls.org/content/45/5/739
- astazangasta 7y ago
  This is for CLIA tests, i.e. clinical tests. 23andMe is explicitly NOT this as they can't make medical claims. Just getting a piece of DNA sequenced does not require this kind of retention; GP is right, this is a viable business plan. Data retention is the next big wave and these companies would do well to clue in. There is zero chance they will find anything medically useful with their database and a ton of outstabding liability once people realize how it can be abused.
  - eweitz 7y ago
    23andMe is CLIA certified and FDA authorized, and makes many medical claims. From [1]: "CLIA certification and CAP accreditation 23andMe laboratory testing is done in U.S. laboratories certified to meet CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988) standards, including qualifications for individuals performing testing and other standards to ensure the accuracy and reliability of results. The laboratory is also accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), which has served as a model for various federal, state, and private laboratory accreditation programs throughout the world." FDA authorizations for 23andMe's personal genome service are available online, e.g. [2] for Alzheimer's disease risk reporting based on the E4 variant of the APOE gene. The company also offers ancestry reports, which are not clinical and thus covered by CLIA. But medical claims in 23andMe's health reports do comply with CLIA and other regulations. 1. https://medical.23andme.com/dna-kits/#clia https://medical.23andme.com/dna-kits/#clia 2. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf16/DEN160026.pdf https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf16/DEN160026.pdf
    - 7y ago
usgroup 7y ago
Well, once you launch your startup I look forward to being a customer :-)

Lyle-Cantor 7y ago

No one should be surprised, their database is extremely valuable. They have a labeled database of millions of genomes. Once they sequence them all, then they just need to buy Luminosity (which is basically a site full of IQ tests) and find their common customers. If they have a millions common customers, then they can build a predictive model for IQ. Repeat with any other trait you want to predict. Hell, buy a video game company and embed behavioural tests within it. Sell it for use in embryo selection, employee profiling, to governments.

zxcb1 7y ago
Huxley?

dahfizz 7y ago

I think that's an incredibly small niche. So few people care that much about privacy or have the technical awareness. This solution costs a lot more and requires more work from the user.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Symmetry 7y ago

Not surprised, contributing to our understanding of genetics was half the reason I signed up for 23andMe.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

epistasis 7y ago

There's a lot of churn in that market of startups doing it and stopping doing it. The scientific community has already created all the tough parts of the software stack, and everything has been commoditized already, there's just not much of a customer base. The customers that it's really really useful for are those with rare phenotypes that want to learn more, and they can't find a doctor with expertise, and there's no lab specialized in genetic testing for that. However, those are also the cases where the off the shelf software/sequencing doesn't always give the right answer because it's not a simple small change, and then you need specialists both on the biology and bioinformatics side to really make it useful.

testvox 7y ago

Federal law requires that labs retain the results of genetic testing for a minimum of 10 years. > Reports of genetic testing must be retained for at least 10 years. Electronic records are acceptable. Specific regulations for specimen retention are not proposed, but each laboratory must have a written policy defining its own specimen retention policy. http://clinchem.aaccjnls.org/content/45/5/739 http://clinchem.aaccjnls.org/content/45/5/739

astazangasta 7y ago
This is for CLIA tests, i.e. clinical tests. 23andMe is explicitly NOT this as they can't make medical claims. Just getting a piece of DNA sequenced does not require this kind of retention; GP is right, this is a viable business plan. Data retention is the next big wave and these companies would do well to clue in. There is zero chance they will find anything medically useful with their database and a ton of outstabding liability once people realize how it can be abused.
- eweitz 7y ago
  23andMe is CLIA certified and FDA authorized, and makes many medical claims. From [1]: "CLIA certification and CAP accreditation 23andMe laboratory testing is done in U.S. laboratories certified to meet CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988) standards, including qualifications for individuals performing testing and other standards to ensure the accuracy and reliability of results. The laboratory is also accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), which has served as a model for various federal, state, and private laboratory accreditation programs throughout the world." FDA authorizations for 23andMe's personal genome service are available online, e.g. [2] for Alzheimer's disease risk reporting based on the E4 variant of the APOE gene. The company also offers ancestry reports, which are not clinical and thus covered by CLIA. But medical claims in 23andMe's health reports do comply with CLIA and other regulations. 1. https://medical.23andme.com/dna-kits/#clia https://medical.23andme.com/dna-kits/#clia 2. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf16/DEN160026.pdf https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf16/DEN160026.pdf
  - 7y ago

usgroup 7y ago

Well, once you launch your startup I look forward to being a customer :-)