(UPDATED: See below.)
As I discussed a few weeks ago with respect to deCODEme — a “personal genomics” service hurriedly launched last November by Iceland’s deCODE Genetics in an apparent attempt to beat 23andMe to market (it succeeded by a day or so) — these sorts of services can awfully dense and difficult to navigate. The deCODEme service appears to be particularly bad in that respect, both in terms of its design and even the underlying science used to justify the genetic information displayed in a demonstration user account.
So it’s a pleasant surprise to report that 23andMe, which over the weekend began allowing people to set up demonstration accounts itself, appears to have made the process of understanding your genetic inheritance about as simple and intuitive as it can probably get. The demo accounts don’t display your own genetic information, of course — instead, they show a profile for the fictional Greg and Lilly Mendel and their immediate relatives. (The family name is inspired by Gregor Mendel, a nineteenth-century monk known as the “father of genetics” for his studies on the inheritance of pea plants; the profile uses actual data from an anonymous European family.)
These sorts of demo accounts are particularly useful given that 23andMe and its competitors are charging customers roughly $1,000 for a genetic analysis, which is a lot to shell out when you don’t have any real idea what you’re getting for your money. To sign up for a 23andMe demo account, click here.
Like all these services — of which there are currently at least four, counting the new DNATraits project launched recently by Family Tree DNA — 23andMe takes a genetic sample (here from having users spit repeatedly into a tube) and checks 600,000 or so individual DNA “letters,” or bases, known to vary between people. After analyzing those letters, the company posts your genetic information on a Web site where you can see what your particular genetic pattern says about inherited traits such as your susceptibility to cancer or heart disease, longevity and even eye and hair color. Not only can you spin through the data in as much or as little detail as you like, you can share it with relatives or friends and search for others with similar traits.
One of the first things a new visitor will see is the clean and uncluttered look of 23andMe’s “gene journal,” which lets you scroll through various genetic traits and then dive in to see how you — well, your Mendel stand-in — fare compared to the population at large. (See a screenshot of Greg Mendel’s gene journal using the thumbnail above and to the left.)
More after the jump: Read the rest of this entry »
