For a thousand bucks the customer gets to spit into a container and mail it to the lab where the DNA is sliced, diced and genotyped. Then they tell you what the present state of genome science says about you.
The 23andme.com co-founders, Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki, were on Wired Science the other night doing an interview about their venture. (Watch the interview here.)
Variations in the DNA sequence are called snps, and there are said to be 10,000,000 of them, of which, the company can analyze 580,000. (They use the Illumina chip which is supposed to be able to analyze 550,000, and they've added another 30,000 on their own.) This still falls far short of the total. But they say these are the most important ones.
Then there's the price. Technological prices have historically fallen after the initial introduction, and this one may follow suit. In this regard, the Illumina website boasts that its chip can yield a result for as low as $290 per sample. So 23andme has a nice markup in place, and if it catches on there will be more competition and lower prices. But the added value is the analysis.
The customer gets the results then visits the company website to see what his/her snps might mean for the prospects of developing, for example, poppa's hairless head. As the research develops, the website provides this:
23andMe's Marker Effects chart helps you see how certain genes contribute to a person's chances of developing a condition or disease - providing context to your own genetic information. And as the science keeps advancing, 23andMe will update our charts to reflect the latest research.
The website doesn't say, but I would expect a fee for viewing those updates. Oh, and how did they get that name? A genome is comprised of 23 chromosomes, hence the name, "23andme." Ah those clever entrepreneurs. Where would we be without them?
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