WANTED: 23andMe, Navigenics, and deCODEme customers.

The Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Genetics Business is strange because it is often difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is that drives consumers to purchase genetic information.

Sudeepa Abeysinghe, a PhD student at The Austrailian National Univerity School of Sciences is conducting a short survey to determine “users’ experiences and perspectives of direct-to-consumer genomic testing.” The ultimate goal is to help understand what type of utility these tests currently provide.

The survey is only 20 minutes long, and can be anonymously taken. Please take some time to add your voice in shaping research into DTC genetics while also helping out a PhD student. The survey can be found here.

So it’s official, I’m waiting for the Spit Kit to arrive. After some consideration, a group of us decided that 23andMe would be the best service to use to get our genes read (I’m careful not to use the words sequenced so as not to mislead people). I did it in a group of six and got the holiday discount, so it was actually less than $400.

I’ve spent some time at their site recently, and one of the more entertaining objects I have found is their human prehistory animation. Although the video is cute and likely does a good job of giving the non-biology person some bearings in the area, they should be careful with such a video. Some groups (Fundamentalist Christians for example) might view the video as the devil’s propaganda. I recommend taking a look, it’s funny AND educational.

23andMe Prehistory Animation

Nonetheless, I’m really excited to learn more about myself (and my family), despite the possibility of hearing some negative news (nothing I can do about my genetic make-up now…maybe in the future though, who knows). I’m going to be updating the status of my experience along with some advice I have on how to take the data further than the analysis that is given on the 23andMe website.

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