Yesterday, I spat in a tube, added a preservative solution, and mailed my saliva to 23andMe, a company that provides its customers with some of their genetic data. 23andMe does not sequence whole genomes—that is still extremely expensive. Instead, they examine about 600,000 locations in human DNA, selected on the basis of actual or potential informativeness. This represents only a small fraction of the genetic variation that occurs in humans, which is itself only a small fraction of the human genome. While I wish the product were more complete (perhaps in 15 or 20 years getting one’s complete genome sequenced will be commonplace), I am eager to get the results, which will be available in 2-4 weeks.
Economics and genomics
Economics and genomics
Economics and genomics
Yesterday, I spat in a tube, added a preservative solution, and mailed my saliva to 23andMe, a company that provides its customers with some of their genetic data. 23andMe does not sequence whole genomes—that is still extremely expensive. Instead, they examine about 600,000 locations in human DNA, selected on the basis of actual or potential informativeness. This represents only a small fraction of the genetic variation that occurs in humans, which is itself only a small fraction of the human genome. While I wish the product were more complete (perhaps in 15 or 20 years getting one’s complete genome sequenced will be commonplace), I am eager to get the results, which will be available in 2-4 weeks.