personal genomics
ddobbs | June 16, 2010
Ozzy Osbourne, preparing to grasp the meaning of his genome.
There's been much attention lately to the failure of genomics advances to create many medical advances. From rock'n'roll comes  hope.
THE mystery of why Ozzy Osbourne is still alive after decades of drug and alcohol abuse may finally be solved.
The 61-year-old former Black Sabbath lead singer â who this week begins his health advice column in The Sunday Times Magazine â is to become one of only a few people in the world to have his full genome sequenced.
In addition to giving Osbourne information that could help prevent…
dgmacarthur | June 8, 2010I posted yesterday on a serious incident at 23andMe's sample processing lab, LabCorp, that resulted in the wrong data being sent to up to 96 customers. The company has just posted a blog entry explaining the cause of the problem and the approaches being taken to ensure it doesn't happen again.
As several commenters had speculated, the cause of the problem appears to have been the flipping of a 96-well plate (a solid block of plastic containing 96 separate samples in individual wells) by 180 degrees, resulting in all of the samples being in the incorrect locations for downstream analysis.
I…
dgmacarthur | June 7, 2010Personal genomics company 23andMe has revealed that a lab mix-up resulted in as many as 96 customers receiving the wrong data. If you have a 23andMe account you can see the formal announcement of the problem here, and I've pasted the full text at the end of this post.
It appears that a single 96-well plate of customer DNA was affected by the mix-up. This resulted in incorrect results being sent to customers, with alarming consequences in some cases; one mother posted on the 23andMe community about her distress upon discovering that her son's results were incompatible with the rest of the…
dgmacarthur | May 20, 2010The brief Golden Age of direct-to-consumer genetic testing - in which people could freely gain access to their own genetic information without a doctor's permission - may be about to draw to a close. In a dramatic week, announcements of investigations into direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies by both the FDA and the US Congress have sent the personal genomics industry into a spin, and it is still impossible to say exactly which way it will be pointing once the confusion passes.
I've been frustratingly unable to find the time to cover the developments as they happened due to other…
Gleanings from empathetic ravens, lying brains, dying converence, fading vocabularies, and new books
ddobbs | May 18, 2010
Ravens via PDPhoto
Ravens show that consoling one another is also for the birds, Yet another finding that other species have qualities previously thought uniquely human. Our greatest distinction is that we're highly social. Yet in that we've got a lot of company.  
Human brains excel at detecting cheaters. FMRI's, not so much, says Vaughan Bell at Mind Hacks-- though in yet another court case, the fMRI lie detection industry pushes another story.
Bell also has a nice write-up of of scintillating RadioLab program on how early dementia shows up in use of language. A stellar program,…
ddobbs | May 12, 2010Traveling. But here's what I'm reading during train, plane, and bus rides -- and over meals:
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Gravity-defying ramps take illusion prize. This contest always produces fascinating stuff. This time, the ball rolls up. Video here.

Vaughan Bell ponders cortisol, dopamine, neuroplasticity, and other things that set off his bullshit detector. Riff launched from a post from Neuroskeptic on cortisol and childcare scare stories, equally read-worthy.
Dan Vorhaus does a wonderful round-up of reactions and implications stemming from the news that genetic testing is coming to Walgreens. Best blog-…
ddobbs | April 19, 2010A few calendar notes: I've got a three-day run starting next Sunday in which I'll be talking to authors and journalists about book proposals; NY science writers about the future of social media; and to genomic geeks about genes and temperament. If you've questions you'd like raised at any of these, please shoot me a note in the comments or privately at david.a.dobbs [at] gmail.com.
This Sunday morning, April 25, I'll be on a panel at the American Society of Journalists and Authors annual conference in New York discussing, along with agents Michelle Brower and Chris Parris-Lamb and GP Putnam…
razib | March 21, 2010The Andrew Pollack piece which I hinted at came out a few days ago: Consumers Slow to Embrace the Age of Genomics. For what it's worth, I think this chart from Dr. Daniel MacArthur is right on:
This too will pass. I believe that like the internet the knowledge and analysis of our genetic information is going to be ubiquitous after a rough period when most of the dreams of grandeur from the first generation entrepreneurs fade.
ddobbs | March 17, 2010I'll try doing this now and then, maybe regularly, to gather the more notable tweets I get in my twitter feed.
Darwin2009: Population-level traits that affect, and do not affect, invasion success http://ow.ly/1mMUp
jayrosen_nyu: "The New York Times is now as much a technology company as a journalism company." <--- Bill Keller http://jr.ly/2pfz
dhayton: âH-Madnessâ is a new blog on the history of psychiatry, madness, etc. For and by scholars: http://historypsychiatry.wordpress.com/
stevesilberman: The brains of psychopaths may be hypersensitive to dopamine rewards - http://bit.ly/daP9Go…
dgmacarthur | March 14, 2010Camilla Long's appallingly bad op-ed piece about personal genomics in the Sunday Times is a true masterpiece of unsupported criticism, and an ode to willful ignorance.
I'd encourage readers to discover their own favourite errors and misconceptions (there are plenty to go around), but here are some of the more glaring flaws:
Direct-to-consumer genetic testing is not illegal in the UK.
Long claims:
Although most of these tests seem pretty harmless and are marketed as "educational" rather than "diagnostic", in the UK such over-the-counter kits are outlawed.
She's completely wrong. In fact…
razib | March 7, 2010The odds of knowing your cousins: 23andme Part 1:
Bizarrely, Jonathan Zittrain turns out to be my cousin -- which is odd because I have known him for some time and he is also very active in the online civil rights world. How we came to learn this will be the first of my postings on the future of DNA sequencing and the company 23andMe.
Just read the whole thing. This is really a matter of the humanities, not science. Specifically, the almost mystical significance people seem to put into the finding that they share genetic ancestry with people, even people who they knew and were friendly with…
dgmacarthur | March 7, 2010A colleague just pointed me to an entry on Brad Templeton's blog where Templeton reveals some bizarre connections between people he has met as distant cousins via 23andMe's Relative Finder algorithm. Nothing too spooky, but a precursor of things to come if (as I hope and expect) 23andMe manages to ride out the current troubles besetting personal genomics and continue building its genetic database.
(H/T John).
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dgmacarthur | March 4, 2010
Over at Gene Expression, Razib suggests that trouble lies ahead for personal genomics company 23andMe. Although I'm generally a bit of a cheerleader for the Mountain View-based startup, I must admit the signs over the past year or so haven't been good: two rounds of lay-offs, the departure of co-founder Linda Avey, and the apparent deployment of $4M from a recent funding round to pay back a loan from fellow co-founder Anne Wojcicki.
Razib also notes some anonymous employee reviews of the company on GlassDoor suggesting poor morale among 23andMe workers; it's hard to make too much of these…
razib | March 3, 2010I'm hearing about rumblings at 23andMe, and not in a good way. The company made a big splash a few years ago, and came highly recommended by friends (e.g., "They know their science, and have a bottomless pool of money"). This story at BNET got my attention though, and confirmed what many have been hinting at, or just telling me straight-up. Let's start the from the beginning. Back in late 2008 23andMe seemed absolutely untouchable. Here's Andrew Yates of Think Gene from then:
People, 23andMe isn't going anywhere. They are the Bill & Melinda Gates Sergey & Anne Brin Foundation,…
razib | February 15, 2010Dr. Daniel MacArthur reports on shenanigans in his homeland, Australian insurance company offers discounted genome scans to customers; read the fine print!:
A reader pointed me to this article in the Australian news: it appears that a major Australian insurance company, NIB, is planning to offer half-price genome scans from personal genomics company Navigenics to 5,000 of its customers.
The catch is in the fine print: those who take up the offer "may have to give the information to life insurance or superannuation providers", according to the article. In a letter to customers, the chief…
razib | February 14, 2010Dr. Daniel MacArthur returns from hiatus, and observes that deCODE is now in the advanced stages of corporate death. Pointers to a Newsweek article and other bloggers at Dr. MacArthur's post. Over at Gene Expression Classic p-ter points out that Small genetic effects do not preclude drug development (one of the rationales given for why deCODE couldn't translate associations in $$$).
Also, for historical perspective, check out this 2002 article about deCODE.
dgmacarthur | February 14, 2010This piece in Newsweek is a neat summary of the rise and fall of Icelandic genomics giant deCODE Genetics. Regular readers of Genetic Future will be aware that the company has been steadily bleeding capital ever since its launch over a decade ago, and recently declared formal bankruptcy. Since then the company has been bought up by US-based company Saga Investments. (For an excellent analysis of the implications of this sale, see Dan Vorhaus' post on Genomics Law Report.)
A reader emailed me to point out that buried towards the end of the Newsweek article is an ominous paragraph for…
dgmacarthur | January 22, 2010Disclaimer: my wife and I have both received and used free testing kits from Counsyl.
Counsyl is a rather enigmatic player in the personal genomics field: apart from a brief mention in Steven Pinker's excellent NY Times piece over a year ago and an even briefer post on a Newsweek blog late last year, the company has been in determined stealth mode for much of the last two years.
All that was publicly known about the company when I wrote about them last year was that they will be offering a large-scale carrier screening test: basically, allowing couples who are considering having a baby to…
razib | January 10, 2010Weird but fun list, SNPedia's Top 10 SNPs of the Year:
SNPedia now contains nearly 10,000 SNPs and to welcome 2010 we'd like to highlight at least 10. These SNPs have been selected based on an elusive and ultimately subjective combination of medical importance, statistical believability, and overall general interest. This isn't objective science though, so feel free to comment about why your favorite SNPs should have made the list.
H/T Eye on DNA.
dgmacarthur | January 7, 2010Several articles with a personal genomics theme popped up today.
Most importantly, this piece in the Times by Mark Henderson is a superb analysis of the current state and likely future of the personal genomics industry, and a must-read for anyone interested in the field.
Henderson notes that despite the turmoil in the industry in 2009, it's still unclear which of the disparate models adopted by competitors in the industry (e.g. 23andMe's curiosity-driven "genomics is fun" approach, or Navigenics' sombre, paternalistic, health-focused image) will prove the most successful in the long run:…