It is dubbed as a Personal Genome Service. Starting Monday, 23andMe is offering a $999 genotyping service. The company has partnered with Illumina to perform whole-genome genotyping and provide this as a service to individuals.
The $999 price tag appears too much of a coincidence. During the past few years, several bounties have been announced to hit this magical mark
- September 2003 – The J. Craig Venter Science Foundation announces $500,000 technology prize for advances leading to the $1000 human genome
- February 2004 – NIH puts out a request for application for a $1000 genome
- October 2006 – X-Prize Foundation announces $10M to the first team to sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days for $100K each
So do I really think this $999 price tag is coincidental ? If I am fixing the price, I would do exactly what the 23andMe guys did so that I can ride the already present market awareness (hype?). The devil is in the details but I’ll cash the headlines, thank you very much!
Exactly what DOES a personal genome account give me ? According to the website, I can explore my genome, find about my ancestors etc. Let me add a few more things to this: may be I can see what ailments I am more prone to acquire, find out about emerging drug technologies that can help me with them etc.
It may also mean that
- I am on a *very* directed spam list. If I am a high risk diabetic, I wonder if I will start receiving more of those in my daily spam ?
- Tailored Insurance Plan offers ?
- add your own here…
And how large is the database right now for those genetic connections to occur ? And where did that database come from ?
Recent Comments