A new player in the market of fortune-telling by genes
Ancestry enters the market of genetic prediction of diseases
Sergey Kolenov, Hi-tech+
For a long time, 23andMe remained the only American company that provided clients with services for genetic analysis of predisposition to various diseases. However, now she has a serious competitor. According to Quartz, Ancestry is entering the medical genetic testing market.
Ancestry's main specialization is genealogical research. In 2012, the company launched the AncestryDNA service, which uses genetic information to search for kinship relationships. It quickly gained popularity and attracted about 15 million users.
The company's new product, called AncestryHealth, will assess health risks based on DNA analysis.
It will be more difficult to order an Ancestry genetic test than a similar 23andMe service. The client will have to answer a number of questions about his own health and family medical history, which the company will send to the doctor for evaluation. This allows you to cut off people for whom genetic tests are not suitable – for example, those who have undergone bone marrow transplantation. In addition, the participation of a doctor helps to circumvent some regulatory prohibitions.
If the testing is approved, the client will be able to get an assessment of his genetic predisposition to a number of diseases.
The AncestryHealth test detects mutations that increase the risk of certain types of breast, uterine and colon cancers, as well as cardiomyopathy, elevated cholesterol and iron levels in the blood and excessive blood clotting.
In addition, the analysis determines whether a person is a carrier of recessive genes for sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs disease.
Ancestry notes that the purpose of the new service is to provide users with useful information. Therefore, the test does not include, for example, the APOE gene, certain variants of which increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Since there are no effective methods of treating this disease, knowledge of a predisposition to it will be rather harmful for a person.
Two tests
The test is available in two versions. AncestryHealth Core, worth $149, uses a simplified methodology and looks for only a few mutations that are strictly associated with certain diseases. AncestryHealth Plus for $199 sequences all coding genes and identifies variants that may increase the risk of diseases with greater or lesser probability. For $49, you can get a membership in the system and within six months receive information about new studies linking certain genes to health.
In addition, AncestryHealth users will be able to create family trees reflecting the family history of diseases. They will be visible only to the company's customers.
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