
A 23andMe Patent - maverick2
http://blog.23andme.com/news/a-23andme-patent/
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r0h1n
The headline is quite misleading. From the post, the patent appears to be
about calculating and showing the traits children are likely to inherit from
their parents, not a way to "design" them.

~~~
ostrakon
If a couple produces 50 zygotes togather, and the mother and father test all
of them, and pick the one that sounds like it has the most appealing traits
that a couple might envision together, and discard the rest, would that count
as "design"?

This process sounds like it's half a step away from that. The half-step being
that they only mention testing the parents, and then the process permits a
degree of hypothesizing about possible children. Meanwhile, how hard would it
be to test an embryo in utero, and then make a shallow, superficial decision
about the pregnancy?

The process is practical and ethical, when considering it's utility for
assessing the risk of inherited, incurable diseases tied to varying
combinations of dominant or recessive genes, but it's a flimsy assumption that
it will solely be used for only those scenarios.

There will be couples with known risk factors, who will want to roll the dice
and try anyway, because they love eachother and want a family, and then they
check their pregnancy in utero for things like downs syndrome. But then, if
you have the options in front of you, why not check out other characteristics
too?

And then, if couple A was allowed to do that, and this is a business, after
all... Why not couple B? This couple who has no life threatening conditions or
genetic combinations, but has the money, and the confidentialitiy of protected
health information laws shrouding their decisions in secrecy.

In 20 years, don't be surprised when a certain cross-section of humanity
suddenly looks strikingly different, but without any obvious explanation.

~~~
Digit-Al
I'm not sure I see this happening to any great degree. We have had the ability
to know the sex of babies in advance for decades, and there are still many
parents who prefer to leave it as a surprise. If there are still so many
people who don't even want to know the gender of their baby before it is born,
how many are going to want to make any kind of changes to it.

Also, there are still a great many people who are very suspicious of any new
medical technology and would not want to take any risks when it comes to a
child.

~~~
sp332
"Many" is meaningless. There will also be "many" who will do exactly this as
soon as possible. It's already possible to run certain tests during pregnancy,
and it's legal to have an abortion based on the test results. One of my
friends in high school was pre-nataly diagnosed with spina bifida and the
doctor _recommended_ an abortion.

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binarymax
_" You want to give your child the very best start...Keep in mind this child
is still you, simply the best of you."_ \- Gattaca

~~~
Filligree
Yep. And what's so bad about that?

~~~
functional_test
You should probably watch Gattaca - the answer to your question is pretty much
the whole point of that film. Or if you don't want to watch, at least to read
the first two paragraphs of
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca).

~~~
PeterisP
Watching Gattaca is very recommended to everyone.

It raises many important questions on how to properly and ethically handle
genetic improvements in society, but in my opinion it doesn't at all say that
the genetic improvements shouldn't be done, it simply warns about the social,
political and legal issues that the society should discuss and solve alongside
with the actual biological/engineering challenges.

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DanBC
> The company never pursued the concepts discussed in the patent beyond our
> Family Traits Inheritance Calculator, nor do we have any plans to do so.

Isn't this a direct violation of the principles of patents? A patent gives you
protection to work on an invention, so that you have a monopoly to sell that
invention and thus cover the costs of developing it. But here they have the
patent, thus preventing anyone else selling the invention, but they are not
selling the invention themselves.

I'm interested about law. (Not saying this is relevant to 23&me.) Can you
patent a process for an illegal action? So, a business process that enables
tax evasion (not avoidance)?

~~~
ourmandave
...nor do we have any plans to do so.

Until such time as there's a new owner or we're bought by Evil Co., etc.

Every time I read a best intentions phrase like that it reminds me of the
company that promised, "Never to share your email with anyone. Ever."

Until they went bankrupt and one of the assets sold off was their customer
database.

~~~
CaptainZapp

      reminds me of the company that promised, "Never to share your email with anyone. Ever."
    

Well, as it turns out there is not even a need to go bankrupt in order to
share all your emails with impunity.

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zimbatm
In the future the opposite sex will not only judge us on look and wealth but
also on genetic material. We're leaving DNA traces everywhere. Once the DNA
samplers become small enough it's just a matter of time before an "app" that
does that exists. Welcome to the future :)

~~~
xerophtye
I think there was some anime where that actually happened :P cliques were
based on genes! The coolest girl had the best DNA! Oh and another girl was
showing off her speed, so the popular girl remarked "Speed is a dominant trait
of lower mammals." imagine being judged for having common genetic traits...

~~~
dexen
I believe it was `Geneshaft' [0], by Bandai. It mixes mecha with social
dynamics of genetics and gender disparity.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneshaft](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneshaft)

~~~
xerophtye
yep that's the one!! we had an anime channel (animax) on our cable briefly. So
saw the first episode of this show back then. (Got introduced to ranma 1/2 and
inuyasha as well!)

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captainmuon
I like the little image that seems to say: "Looking to start a family? Beware,
your child might be a redhead! Calculate your risk now!"

(Please, if someone with red hair reads this, no offense :-))

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_mulder_
Has anyone used the 23andMe service? I'd like to know how accurate the results
are.

Can they say you definitely carry a gene for diabetes or lactose intolerance,
for example, or do they just say you're at a higher chance of developing this?
The website example given for carrier diseases looks so vague it's not worth
bothering with ("You are a carrier of one or more infected conditions"...
great, which ones!)

If they can give me a list of things I need to be mindful of in the future
and, more importantly, why, I'd happily pay $99 for that. I.e; you've got this
and that gene which leaves you susceptible to this condition which may lead to
heart disease, etc. and we're %xx certain.

Does anyone have any experience of this kind of thing?

~~~
raphman
No personal experience but someone blogged (in German, unfortunately) recently
about a bug in 23andMe's analysis algorithm that resulted in him being told
that he was terminally ill. He spent a lot of time learning everything about
the purported gene malfunction, found the bug in 23andMe's assumptions and got
it fixed upstream. Certainly not a nice experience.

[1] [http://www.ctrl-verlust.net/23andme-wie-ich-fur-todkrank-
erk...](http://www.ctrl-verlust.net/23andme-wie-ich-fur-todkrank-erklart-
wurde-und-mich-wieder-gesund-debuggte/)

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polskibus
So they applied statistics to information about genes and received patent on
it? I can get someone else than 23andMe analyze my genes, and he can do
similar analysis.

I really like 23andMe's product, although I dont like the idea of my genetic
information being stored outside my country (different than US).

I hope the patent itself isn't as broad as they are painting it, statistical
methods (algorithms) should never be a part of patent - they are too generic
and based on mathematics.

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Tichy
What exactly did they patent? Surely calculating the odds of inherited traits
was not invented by 23andMe?

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xerophtye
Btw why is everyone going on about genetic engineered kids? This company only
lets you get your genetic data and the potential genetic make up of your
offspring. It doesn't exactly let you HAVE a baby with those genetic traits.
Or am i missing something?

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stormbrew
The patent includes more than that. It also includes using the process against
a pool of potential donors to choose the highest likelihood of a 'desirable'
outcome in terms of the child's genetics. It's not quite Gattaca-style
selection, but it is a way to 'design' your child with a high margin of error.

~~~
xerophtye
Isn't that just the process of finding the best mate based on genetic info?
that is so not designing your child :/ So basically if it is worded as you say
it is, then if a company figures out the actual designing part, they can't be
sued by these guys. Because the selection they patent is between different
donors... they cant do anything with a pre-selected donor.

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warpech
Is the "Don't be evil" motto still valid at all?

