

23andMe for $99 - michaelfairley
https://www.23andme.com/

======
sorbus
"*Requires a recurring Personal Genome Service subscription at $5/month. 1
year contract required. Order for $499 with no subscription commitment."

So it's really $159, with another $60 paid every subsequent year as long as
you want access to the data (and any new things which they might provide). If
you're expecting to subscribe for longer than the next 80 months (six years
and eight months), then it might be better to get the normal $499 version.
Although, on the page about what the PGS subscription gives you, it mentions
discounts on future things, like moving from genotyping to full sequencing, so
perhaps it would be worth it. Not quite enough information to say, really.

That said, I'm all for lowering the barriers to people knowing about their
DNA, and $5 a month is pretty small compared to many other things (phone
contracts, for instance, or getting coffee every morning).

~~~
zmmmmm
> with another $60 paid every subsequent year as long as you want access to
> the data

Can you clarify? Are they going to let me get the raw data, or are they
holding it hostage and just telling me higher level results from it?

~~~
chaostheory
Being a current member, I believe you do have access to the raw data though I
haven't downloaded mine yet.

~~~
Aron
You do. I have done it. There are programs that can parse this information and
correlate it to other information sources such as snpedia.

------
alexwestholm
For those concerned about privacy, it's buried on their How It Works page. I'd
strongly suggest to the company that such info might be worth placing on the
front page.

According to the site, the Genetics Information Nondiscrimination Act covers
the data provided and ensures you can't be discriminated against in employment
or health insurance matters. Though I don't know anything about the GINA
beyond the information they provide, this seems to leave out issues of end of
life care (IE, can a family member use legal discovery mechanisms to get at
info about potential up-coming medical problems in later life as a means to
halt usage of a ventilator should you become comatose?) and probably some
other things.

~~~
dotBen
GINA could be repealed. It was legal for gay couples to marry once and now it
isn't. _(at state level here in CA, admittedly - but laws can be repealed at
any level)_

Given that the health and the insurance industries have some of the most
powerful lobby groups around, I'd be concerned that GINA isn't a guaranteed
law for the rest of the life of this data.

If I do this _(I'm considering it)_ then I would do it as John Doe with my PO
Box, freshly created email address, etc. Getting kinda OT but there is a
similar chain of thought when you get STD/HIV testing that you should do it as
a John Doe for similar reasons.

------
michaelfairley
Note that there's a new $5/month subscription fee, with a 1 year minimum
commitment.

~~~
theDoug
Definitely noted. Also, still prohibitive for international users due to high
shipping cost.

~~~
herrherr
To give you guys a reference point:

It's $62.95 for shipping it to Germany. Ouch.

~~~
dc2k08
This includes a prepaid Fedex envelope to return the sample though, so it
amounts to €23 each way which isn't that unusual. Last time this offer was on
(without the $5/month recurring payment mind), I noticed on Ebay a while later
that some smarts were selling the kits $300. The $5 puts me off doing that
though. I wonder if they'd sell as easily.

~~~
bluelu
If you order more than one, you even get an enveloppe for every kit to send
them back seperatly. You get another free kit if they can't read your sample.
The shipment fee doesn't increase with the number of kits you order.

------
sleight42
The State of Maryland has blocked 23andme from providing services here. See
[http://www.genealogyreviewsonline.com/genealogy_reviews_onli...](http://www.genealogyreviewsonline.com/genealogy_reviews_online/2008/10/23andme
---gen-1.html)

I'm curious whether folks who have used this service found it valuable? This
customer didn't seem to think so; she compared it to a horoscope reading:
[http://subtlenuances.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/getting-
person...](http://subtlenuances.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/getting-personal-
genetic-testing-for-health-disease-ancestry-dna-test-23andme/)

------
bhickey
I'm more than happy to have a conversation here about genetic testing (hey,
Carbocation!) - but this is just an advertisement.

~~~
michaelfairley
An advertisement that a lot of HNers want to see. Last time it was $99 many
people on this site were pleased to know:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1288125>

~~~
axod
Such is the fickle contradictory nature of some geeks.

Down with advertising! Adblock for all! ooo! a pretty advert for geek fortune
telling! Count me in.

~~~
borism
Rather that is contradictory nature of advertisement.

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pavs
Weird request. I really wanted to do this for the longest time, but waited
hoping that the price will one day go down. This is exactly in my budget
range, but I don't get paid (and have to deposit to my online usage only bank
account) till the first week of December. Can any nice guy trust a fellow HN-
er till the first week of December?

I am also on reddit with the same username. Let me know if anyone can help, my
email is pavs.ma (@gmail).

~~~
herrherr
Send you an email.

~~~
pavs
Thanks! I just sent you an email looks like I can't do it from NY.

If anyone has any ideas what I can do, here is the email I sent him:

\-----------------

Hey Christian,

Thanks for the email and willing to do this for me. I just checked to see if I
can pay with paypal, it only gives option to pay by card. If I get money on
paypal then I will have to transfer it to my bank account and the process
takes about 4-5 days (last time I tried it) by then the deal, which is valid
till the 29th, will expire.

To make things worse, in the process of doing the checkout I was informed that
they have a legal issue for shipping spit samples to NY. :(
<http://i.imgur.com/hYgzw.png>

I might be out of luck for now. But thanks for the offer. I really appreciate
it!

Cheers, pavs

\----------------

~~~
pavs
Wait... if I send them from NY there is no way for them to verify it right?

~~~
cemregr
DON'T! They tell you they don't accept samples mailed from NYS.

Take the PATH to NJ and mail it out from there :)

------
jaysonelliot
I'd love to do the test to learn about my genetic heritage, but I'm far too
afraid of what it might say about disease risk.

Suppose it comes back with a genetic marker for something like Parkinson's.
What do you do with that knowledge? You can't just cut down on cholesterol or
exercise more - if it's coming, it's coming. All you'd do is spend the rest of
your life with a terrible foreboding you can never escape.

~~~
dotBen
First off, it can't tell for certain - just that you have a high percentage
chance of getting Parkinsons.

Now with that information, you might decide to live more of your life now...
You might decide to have children earlier knowing that you will see the grow
up before you enter the risky phase in your life when you could develop the
condition.

Like Sergey Brin is now doing, you might pay close attention to the research
of the condition - perhaps even donating more.

------
dochtman
Does 23andme allow users to get their data out? I.e., get them in some raw
format that one could use to correlate with other studies you might find, or
put them into some other service?

~~~
tomkinstinch
For now, yes: <https://www.23andme.com/you/download/>

A great resource for that sort of analysis is SNPedia (check out the main page
as well): <http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/23andMe>

~~~
bajsejohannes
Neat! How is the data presented? How big is the file?

~~~
tomkinstinch
The above SNPedia link goes into greater detail, but the data come as a tab-
separated file a few megabytes in size. For the older Illumina reports, the
data files were about 5MB, but the newer chips may make files closer to 10MB.
(550k vs 1m SNPs, respectively)

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toinbis
"You'll earn upgrades as we move from genotyping to full sequencing" -- so
AFAIK, right now 23andme are comparing your DNA data to the one of the human
genome project and providing you with the percentage of how many people from
genome project, having similar DNA sequences, had one disease or another. I
wonder, once the sequencing advances, will the info provided by 23andme be
detailed enough so to take the full advantage of the new methodologies of
sequencing? In other words - will the science of genetics improve only in the
interpretation of the DNA data, or in collecting more detailed DNA data as
well?

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axod
Isn't this just fortune telling or astrology for geeks?

~~~
araneae
Not if you're planning to have kids and want to see if you have any recessive
mutations to look out for, like CF or Tay-Sacs.

They also trace your mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome so you can see where
your maternal and paternal lines originated, if you're interested in that sort
of thing.

The part you're referring to is probably the disease risk section, where they
show you your comparative risk of various diseases compared to the population.
This is simply a better resolution version of your family history of disease,
which a doctor will ask you if you ever go to one. Are doctors fortune
tellers?

~~~
jacquesm
To really understand the output of 23andme will take a lot more study and I
think that if you're going to let it influence your life's decisions at that
level that you should be prepared to spend a substantial amount over and
beyond the initial fee here to have the results interpreted by a professional
that is able to put them in to the proper perspective.

23andme is expensive infotainment without the required education in both the
genetic and the mathematical/statistical background.

~~~
daeken
I couldn't disagree more. Knowing more about your body is _always_ a good
thing -- the fact that many people won't know what to do with that information
is inconsequential. It may not make sense for many (most) people to buy into
23andMe, there are a lot of people out there that can understand this, or at
least find it interesting to be able to peer into their genetic makeup.

~~~
axod
Surely if the average person is told "There's an X chance you'll die. There's
a Y chance you'll lose a leg. There's a Z chance you'll be blown up", they'll
worry unduly no matter what X,Y,Z are.

I can see what you're saying, that if you're a qualified doctor, or have
studied medicine for years, then 23andme could be useful, but for everyone
else, I think it could be very dangerous.

------
sushrutbidwai
There is another interesting startup in similar space from Australia.

<http://mygene.com.au>

Mygene offers reports for budding athletes to understand their gene structure
better and provides guidance on tuning your training to fit with your genetic
findings.

Disclaimer - my company did entire IT and lab automation work including
implementing report creation algorithms.

------
inrev
Used to be $99 last year on the DNA day without the required subscription.

------
bajsejohannes
Does anyone know if 23andMe will be able to patent parts of my gene sequence?
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_patent>)

Edit: It's genotyping, not sequencing, so the answer is no. Leaving the
question here in case someone else wondered.

~~~
Yknot
Regardless of how your genome sequence is read (by genotyping or sequencing),
there's the potential for gene patents to be filed based on associations that
are discovered between certain genetic variants (e.g. SNPs, which are the
variants typically read during the genotyping process) and traits of interest,
such as diseases. The big question is whether the USPTO will continue to grant
such patents--the ACLU is challenging this premise now in a case against
Myriad Genetics, [http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-womens-rights/aclu-
challenge...](http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-womens-rights/aclu-challenges-
patents-breast-cancer-genes-0).

------
DevX101
It's probably worth getting if you're a woman or have a known family history
of a genetic disease. 10% of women end up getting breast cancer, and this is
sometimes due to a BRCA1/BRCA2 gene mutation. You can take preventative steps
if you know this.

~~~
organicgrant
It's probably worth getting if you're a MAN or have a known family history of
a genetic disease.

Prostate cancer is out there. Quit smoking, eating Red 40 food coloring, and
remember...we're here to put a dent in the universe with the time we have!

------
sachitgupta
Has anyone used this and found it useful? It seems awesome from a geeky point
of view but I'm still having a hard time understanding the value of it.

~~~
Alex3917
Basically it tells you whether you have the most common mutations of the
breast cancer gene and the Parkinson's gene, each of which means an 80% chance
of getting that disease. It also tells you whether you have the most common
mutations of the diabetes gene, which means that your risk of getting diabetes
goes from 20% to 30%. Beyond that everything else just tells you that your
risk of some obscure disease has gone from .1% to .15% or from .1% to .08%. So
if you find out that you have one of the big three things they test for then
there are things you would want to start doing to reduce your chances of
actually getting those diseases, but if you've already been tested for those
things then it's just for entertainment.

In general though the tests are much less accurate than the ones you would get
from a doctor because they only do a couple of the most common mutations, so
if you want to use your DNA for making health decisions then you still need to
make an appointment with a clinical geneticist who specializes in whatever you
think you might have or be at risk for. (E.g. breast cancer, metabolic
deficiencies, etc.)

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nwmcsween
Who's figuring out shipping at 23andme... It costs about the same amount to
ship the package to Canada as it does to get the tests done.

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Aron
Also note that they have recently approximately doubled the number of SNP's
genotyped.

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organicgrant
Gattaca.

That being said, I ordered one last Wednesday.

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cryschen
@sorbus getting a coffee or getting bleeding edge information about my health
based on my DNA...it's a no brainer.

~~~
rue
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