$999 For a Complete DNA Scan, Worth it?

DoroSurfer writes "ZDNet is reporting that 23andme.com will open its doors on Monday, allowing you to send them a cheek swab and have your DNA analyzed for $999 (plus shipping, of course... ;)). So what's a thousand bucks buy you? They can tell you your ancient ancestry, They can tell you what diseases you're predisposed to, They give you a "Gene Explorer" that allows you to do a search in your genome to find out if you have a certain gene (e.g., you just heard on the news that Gene XYZ has been linked to Alzheimer's Disease)."

Comments

Gene Sequencing Options

[netelder]

deCODEme http://decodeme.com/ does this for $985 (intro price) and has the advantage of being based in Reykavic Iceland, out of reach of easy US Govt access. Another (US) company is NaviGenics http://www.navigenics.com/.

Very much worth it if one is interested in learning about and working to minimize one's genetic risks.

NOT a Complete DNA Scan

[eclaculator]

People frequently confuse microarray SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) studies with an actual DNA scan that identifies all 3 billion A,C,T and G bases in the human genome. This $1000 option looks at about 2 million KNOWN sites which vary between people. These mutations are not the ones that actually code for a disease, but because they happen to be NEAR the actual ones that do on the chromosomes, it is assumed that if you have the SNP mutation, you will have the disease-prone variant in your genome as well. The problem with this technique is that it only measures variants that we know about, whereas a true complete DNA scan would be the "gold standard" and provide you with the most detailed information possible. Unfortunately, a true DNA sequencing of this variety runs about $100000.