DNA Video: Twin DNA Differences

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted May 17, 2008 in DNA Podcasts and Videos

For more, see my previous post – Genetic Differences Between Identical Twins.

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DNA Quote: Kevin Kelly on Zillionics

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted May 16, 2008 in DNA Quotes and Excerpts

From Kevin Kelly’s The Technium:

When you reach the giga, peta, and exa orders of quantities, strange new powers emerge. You can do things at these scales that would have been impossible before. A zillion hyperlinks will give you information and behavior you could never expect from a hundred or thousand links. A trillion neurons give you a smartness a million won’t. A zillion data points will give you insight that a mere hundred thousand would never.

…Zillionics is a realm much more at home in biology—where there have been zillions of genes and organisms for a long time—than in our recent manufactured world. Living systems know how to handle zillionics. Our own methods of dealing with zillionic plentitude will mimic biology.

(>> Start a discussion!)

23andMe Collaborates on Study of Parkinson’s Disease Genetics

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted May 15, 2008 in DNA and Disease

Researchers are rarely study participants. Up until last week, I’d only had a hand in designing and conducting epidemiologic studies and no experience at all participating in one. While waiting for my prenatal check-up, a master’s degree student at Imperial College recruited me for her thesis study on stress and comorbidity in pregnant women. I was happy to help out since I know firsthand how hard recruiting can be especially since she told me she’d had to reduce her sample size from 200 to 100 because it was such tough going.

All I had to do was check the boxes on about 10 pages of questions and collect a total of six saliva samples over two days. Two samples are taken upon waking and another around 9 pm. I’m sorry to say that on the first day, I forgot that I was supposed to sit still while the cotton plug was under my tongue for two minutes absorbing saliva and I also forgot to take my night-time sample at 9 and did it at 10:30 instead. I was also supposed to mail my frozen samples in by regular mail this past Monday or Tuesday but got distracted so it will have to wait until next week.

What a lousy study participant I am especially given that I know what it’s like to be on the other side!

Perhaps 23andMe and the Parkinson’s Institute and Clinical Center will have more compliant study participants. They are planning a Web-based study of Parkinson’s disease that will ask 150 people to donate their saliva for genetic analysis like any 23andMe customer as well as submit personal data via the Web. In addition, the study will validate the online data collection method with face-to-face or phone interviews.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that 23andMe also hopes that pharmaceutical companies will pay them for access to personal genomics customers who have specific conditions or disorders. Linda Avey is quoted as saying the pharmaceutical companies would be contacting customers to offer them the opportunity to participate in clinical trials (where 23andMe may also be able to offer database services) but I can easily see this extending into personalized ads for personalized medicine. Could be both good and bad.

From my recent and previous personal experiences, interviewer-led data collection will always be the gold standard because participants can ask for clarification on sample collection instructions and questions. However, being able to complete questionnaires in the comfort of one’s own home without time pressure (I was in a rush in case I was called in for my appointment), may increase the accuracy of the data being collected. The 23andMe Parkinson’s disease study will be valuable not only for its potential genetic discoveries, but also for its insights into the implementation of the Web in scientific research. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way for me to spit my sample into them series of Internets tubes so I guess I’ll still have to remember to schlep them to the mailbox on Monday.

Photo credit: David Wilmot on Flickr

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What does DNA mean to you? #5

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted May 14, 2008 in Meaning of DNA

What does DNA mean to you?

Reader jhay of The Four-eyed Journal says:

DNA means a lot to me. It’s the reason for my being, from its hundreds of codons and sequences I am what I am today. I also believe that it will definitely shape the future because in this age where Information is a vital resource, what better source of information could you work on to advance human civilization than DNA itself! The possibilities are just exciting!

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DNA Video: Pimp My Genome! Google Tech Talk with Andrew Hessel

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted May 10, 2008 in DNA Podcasts and Videos

Google Tech Talks
May 3, 2007

ABSTRACT

DNA is a programming language for living cells. The cell’s basic operating system, or genome, directs functions like growth and reproduction, energy utilization, and the production of useful compounds like ethanol or penicillin. With genetic engineering, new functions can be added to cells or broken metabolic pathways repaired. Until recently, genetic engineering has required the DNA molecule itself to be physically manipulated, a tedious and expensive process. Now, automatic DNA synthesis permits virtually any DNA code to be made from scratch, opening up genetic engineering to anyone with a computer and a credit card.

(>> Start a discussion!)

Books About DNA: Coming to Life by Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted May 9, 2008 in Books About DNA, DNA Quotes and Excerpts

Coming to Life: How Genes Drive Development by Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, winner of The Nobel Prize in Medicine, gives a concise and illustrative overview of genetics, evolution, and cellular processes as well as a discussing of current ethical issues in human biology.

An excerpt from the American Scientist review of the book:

The subtitle of Nüsslein-Volhard’s book is How Genes Drive Development. That’s really the essence of her conception of developmental biology, a view that guides the organization of the book. She begins with chapters that introduce the genetic machinery, heredity, chromosomes, genes and proteins. She moves on to a brief discussion of the role of model organisms that have been crucial in developmental genetics and proceeds to the first of these, D. melanogaster.

(>> Start a discussion!)

How To Make Money Selling Personal Genomic Services

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted May 8, 2008 in Business of DNA

Given my limited knowledge of how to run a business (my sister’s the Harvard MBA of the family), I’d always thought having a bigger market is the key to success (as I alluded to in my previous post, Using Dispoable Income for Genetic Tests). There is, of course, another way of increasing company profits as Steve Jobs demonstrated with Apple:

Apple’s stock has shot up more than 70% over the past year, thanks to Jobs’ strategy of focusing on his most profitable customers and coming up with new things to sell them—the ultra-thin MacBook Air most recently—rather than just chasing more market share. [emphasis added]

~The 2008 Time 100

So what does this mean for personal genomics companies? Perhaps Knome with its $350,000 genome sequencing service isn’t too far off the mark.

NB: If you’ve got an extra $2500 that you don’t know what to do with, check out my list of DNA services you can buy with $2500.

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What does DNA mean to you? #4

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted May 7, 2008 in Meaning of DNA

What does DNA mean to you?

Here’s what Eric of Seqanswers says:

To me, DNA is the single most important biological molecule, in fact to everyone it is! That fact is motivation enough for me to study and try to understand it completely. It is also extremely important for fueling intense amounts of blogging.

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Using Disposable Income for Genetic Tests

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted May 6, 2008 in DNA Testing

The New York Times reported this past weekend that more people are having problems obtaining affordable health insurance. On top of the budget constraints people face during a recession, even those who are covered by employer health insurance have to deal with “some combination of higher premiums, less extensive coverage, and bigger out-of-pocket deductibles and co-payments.” This means that many skip routine check-ups and avoid seeing the doctor unless absolutely necessary.

The majority of U.S. tax payers this year will be receiving several hundreds of dollars in tax rebates. Here’s what people plan to do with the money according to a survey by the NPD Group :

• 42% would pay bills
• 21% would put the money into savings
• 12% would spend the money on discretionary items

How does this affect the potential market for genetic services? If people can’t even afford to pay for necessary maintenance medication, eye glasses, or diabetes test strips, how do personal genomics companies expect to expand their market for elective health services? And yet, direct-to-consumer genetic testing is more widely available in the U.S. than in any other country.

Where socialized medicine prevails in countries such as the UK, Singapore, and Iceland, it seems that people would have more disposable income to spend on optional healthcare. It would be interesting to see the uptake of personal genomic services in countries other than the U.S. although culture and legalities would be important factors as well. For example, are Icelanders more interested in and willing to spend money on personal genomics given that one of the more successful personal genomics companies, deCODE genetics , is based in Iceland and has published studies closely examining its citizens?

Eventually, personalized medicine incorporating genetic information will become a fact of life. At that point, genetic testing will be routinely covered by insurance as with any other laboratory test or become a hidden cost when pricing pharmaceuticals, i.e., a pharmaceutical company would cover the cost of a genetic test in order to determine type and dosage of a particular medicine. For now, however, it seems that it would be hard for most people to justify spending any of their disposable income on genetic tests or scans unless family history or other known medical conditions alert them to the need for extra information and vigilance.

How are you using your disposable income?

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DNA Video: DNA Replication Song

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted May 3, 2008 in DNA Podcasts and Videos

This DNA replication song set to Backstreet Boys is truly cringe worthy!

Oh, how I love bi-olo-gy (yeah yeah yeah)
It’s better than chemistry
And next time I have to go pee (I know)
what’s happening inside of me

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