Eye on DNA Links for 15 July 2007

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted July 15, 2007 in DNA and Genealogy, DNA and the Law, Eye on DNA Headlines, Jobs Involving DNA

• Gene Genie #11 is up at Med Journal Watch all the way from Switzerland. Now that’s more exotic to me than any island in the Pacific.
• New Scientist reports that cellphones are a great source of DNA and have become instrumental pieces of evidence in criminal investigations; loose cheek cells land in the microphone from the user’s breath and skin flakes get lodged in the button recesses and earpiece.
• Collecting DNA is separate from actually analyzing it. Thousands of crime scene evidence samples in Massachusetts dating back to 1989 have never been processed.
• The lack of resources is not only confined to forensic DNA analysis. Biotech and pharmaceutical companies can’t find enough quality employees to hire within the US. Three types of scientists are needed: “It needs biologists to make basic discoveries. It needs people who can take discoveries to a precommercial stage by proving the concept. It needs people who design and execute clinical trials. Above all, it needs graduates with skills in common-sense business practices, like teamwork.”
• The Predictive Health Ethics Research (PredictER) blog from the Indiana University Center for Bioethics is a great source of information on genetics, bioethics, and policy.
• Genetic genealogy in the US hits the news in the UK where the Observer has an excellent overview piece – The genes that built America: Piecing together the DNA jigsaw.

Tags: genetics, genes, dna, genomics, genome, biotech, biotechnology, jobs, career, health, genetic genealogy

(>> Start a discussion!)

Dr. Marek Minarik of Genomac on Genealogy DNA Testing in the Czech Republic

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted July 3, 2007 in DNA Around the World, DNA and Genealogy

The controversy continues! After Dr. Ludvik Urban’s comments on genealogy DNA testing in the Czech Republic, Dr. Marek Minarik of Genomac contacted me and had the following to say about his company which offers Y-DNA and mtDNA testing.

~~~~~
We are a private family-based business that has started from absolute scratch back in 2001. It may sound as a cliché, however, it is so. My sister and me were absolute outsiders in Czech genetic, forensic or even medical communities with no money no influential friends and no connections. At the beginning we haven’t privatized nor “inherited” any former hospital laboratory inventory, we haven’t “utilized nor leased” any university or other academic labs spaces while still being employed there (a favorite way to start a biotech company in the Czech republic). We have rented an empty basement and bought everything from pipettors and centrifuges to PCR machines and a second-hand DNA sequencer. Never in our company life we would have a liberty of regular payments from government (such as the payments for testing by health care insurance companies). We have built this company based on research projects and we have partially funded our scientific endeavors by commercial DNA testing(paternity, preventive, ancestry). Since 2001 we regularly publish 1 – 2 original scientific papers in impacted journals (IF>1) per year (first and/or last authorship) and co-author 1 – 2 with others. We were the second private laboratory in Czech to offer paternity testing and the first to offer ancestry testing. Back in 2005 we have voluntarily introduced a code of ethics in genetic testing. I am absolutely convinced that since our day one we have never broken any laws, we have never exhibited any kind of non-ethical or non-moral conduct.

Now to our ancestry testing. We have started Y-typing back in May 2006 and mitochondrial typing in March 2007. Our original product was (similar to Oxford Ancestry) testing a 12 Y-chromosome marker set and returning basically a Y-map showing matches and non-matches. Later we have started to add individual interpretations, which is what we do now. Never in my previous scientific or commercial life have I experienced such a hostility as when we finally got a break-through with ancestry testing after a media exposure in September 2006. An initial true excitement from the fact that someone is offering such service in Czech was quickly replaced by relentless criticism of overpricing, misrepresentation of data, etc. coming from individual genealogists and, later, especially from competition who also started to offer similar tests. We have originally charged CZK 1190,- ~$55 for Y-haplotype, since 2007 we charge CZK 2450,- ~ $110 for Y-haplotype plus individual interpretation (sorry for the mistake by Kim Ashton of Prague Post). As for the interpretations we inform customer about frequency of their haplotype and give them information about a geographic localization with the highest density of the associated profile. That is all, we do not tell people they are Slavic or German.

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(3 comments)

July Contest and Eye on DNA Links for 2 July 2007

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted July 2, 2007 in DNA Testing, DNA and Genealogy, Eye on DNA Headlines, Geeky DNA T-shirts

Announcing the July Eye on DNA Contest! Between July 1 and 31, leave a comment on any post and be entered in a drawing for a geeky DNA t-shirt courtesy of JMK Genealogy Gifts!

And here are today’s excellent Eye on DNA links:

• From July 2 to 5, Royal Society is hosting the Summer Science Exhibition near London’s Trafalgar Square, which includes two DNA-related exhibits – Building Living Machines With BioBricks and Journey to the Centre of the Cell. (via Londonist )
• Dentists are now offering Toothprints, a thermoplastic wafer, that can be used to make a full arch bite impression for identifying missing children. Manufacturer Kerr claims that DNA can also be extracted from the saliva left on Toothprints and there’s even enough scent left on the wafer for trained dogs to track.
• RPM at evolgen delves into the New York Times -A Challenge to Gene Theory, a Tougher Look at Biotech. And like RPM, I couldn’t really get the gist of the article either.
• Medical devices entrepreneur James LeVoy Sorenson, one of the wealthiest and most involved people in the genomics and genetic genealogy industry, is featured in USA Today. He believes there will be peace on earth when DNA proves that that we’re all related and “sons and daughters of God.”
• Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) wants to help us live to 100. They’ve developed a blood test that can assess DNA damage. The results of this DNA test are to assist doctors in making treatment and lifestyle recommendations for disease prevention. According to HMI World, over 800,000 Americans will celebrate their 100th birthday by 2050. You can also watch this video interview of Dr. Michael Fenech speaking about the “genome health analysis test.”

Tags: genetics, genes, dna, sorenson genomics, genome, genomics, royal society, genealogy, dna test, toothprints

(11 comments)

Genetic Genealogist Dr. Blaine Bettinger on DNA and Genealogy

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted July 2, 2007 in DNA and Genealogy, Personalities with DNA

How much do you know about your family tree? If you believe all the hype, genealogy is either THE most popular hobby in the US or the second most popular. Before I got to know Dr. Blaine Bettinger of The Genetic Genealogist, I wasn’t all that curious about my heritage but his enthusiasm is so infectious, I’m now considering my options! If you’re thinking of plunging in and taking a genealogy DNA test, you won’t want to miss this interview with Blaine.

Hsien Lei: You have a PhD in biochemistry. Do you think it takes a PhD to understand genetic genealogy? Because I gotta tell you, a lot of the information out there on the genealogy DNA tests is complicated and confusing.

Blaine Bettinger: It really is confusing. My first genetic genealogy test was an mtDNA test, and when I got back the results, I went online to figure out what they meant. All I found was other people who belonged to the same haplogroup, and references to research published in the scientific literature.

So I set out to gather the current knowledge of the haplogroup from all of those papers. Since I was a graduate student at the time, I had free, easy access to these papers as well as the genetics training to figure out (most) of the results. I wrote a quick summary and set up www.HaplogroupA.com to share the information I found.

If I wasn’t a graduate student with a focus on genetics, it would have taken me weeks just to gather the papers, much less read and understand the work. As it was, my graduate work pretty much went on hold for a week while I did my research.

The work in this field is ongoing and constantly evolving. Who knows what will happen to genetic genealogy when cheap and efficient whole-genome sequencing hits the scene. I would love to be able to do a summary of the literature for each haplogroup, and to monitor new research, but it would be a full-time job. I think the companies offering genetic genealogy testing have a strong interest in distilling the scientific information to share with their customers. You wouldn’t believe how many people have emailed me in the last few months stating that they were interested in genetic genealogy but were hesitant to take the leap because they didn’t quite understand what the results would mean.

HL: What test do you usually recommend to people who are new to genetic genealogy? Should they have tried traditional genealogy using private and public records first?

BB: I don’t think people need to have been genealogists for 10 or 20 years before they experiment with genetic genealogy. Some tests, especially mtDNA, reveal information that changes very slowly over time. For instance, I know my great-great-great-great-grandmother’s mtDNA haplogroup and sequence, but it is extremely unlikely that information will help me identify her unknown mother without a great deal of traditional genealogy and further testing. Instead, I gained insight into the last 20,000 years of my maternal lineage. For hardcore genealogists, such as myself, genetic genealogy can be a fun and informative addition to their traditional genealogy.

If I were going to recommend a genetic genealogy test for a beginner, I think I would suggest the mtDNA test. Both males and females have mtDNA, and thus anyone can take this test. Additionally, the results are usually conclusive (that is, a person is almost always placed into a certain haplogroup). And finally, because of a long history of male-dominated society and records, very little is usually known about a person’s direct maternal line. An mtDNA test can give one some insight into that hidden lineage.

And to avoid a mistake I made, if you’re really interested in genetic genealogy and you have big plans for your results (such as starting or joining a surname DNA project), order a Y-DNA test with as many markers as you can afford – it’s probably cheaper than upgrading to more markers later on!

HL: I think it was Megan Smolenyak who said on her Science Friday interview that people should start with Y-DNA tests first because it’s possible to pair that info with surnames. What do you think of that recommendation?

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First Results from The Genographic Project Mitochondrial DNA Database

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted June 29, 2007 in DNA and Genealogy

Following up on yesterday’s discussion of the sale (or biopiracy) of Amerindian DNA for research purposes, National Geographic’s Genographic Project has published the first results from an analysis of their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) database in PLoS Genetics. The database is made up of almost 80,000 genotypes and is the largest standardized human mtDNA database ever collected – most from from participants like Jason at The Personal Genome, who purchased kits in the US and Western Europe. Samples collected from indigenous populations are in a separate database and will be published later.

FYI, here are a few reasons why mtDNA is so useful in genetic anthropology and genealogy:

• It’s uniparental, inherited only from the mother
• It has a nonrecombining mode of inheritance.
• It has a high mutation rate compared to that of the nuclear genome

If I’m not mistaken, however, the Genographic Project only analyzed mtDNA in female participants even though men also inherit mtDNA from their mothers. Can anyone tell me why?

More on the Genographic Project results from Blaine at The Genetic Genealogist.

Update: Here are Blaine’s thoughts on why the mtDNA tests were only offered to women.
Continue reading…

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More About Genomac Genealogy DNA Testing in the Czech Republic

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted June 25, 2007 in DNA Around the World, DNA Testing, DNA and Genealogy

What do I know about DNA testing in the Czech Republic? Virtually nothing except for what I dug up last week on Genomac and Forensic DNA Service. Ludvik Urban has first hand knowledge and set me straight over at RootsWeb.

Dr. Lei a <irony>”little bit”</irony> warps the facts.

1. “ancestry tests costing about $55.80″

Test by Genomac costs 2x more [2500 CZK].

I got the figure from the Prague Post article I quoted.

2. “Genomac is not much different than DNA testing companies in other countries.”

Maybe yes, maybe not. But in the Czech Republic, it is prohibited by law to keep DNA samples of individual persons. Genomac does keep samples without government permission.

3. “Any commericial database of DNA profiles must be registered.”

The Genomac’s database is not registerd.

4. Genomac as a result of its genographic test sells a map downloaded from YHDR database with erased copyright and without YHDR permission.

I bought Y-DNA test at Genomac for me and also from some of my relatives last year. As a admin of Genebaze, a genealogy website, and in the name of genealogy community I offered to Genomac acooperation, especially in a search for common ancestors. It refused. By the same time [last September] Genomac decided to sell ONLY YHDR maps, NOT markers values! After my query it started to sell marker values for aditional raised price.

I hope Genomac will soon fulfill the law and open its database. It promises that search the its database will find one’s ancestors and relatives.

What makes me sad is the fact that Genomac still refuses to prepare testfor more than 12 markers [<cite>"12 is enough, whe YHDR as a reference hasless markers"</cite>] and also refuses to store data about most distant ancestors.It refuses to evaluate obtained haplotypes by any haplogroup predictions. Instead of it, it produces a “certificate of origin” with these results:

“west-slavic”, “romanic”, “south-slavic”, “scandinavian-german”,
“mediterran-balkanic-north african”, “mediterran-near east-asian”,
“baltic-scandinavian-siberian” and “mediterran-kaukasic”.

Dont laugh, it’s true!

As a result of its very efficient marketing, people refuse to make test for more than 12 markers “because they have from Genomac all data”.

Ludvik Urban,
Genebáze and its amateur Czech and Slovak Y-DNA, mtDNA database

Thanks for letting us know more about the DNA testing scene in the Czech Republic, Ludvik! I will try to contact Dr. Marek Minarik to get his side of the story.

Tags: ludvik urban, marek minarik, genomac, czech republic, genetics, genes, dna, dna testing, genealogy

(3 comments)

DNA Testing in the Czech Republic

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted June 21, 2007 in DNA Around the World, DNA and Genealogy

DNA testing is a growing business in the Czech Republic. Genomac and Forensic DNA Service lead the pack and it hasn’t been a friendly competition.

In 2006, Genomac began offering ancestry testing and the response from the public was encouraging. Previously, the company had been providing paternity testing along with other DNA tech services starting in 2001 when it was founded by Marek Minarik and his sister, Lucie Benesova. Since introducing genetic genealogy, Genomac has sold some 5,000 DNA ancestry tests costing about $55.80 and of these, 3,000 customers agreed to have their DNA profiles stored in the database so that they can connect with people sharing the same lineage. The database is meant to be a tribute to national heritage.

In an interview with Radio Prague, Marek Minarik said:

…one thing that really surprised us and did not come out until we had a thousand people in the database was how related we really are. And this is one of the things we plan to announce when we open the database, basically a fact that every third person in the database has at least two other relatives in the database. Now, of course, because we don’t investigate these people, they might be people in the family. However, when we looked at the last names, we did not find any common last names in there.

Competitor Forensic DNA Service, which does not offer ancestry testing but provides forensic and paternity testing, believes that Genomac has broken the law by not registering with the Office of Personal Data Protection. And, founder Daniel Vanek, a leading Czech forensic geneticist and former police officer, is wary of Genomac’s promise to keep everything private and free from other interference, including bribes.

I don’t know what the cultural environment is like in the Czech Republic concerning personal privacy, but Genomac is not much different than DNA testing companies in other countries. Genetic genealogy companies are proud of their databases and protect their exclusivity not just because of privacy concerns, but also because customers want to know they’re getting access to data not available elsewhere. Genomac is serving a niche market and doing well. Perhaps instead of trying to block new ideas with bureaucracy, Vanek should think of other ways to educate the Czech people on the many ways DNA can enhance their lives.

Tags: czech republic, genomac, forensic dna service, daniel vanek, marek minarik, genetics, genes, dna, dna test, genetic testing, genome, genomics, genealogy

(6 comments)

DNA-Supported Ancestral Tourism

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted June 11, 2007 in DNA and Genealogy

Sound the bagpipes! Scotland wants to distribute free DIY DNA kits as part of their efforts to drum up tourism. Dr. John Gow, director of the Centre for Forensic Investigation at Glasgow Caledonian University:

It is our intention to have DNA swabbing kits in all the tourist information offices and hotel lobbies across the UK, so people can go and pick up a kit for a few pounds then post it off to us and we will do the DNA tests for them.

We are also hoping that during Tartan Week in New York and at international highland gatherings, the genealogy companies will take along our test kits and distribute them.

Participants would not only find out which clan they belong to, they will also be contributing to a DNA database of Scottish and Irish clan groups. VisitScotland believes that DNA testing will be a draw for ancestral tourists who might want to “walk in the footsteps of their ancestors.”

As a Chinese-American, I’m acutely aware of the limitations of genetic genealogy for studying Chinese ancestry. While some Chinese clan societies maintain clear records, I know few people personally outside of Asia who are tightly linked to one. And then there’s the DNA test that can reputedly test for a link to the Confucius family tree available through the Beijing Genomics Institute. Given the number of Chinese people around the world, DNA-supported ancestral tourism in China is potentially lucrative. But I’d perhaps be a little cautious about submitting DNA to the People’s Republic of China given their political and societal inclinations.

Tags: genetics, genes, dna, ancestral tourism, scotland, dna testing, genome, genomics

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Free Maternal DNA Ancestry Test for Mother’s Day

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted April 28, 2007 in DNA Fun, DNA and Genealogy

I win stuff. I’ve won beverages, needlepoint kits, magazines, books, bedsheets, money, and all manner of silly things in contests, raffles, and lotteries. Maybe I have a good chance of winning a free maternal DNA ancestry test being offered by Chromosomal Labs in honor of Mother’s Day on May 13.

To enter, email MothersDay@chromosomal-labs.com. If you win, you’ll receive:

• A World Map with Migrational Route
• A Certificate
• A Report

I can’t vouch for the company’s accuracy or authenticity, but it’s always fun to win stuff anyway. Tell them I sent you! (I have no affiliation with Chromosomal Labs.)

For more information, see their press release which has a very silly title: Do you know where your mom was 150,000 years ago.

Tags: genetics, genes, genome, dna, ancestry, genealogy, health

(1 comment)