April 27, 2012
Todd Sherer, CEO of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, with Michael J. Fox and Anne Wojcicki Michael J. Fox is a great actor, but his smiles and good humor during a visit to 23andMe headquarters in Mountain View this week were fully sincere. “I really mean what I say when I express optimism, positivity and [...]
April 25, 2012
If you were facing a daunting diagnosis you would want the news to come from someone like Dr. J. William Langston. Engaged and intelligent, he has the kind of optimism you don’t expect from a physician who has spent decades working to unravel the complexities of Parkinson’s disease. “Things have [...]
April 23, 2012
Today’s post explains what “Sharing Genomes” means at 23andMe, describes several points to consider when sharing, and introduces some exciting new developments in sharing at 23andMe. 23andMe has revolutionized how people think about DNA. What used to be hidden inside heavy textbooks can now be the [...]
April 20, 2012
We at 23andMe have a special place in our hearts for today, National DNA Day. There are many ways to celebrate this special science holiday, ranging from making DNA-themed bracelets to constructing helical origami, but we think one of the best ways is to learn something new about DNA and, in the [...]
April 19, 2012
This month, 23andMe published a new article in PLoS One entitled “Cryptic Distant Relatives are Common in both Isolated and Cosmopolitan Samples." Authored by former 23andMe scientists, Brenna Henn and Lawrence Hon, along with current 23andMe scientists and 23andMe advisor, Itsik Pe’er, of Columbia [...]
April 18, 2012
By Nick Eriksson At 23andMe, we read a lot of papers so that we can bring our customers the latest information about their genetics. This is a tall task: there were nearly a million papers published in the biomedical and life sciences in the year 2011 alone. That’s why we’re appreciative when others [...]
April 16, 2012
On his first Space Shuttle mission, Rich Clifford whispered a little prayer. “Please Lord let something go wrong so that I can fix it,” he recalls with a smile. But on the launch pad, strapped into the Shuttle with its two massive solid rocket boosters primed for ignition, Rich had second [...]
April 13, 2012
What do media mogul Oprah Winfrey, actress Mary-Louise Parker, and Olympic runner Carl Lewis have in common? Aside from their more than 15 minutes of fame, all three have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, a condition where the body does not make enough thyroid hormone. This, in turn, can lead to fatigue, [...]
April 12, 2012
The term “sarcoma” encompasses over a hundred forms of rare cancers, and the cause behind many of these forms is unknown. Ewing sarcoma, however, is one sarcoma for which the biology is relatively well understood. This form is caused by a gene fusion -- a DNA rearrangement resulting in two genes being [...]
April 9, 2012
Recently, Todd Sherer, CEO of The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF), Brian Fiske, vice president of research programs at MJFF, and Emily Drabant, 23andMe’s research manager for its Parkinson’s community, sat down and took stock of the recent advances in Parkinson’s research. Their conversation [...]
