May 29, 2012
By Meghan Mullins Before joining 23andMe, I worked at a more traditional genetic research lab. Like virtually all research centers, we didn’t return genetic results to our research participants. I occasionally thought about what that meant, that I knew more about an anonymous stranger’s DNA than he [...]
May 11, 2012
Cancer is not one disease, but many. Even looking specifically at breast cancer or sarcoma, the more researchers study these diseases, the more they understand that there are many different kinds of breast cancer and sarcoma. This has been one of the most challenging aspects of researching cures for [...]
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 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 [...]
April 6, 2012
As part of Parkinson’s Awareness Month 23andMe is releasing the first of three surprising associations we’ve found between Parkinson’s and certain traits. The associations are surprising because they appear so unrelated to the disease itself, but they may offer insight into the direction for future [...]
April 5, 2012
Recently, we invited a local support group for men with early onset Parkinson’s to come to our office. The idea was to give these guys a chance to learn about about 23andMe and our Parkinson’s Research Community, but we probably learned as much if not more from them then they did from us. 23andMe’s [...]
April 2, 2012
During Parkinson’s Awareness Month, we’ll be highlighting promising research and new findings in the fight against Parkinson’s. Along the way we hope to boost enrollment in 23andMe’s Parkinson’s Research Community past 7,500 people, getting us that much closer to our ultimate goal of 10,000 [...]
March 30, 2012
This week 23andMe will begin surveying its members to study the biology of sexual orientation. The survey was prompted in part by customer interest, and fueled by our own scientific curiosity. We’re also launching the survey during “Come Out For Health” week, a nationwide event that has for the last [...]
March 12, 2012
On a recent visit to 23andMe George Demetri —a physician and scientist who is an unpaid advisor to our Sarcoma research initiative — sat down for a short interview after talking to our team. Demetri, who is also director of the Dana-Farber Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology, said he has a lot to be [...]
March 5, 2012
Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) have a complicated name but it’s an apt descriptor for the biology underlying this group of rare blood disorders. MPNs result from excessive production of “myeloid” blood cells that originate in the bone marrow, and come in different forms including essential [...]
