This interview is part of an occasional series of profiles introducing you to some of 23andMe’s scientists. Population geneticist David Poznik came to 23andMe <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-23687" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-234x300.jpg" alt="David Poznik" width="300" height="385" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-234x300.jpg 234w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-768x986.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-798x1024.jpg 798w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-686x880.jpg 686w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-920x1180.jpg 920w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-scaled.jpg 1995w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />after working in <a href="https://bustamantelab.stanford.edu/">Carlos Bustamante’s lab</a> at Stanford University. 
Originally from Massachusetts, David earned an undergraduate degree in Biophysics at Brown. An avid traveler and backpacker, David has taken a couple years off to explore Asia and South America. These trips bookended his time as a Senior Research Analyst at Harvard’s Joslin Diabetes Center where, among other projects, he led the analyses for a few early GWAS studies. Upon returning from South America, he went on to earn a master’s degree in Statistics and a PhD in Biomedical Informatics at Stanford. While working in Bustamante’s lab, David became an expert on the Y chromosome. He maintains strong interests in DNA sequencing, ancient DNA, and algorithm development.
Tell us about your education:

I primarily studied math and physics in my first two years at Brown, but I grew increasingly excited about the biology classes I was taking on the side, so I started shifting focus. By the end of college, I was splitting my time between biology and physics, and my research in computational neuroscience was somewhere in between, so I ended up majoring in Biophysics. After college, I conducted the analyses for a number of genetic epidemiology studies at Harvard, but I returned to school in order to gain formal training in statistics and computer science. At Stanford, I earned an MS in Statistics and a PhD in Biomedical Informatics.


What’s your job title and role here at 23andMe?

I am a Computational Biologist and Population Geneticist at 23andMe. Within the Research Team, I work in the Ancestry group. We develop and improve methods to extract insights about customers’ ancestry from their genotypes.

<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">David Poznik, Computational Biologist, Population Geneticist

Originally from: Massachusetts
Education:

BA: Biophysics, Brown University

MA: Statistics, Stanford University

PhD: Biomedical Informatics, Stanford University

Fun Fact: &#8220;I spent about 25 percent of the decade between college and graduate school backpacking around the world, including a 16-month journey across Asia and a 7-month trip through South America.&#8221;
</div>

What were you working on before you came to 23andMe?

Before joining 23andMe I was in graduate school, taking as many statistics and computer science classes as I could, while conducting research in population genetics. Most of my graduate research was focused on using Y-chromosome sequences to learn about human history. For example, as a component of the <a href="http://www.1000genomes.org/">1000 Genomes Project</a>, our analysis of 1,244 Y-chromosomes revealed multiple historical bursts of extreme expansions in male numbers. Most recently, I developed a pipeline to process and analyze the targeted sequences of several hundred Y chromosomes from diverse African populations.


What are you working on now at 23andMe?

My first project at 23andMe is to develop and test a new algorithm to identify customers’ Y-chromosome haplogroups, with the goal of updating our ancestry reports.


Why are you excited about genetics? 
I am most excited about genetics because of the vast amount of historical and anthropological information encoded in our genomes. Beginning with the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5313.html">pioneering work</a> of Luca Cavalli-Sforza in the 1960’s, the field of genetics has made substantial contributions toward our understanding of the past.
In some cases these findings have confirmed pictures drawn previously by long-established disciplines such as archaeology and linguistics, but in many cases, and with increasing regularity, genetics has added wholly new elements. Two recent technological developments are driving much of the most recent work: high-throughput sequencing and methods to extract DNA from the remains of people and archaic humans who lived <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26595274">thousands</a>, or even <a href="https://www.mpg.de/10364707/hominins-sima-de-los-huesos">hundreds of thousands</a>, of years ago. Together, these tools have led to a far greater understanding of the history of our species than was thought possible just a decade ago.


Tell us about one of your interesting findings in your previous scientific life.

When I started graduate school, I had the good fortune to have access to some of the first high-throughput sequencing of globally diverse populations. I developed methods to analyze and interpret the Y-chromosome data, and I built <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4032117/figure/F2/">a tree</a> relating the sequences. The root of this tree represents the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of the Y chromosomes in the study, and the branches represent shared paternal ancestry of increasingly smaller subsets of the sample, terminating at the leaves, which represent individual sequences.
Thanks in large part to the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11062480">seminal work</a> of Peter Underhill, much was already known about the topological structure of this tree–the branching patterns that reflect the relationships between the various lineages. But, in contrast to prior work, the full sequence data enabled me to measure the distances between each of the subtrees, or “clades.” These distances are represented by the branch lengths of the tree, with longer branches indicating greater temporal separation. With full sequences, we can infer the time to the MRCA of any pair of Y chromosomes. The MRCA of all extant human Y chromosomes–the root of the tree relating the Y chromosomes of all living men, including carriers of the recently discovered “A00” haplogroup–lived ~275 thousand years ago.
One interesting fact people don’t usually guess about me is:

Something my peers in graduate school never would have suspected is that before returning to school, I actually had a great work-life balance. Since joining 23andMe a few months ago, most of my evenings and weekends have been back at Stanford wrapping up a few papers, but I’m quite excited to start getting out of lab again!


Did you learn anything interesting from your 23andMe results? Did you make any changes as a result of taking the test?
A close friend learned from her 23andMe results that she was heterozygous for <a href="https://blog.23andme.org/health-traits/three-genes-for-blood-clots/">Factor V Leiden</a>, and she shared this genetic result with her doctor. In 2010, her doctor found it quite the novelty for a patient to walk into her office, genotypes in hand. She advised my friend that, due to her increased risk of developing venous thromboembolism, she should go off the pill, and my friend complied, reasoning that this was a relatively easy change in light of the potential risk. This event was actually my first window into the power and potential of direct-to-consumer genetics.


What’s one thing the average consumer should know about genetics?

The Y chromosome is remarkable in that it is the longest stretch of non-recombining DNA in the human genome, by orders of magnitude. Because this giant chunk of DNA is transmitted in whole from father to son through the generations, it contains sufficient information to build a detailed phylogenetic tree. At 23andMe, we can tell you where your paternal ancestry fits into this larger context.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

A Conversation with Population Geneticist David Poznik

This interview is part of an occasional series of profiles introducing you to some of the scientists at 23andMe. Ivan Juric <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-23695" title="Ivan Juric" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-208x300.jpg" alt="Ivan Juric" width="300" height="434" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-208x300.jpg 208w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-768x1110.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-709x1024.jpg 709w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-609x880.jpg 609w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-817x1180.jpg 817w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-scaled.jpg 1772w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />studied molecular biology at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and went on to get his PhD in ecology and evolution at the University of Tennessee. 
He did his postdoctoral work in the Graham Coop lab at the University of California, Davis, where he analyzed population genetics, specifically Neanderthal introgression in humans. Here at 23andMe, Ivan works on our research team and is continuing his work on Neanderthal and other ancient human populations.
<h2>Tell us about your education: 
</h2>
I grew up and went to elementary and high school in Zagreb, Croatia. Zagreb is the country&#8217;s capitol and the biggest city. Croatian schools differ from US schools somewhat. For example, we had morning and afternoon shifts. This means that starting at the age of 6 and until I started college, one week my school would start at 8 a.m. and last until 1 p.m., and the next week it would start at 1 and finish at 7 p.m.
Only recently did I realize that schools in the US start at the same time each week. So weird!
I attended a high school known for its strong math, computer, and natural sciences programs. I was not really interested in solving equations or coding, but that is what my friends did, so I did it, too. I loved biology, though. My biology teacher had his office converted into a fruit fly genetic lab where he kept 10 different drosophila mutant lines. This is how I got introduced to genetics – by doing drosophila crosses. So, at least in part, I’ll blame him for choosing to study molecular biology at the University of Zagreb.
Unsurprisingly, the undergraduate program in Croatia is a bit different compared to the US. Our classes are more specialized. For example, during my study, I took over 40 biology-related classes, some covering obscure details that not many care about. But we had no history, social science, language, or art-related class. One of those 40 biology classes was population genetics, which was a mix of math, biology, and computer science, and obviously, I liked it. During my junior year I spent a summer at the University of Tennessee, USA in the lab of Sergey Gavrilets. Sergey is known for his theoretical work on speciation, and I enjoyed my stay at UTK, so after I finished my undergrad, I went to study with him.
Some years later, I got my PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology from UTK and went to do a postdoc at Davis, CA, in Graham Coop&#8217;s lab. There I stayed one year and studied selection against Neanderthal ancestry in modern-day humans. Then, I joined 23andMe.
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 275px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">Ivan Juric, Computational Biologist and Population GeneticistOriginally from: Zagreb, Croatia
Education: 
PhD: Ecology and Evolution, University of Tennessee
Post Doc: Graham Coop&#8217;s Lab, University of California, Davis
Fun Fact: &#8220;I had to look up what 23andMe&#8217;s name meant.&#8221;
</div>
<h2>What&#8217;s your job title and role here at 23andMe?</h2>
My title is &#8220;Computational Biologist, Population Geneticist,&#8221; but I had to search the company directory to find out. It&#8217;s not that we hide our titles here, but I don&#8217;t really use my title often (like ever, except in formal documents), so I forgot what it is. I think that this says a lot about the company and why I like working here. I am part of the ancestry team in our research department.
At 23andMe, I just do what I’ve always been doing: find a problem I can solve and then solve it. It just happens that problems I find interesting are those others at 23andMe think are worth solving. For example, during my job talk, I proposed a new method for finding relatives using DNA data, and now I am working on it. This method might have been something I would be working on if I had stayed in Graham’s lab. So, to sum up, I get to do things that I find interesting and make me happy, I get paid for that and what I make is helpful for people who pay me. Can’t beat that.
<h2>What were you researching before you came to 23andMe?</h2>
While I was in Tennessee, I studied how population history and structure affect how some populations and how those populations diverge into distinct species. My work was theoretical – learning about speciation by solving equations and running simulations. One can learn a lot about general patterns during the speciation process this way. In Graham Coop&#8217;s lab at UC Davis, I studied the details of human and Neanderthal intermixing. We developed a model that enabled us to estimate the average strength of selection against Neanderthal ancestry in modern-day humans. Then, we used the publicly available data to estimate how much Neanderthal DNA was selected against.
It turns out that the offspring of pairings between humans and Neanderthals were, on average, unsuccessful at passing on their genes to future generations.  Even so, enough of them survived, and people of European and Asian ancestry still have some Neanderthal DNA. It would be interesting to understand better why some early human Neanderthal hybrids managed to pass on their genes. It Might be because, among many deleterious Neanderthal alleles, those lucky hybrids had few beneficial alleles. However, it might also be because those hybrids appeared in very small populations where selection is weaker. We don’t know yet.
<h2>What are you working on now at 23andMe?</h2>
I am developing new methods for improving our DNA relative’s tool and Ancestry Composition report that will offer finer and more detailed results. More generally, I’m working on different projects dealing with “IBD”, which stands for “identity by descent”. DNA segments that are IBD between two individuals are important because they contain information about their genealogical relationship. For example, close relatives will share longer IBD segments than distant relatives. By looking at the patterns of IBD sharing between different individuals, we can learn a lot about how related they are.
<h2>Why are you excited about genetics?</h2>
Many problems in genetics can be represented using mathematics.
Often, these genetic problems are mathematically equivalent to flipping coins, shuffling a deck of cards, finding the fewest number of airplanes to visit many different cities, or describing seating arrangements in a Chinese restaurant. I find that fascinating! This means that when I feel like it, I don’t really need to study genetics to do genetics. It’s enough to find a more exciting process that follows the same rules as my genetic problem and study that other process instead.
That way of thinking always makes my work interesting. Instead of solving really annoying problems, I’m just trying to count how many people are eating around me in my imaginary restaurant (which serves only the best food and is decorated in the best possible way). The next day, I might be planning flights to Hawaii while trying to solve another annoying genetic problem. Genetics never gets boring.
<h2>Tell us about one of your interesting findings at 23andMe, or in your previous scientific life.</h2>
We were able to use our model to show that early offspring of intermixing between Neanderthals and humans were likely to have been unfit for survival – very few flourished.  That was a really neat result. But for me personally the best moment in that project was when I realized that some equations I came up with were mathematically equivalent to equations published in a book chapter 30 years ago by a scientist studying gene flow, which is a genetic term for how genes pass from one group to other. His work looked at how gene flow might impede speciation or the process by which populations evolve to become distinct species. Some people might freak out when they find their equations already published, but I was very excited because I could link my work to the previous one.
<h6>Tell us about a recent breakthrough in genetics research that you think will have a big impact on the industry.</h6>
I&#8217;ll go with the safe ones. Lowering sequencing cost and CRISPR. Soon, sequencing will be cheap enough, and it will make sense to sequence whole genomes rather than genotype a subset of SNPs. This means that we&#8217;ll have more data to work with. Hopefully, we&#8217;ll find something new! Cheap sequencing will also change the industry since we’ll need to find an efficient way to store and quickly analyze this data. Genetic editing, in the form of the new technology based on CRISPR-Cas9, allows us to change genes cheaply. This is important if you want to understand how those genes work. A great way to figure out how genes work is to break them and see what happens. With CRISPR, it&#8217;s much easier to break specific genes.
<h2>One interesting fact people don&#8217;t usually guess about me is:  </h2>
I always tell great jokes. If you disagree, you have no sense of humor.
<h2>Did you learn anything interesting from your 23andMe results? Did you make any changes as a result of taking the test?</h2>
My wife reserved &#8220;my&#8221; 23andMe kit for herself. That&#8217;s what I learned.
<h2>What&#8217;s one thing the average consumer should know about genetics?</h2>
I find that many are confused with the concept of stochasticity, which is a very important concept in genetics. Scientists are partly to blame for this confusion because we often say an outcome occurred &#8220;by chance.&#8221; The argument is then that an outcome can&#8217;t happen &#8220;by chance&#8221; but instead that it happened &#8220;for a reason.&#8221;  The opposite of &#8220;stochastic&#8221; is not &#8220;for a reason&#8221; but &#8220;deterministic.&#8221; Tossing a coin is an example of a stochastic process. I know why and how a coin landed on heads, but it might be tails the next time I throw the same coin.
A deterministic process is one in which there is no randomness, such as tossing a rigged coin that always lands on head side. So next time you hear a geneticist saying that something happened &#8220;by chance&#8221; just think of tossing a coin.

A Conversation with 23andMe’s Ivan Juric

23andMe announced this week that it would add access to genetic information to ResearchKit, an open source framework introduced by Apple <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-23714" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Phone-Iimage-145x300.jpg" alt="Phone Iimage" width="300" height="619" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Phone-Iimage-145x300.jpg 145w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Phone-Iimage-496x1024.jpg 496w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Phone-Iimage-427x880.jpg 427w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Phone-Iimage-572x1180.jpg 572w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Phone-Iimage.jpg 716w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />that allows researchers and developers to create powerful apps for medical research.
As an update to their existing studies, scientists at <a href="http://apps.icahn.mssm.edu/asthma/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mount Sinai</a> and <a href="https://med.stanford.edu/myheartcounts/faq.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Stanford</a> will be the first to use 23andMe&#8217;s module to incorporate genetic information from 23andMe in their research.
It is 23andMe’s first foray in what will likely be many efforts to leverage mobile technology for collecting more than just survey data as we currently do. In this case, it will be used to study asthma and heart disease.


The updated apps developed for the studies also allow 23andMe customers to easily participate after a simple informed consent process. These studies have great potential to uncover new information about asthma and heart disease. But beyond that, they also hint at the potential of integrating mobile technology into ongoing genetic research.
Scientists are already marveling at how smartphones could power this kind of research.
“Phones are always with you,” said Rob Borkowski, Ph.D., 23andMe&#8217;s Platforms Product Manager. “So unlike with a computer, you don’t have to log on and then fill in information about your activity. Your phone can record that kind of information automatically.”


A smart phone can seamlessly track activity, sleep or even the rate of your tapping, said Rob. For researchers, this kind of real-time information could help them follow the progression of an illness, and for patients a smartphone can give them a simple way of recording symptoms as they happen.
<div id="attachment_21761" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21761" class="wp-image-21761 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare-300x300.jpeg" alt="RobSquare" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare-300x300.jpeg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare-768x768.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare-1024x1024.jpeg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare-880x880.jpeg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare-1180x1180.jpeg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare-271x271.jpeg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare-372x372.jpeg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare-574x574.jpeg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare-980x980.jpeg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RobSquare.jpeg 1925w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Rob Borkowski, 23andMe&#8217;s Platforms Product Manager</div>
23andMe&#8217;s unique research platform is centered on engaging easily with customers. It offers people a simple way to participate in research if they wish, while also learning about themselves.
By leveraging online tools, 23andMe&#8217;s platform has already proven that it can accelerate the pace of research.
By integrating the smartphone into that process, it adds another layer of information for researchers to parse. It also makes it that much simpler for people to participate and that much easier for researchers to collect new kinds of data, said Gregory Frank, 23andMe’s director of business development.


Other researchers are already using smartphones to do such things as study the progression of neurodegenerative diseases by tracking changes in how patients click on their phones or gauge differences in the pace of their steps, said Gregory.
Beyond that there is the sheer number of mobile phones, even in undeveloped areas.
This opens up other avenues to find under served communities not just for researchers but for both doctors and patients interested in the delivery of mobile health care. In the short term the availability of mobile phones makes it easier to both participate in research and gather data for research.


As part of this broader effort to leverage mobile technology, 23andMe will allow researchers to broaden their efforts at recruiting not just to current 23andMe customers but enlist new participants through the ResearchKit app. (New participants get a free 23andMe kit as part of the project.) What makes this new feature attractive is that it gives scientists another tool for the sometimes difficult task of recruiting research participants.
It’s a turnkey feature for researchers, and for those who choose to participate they in turn get to contribute to research while also getting access to genetic information about themselves.

Mobile Research at 23andMe

<div class="copy-paste-block">By Kate Black and Zerina Curevac*</div>
<div class="copy-paste-block"></div>
<div class="copy-paste-block">Since our founding a decade ago, 23andMe has only received requests from law enforcement for information regarding five of our more than 1.2 million customers. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Privacy-275x300.jpg" alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23677" width="275" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Privacy-275x300.jpg 275w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Privacy.jpg 636w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px" /></div>
<div class="copy-paste-block"></div>
<div class="copy-paste-block">In each of these cases, 23andMe successfully resisted the request and protected our customers’ data from release to law enforcement.</div>
<div class="copy-paste-block"></div>
<div class="copy-paste-block">While receiving and responding to law enforcement requests is not a common occurrence at 23andMe like it might be at some large tech companies, customer privacy and trust are at the core of our approach to the issue.</div>
We believe a key part of maintaining that trust is keeping customers informed and answering their questions about data security and privacy, so we’d like to  take this opportunity to answer some of the most commonly asked questions from our customers.
<h4>
Why would law enforcement be interested in my genetic data? </h4>
Law enforcement agencies are interested in genetic information because it may help identify individuals who are the focus of an investigation. The federal government manages the Combined DNA Index System (“CODIS”), a database comprised of the genetic information of convicted offenders and arrestees, collected by state and federal law enforcement agencies. Typically, law enforcement officers will collect DNA from an unknown suspect at a crime scene and compare it to CODIS to see if they can match it to a convicted offender or arrestee profile. If the unknown suspect matches an individual in CODIS, law enforcement can obtain the identity of the suspected perpetrator. If a search fails to return a match, law enforcement can run an additional search of CODIS called a “familial search.”
Unlike a routine database search, a familial search can  potentially identify close biological relatives to the unknown profile obtained from crime scene evidence. By finding close relatives of an unknown suspect, law enforcement may be able to locate the unknown suspect and solve the crime. If no direct matches or familial matches are found in CODIS, law enforcement sometimes turn to privately owned databases in search of a match.


The Electronic Frontier Foundation <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/how-private-dna-data-led-idaho-cops-wild-goose-chase-and-linked-innocent-man-20">reported</a> on such a situation in May 2015, where police in Idaho tried to identify a suspect for a cold case murder using a publicly searchable Ancestry.com database. The public database allowed detectives to identify an unknown suspect because the suspect’s father had donated his DNA sample to the database years prior. Ultimately, the identified suspect was cleared as a false positive.

<h4>
Is my 23andMe data likely to be useful to law enforcement or the government? 
</h4>

There are a number of technical and legal reasons that 23andMe data is highly unlikely to be useful to law enforcement, and we’d like to highlight a couple of the most important ones.


First, 23andMe’s tests are of little use to law enforcement or government because they cannot technically be matched against the information in CODIS or other governmental databases. 23andMe’s genealogy tests use a genotyping technology that produces markers for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), but  law enforcement use a different kind of DNA test that uses markers known as short tandem repeats. This makes comparing the two very difficult. One way to think about the difference between the tests is that 23andMe’s test focuses on how you are like other people, while forensic tests focus on how you are different from other people.


If law enforcement presented a scenario in which SNP information was useful to a case, it’s still unlikely that it would be admitted into any legal proceedings for a number of reasons. One reason is a legal principle known as “chain of custody” which requires that a piece of evidence is what it claims to be, or that evidence collected can be reliably connected to a specific individual in order to use it in court. Genetic data collected by 23andMe fails to meet the chain of custody requirement.
Our service is offered online, and as a result, we can’t precisely authenticate an individual’s identity when they use our service. In other words, we don’t have any means to “reliably connect” any particular DNA sample to an individual.
We have been successful in communicating these, and other, limitations to law enforcement agents when they contact us.  Once law enforcement officials see both the legal and technical limitations of attempting to use the data, they have backed off of their requests.  As a result 23andMe has not released any data to law enforcement to date. We will continue to vigorously protect the privacy and security of our customers’ data. Those protections for customers remain at the core of what we do.

<h4>
What is 23andMe doing to protect my data? </h4>
Every company must decide how to respond if and when law enforcement officers request information about their customers. 23andMe unequivocally chooses to use all practical legal and administrative resources to resist requests from law enforcement, and we do not share customer data with any public databases, or with entities that may increase the risk of law enforcement access.
<h4>
What are the limitations of 23andMe&#8217;s data protection efforts? 
</h4>

While we will continue to do everything in our power to protect our customer’s information, we also think it’s important to be transparent about our limitations. As stated in our Privacy Statement, we may ultimately be required by law to comply with a valid court order, subpoena, or search warrant for genetic or personal information. We can’t speculate on what future scenarios might bring rise to such disclosures, but we will notify the affected individual(s) through the contact information they have provided to us in advance of any disclosure to law enforcement, unless doing so would violate the law or a court order.

<h4>
How can I keep track of 23andMe’s releases to law enforcement? 
</h4>

We stay accountable and transparent to our customers via our <a href="https://www.23andme.org/transparency-report/">Transparency Report</a>, which details the law enforcement requests we have received and our responses.
Should you have any additional questions or concerns, please feel free to email us at privacy@23andMe.com.
*
Kate Black is 23andMe&#8217;s Privacy Officer and Corporate Counsel, while Zerina Curevac is a 23andMe legal intern.

Kate Black

23andPrivacy: Your Data and Law Enforcement

On Mother’s Day last year, Robin Butler’s children gave her 23andMe as a gift, not knowing it would change all their lives.
“I thought it would be fun to learn about my genome,” Robin said.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-23673" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-Quote.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-Quote.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-Quote-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
But testing ultimately revealed something no one knew – the man she thought was her biological father wasn’t.
“I was in total shock for three days, and I am still dealing with the aftershocks,” Robin said. “My whole family was shocked. My mother was shocked, and so was the man we believed was my (biological) father for 49 years.”
23andMe allows people to explore what their genetics tell them about traits they might share with family, or about their health and ancestry. But doing the test can also reveal the unexpected. Sometimes those surprises can be fun, but, as in Robin’s case, they also have the potential to have profound implications.
For Robin, learning that her father wasn’t her biological father sent a shockwave through her family, but it didn’t tear them apart.
Robin had a unique relationship with the man she had known as her father. He and her mother had lived apart almost all of Robin’s life, and she had only lived with him briefly when she was 13. Although their relationship was distant, she embraced him as her father, just as any daughter would. Robin’s own children also knew him as their grandfather.
When her kids gave Robin 23andMe for Mother’s Day, she turned around and got a kit for her mother. When she got her results, she saw her connection to her mother in the DNA Relative feature and a third cousin she didn’t recognize. The two connected, trying to figure out how they were related. The cousin didn’t show up in her mother’s results, so Robin knew she had to be connected to the cousin on her father’s side, but she didn’t recognize any of the woman’s family names.
Robin had also gotten a kit for her dad for Father’s Day. When his results came back, they quickly realized he didn’t share any DNA with this third cousin or with Robin.
“I thought it was a mistake,” she said. “I even called 23andMe to confirm that the results were correct.”
But she also noticed that her father shared DNA with cousins who had names Robin knew.
“That’s when I knew that this was his DNA and he wasn’t my father,” she said. “That’s when I was thrown into shock.”
While the news was hard to accept, it didn’t devastate the family. Instead, it triggered many new questions for Robin about her family and herself.
It also propelled her on a new search.
“I knew I had to find my biological father,” Robin said.
Robin talked to her dad about it.
It wasn’t easy, but his response wasn’t anger or sadness but encouragement. He told her she needed answers that he didn’t have.
“I know you need to know,” he told her.
He understood how important it was to her.
“My dad helped in the search, too,” Robin said.
Looking at her 23andMe results, Robin returned to the third cousin with whom she first connected and noticed other second and third cousins. This prompted her to search for their surnames, which were unfamiliar to her. She got additional information from her mother, who had the first name of a man who was the only other likely person who could be Robin’s father. Pooling all this information together helped narrow her search. When she connected again with her third cousin and shared some of this information, they identified who they thought her father was. Her cousin even provided Robin with a picture, which Robin then showed to her parents. They recognized him immediately and said that was who they believed was her father.
“Remarkably, through my 23andme DNA relatives (and other information), I was able to find the man who I truly believe is my biological father, all within a matter of days,” Robin said.
But her cousin thought that Robin’s biological father had passed away. It wasn’t until Robin tracked down another cousin that she learned he was still alive. Using additional information, she was able to find an address. She took the next difficult step of sending him a carefully worded letter filled with details about her mother and her own connections through 23andMe with several of his relatives.
“I mailed the letter off on August 31, 2015, (and) I prayed to Jesus,” she said.
A few days later, Robin got an early morning phone call. It was him.
“Of course, this was a great shock to him and his family, but he called,” Robin said. “Thank God he called, and he remembered my mother. Like me, he just wanted to know the truth, and so did his wife of 47 years.”
He asked to do a DNA test, and Robin sent him a 23andMe kit. A few weeks later, the results confirmed what Robin thought – she’d found her biological father.
“His response was brief, and that&#8217;s the last I&#8217;ve heard from him,” Robin said. “I&#8217;m still waiting, but I have hope. I know I will have a relationship with my father.”
Robin is his only biological child. She doesn’t know how this news impacted him, but finding him was important in understanding herself.
It made her wonder what part of herself she inherited from her biological father and what was from her upbringing.
“I thought that knowing him would help me to better understand myself,” she said.
Making the connection gave her insight into where she came from.
“I not only found my biological father but I was introduced to extended family and ancestors that I hadn’t known of before,” said Robin. “Finding him and knowing about his family tree through our cousins made me feel complete and whole.”

A Need To Know

A big congratulations to Uta Franke, a member of our scientific advisory board and our former senior medical director, appearing on the cover of the <a href="http://www.cell.com/ajhg/current" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">American Journal of Human Genetics.</a>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23664" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Utacover.tif-231x300.jpg" alt="AJHG_98_3.c1.indd" width="231" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Utacover.tif-231x300.jpg 231w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Utacover.tif.jpg 591w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 231px) 100vw, 231px" />
A medical doctor and professor emerita of Genetics and Pediatrics at Stanford University, Uta joined 23andMe first as a consultant in 2007. She became our senior medical director in 2010 serving in that post for three years.
In 2012 Uta received the <a href="http://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297%2813%2900040-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">William Allan Award from the AJHG</a> for her groundbreaking work in genetics. It was one in a long string of awards in her career particularly focusing on human genetic diseases.
Uta is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She’s also a founding member of the American College of Medical Genetics and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.


Her work has included making new findings into such genetic diseases as Charcot-Marie-Tooth, Marfan, Rett, Prader-Willi, Williams, and Wiskott-Aldrich syndromes. Her work opened new avenues for the study and treatment of these disorders. She served as president of the ASHG in 1999, pushing for a more open-access model for scientific publications.
Her presidential address to the group at that time was titled “Human Genetics in the Information Age.”

Uta’s Cover

Frida Kahlo accented her unibrow, while the late Soviet leader Leonard Brezhnev presumably didn’t care about his, and neither of them knew 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-23654 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Frida_Kahlo_by_Guillermo_Kahlo-200x300.jpg" alt="Frida Kahlo, By Guillermo Kahlo" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Frida_Kahlo_by_Guillermo_Kahlo-200x300.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Frida_Kahlo_by_Guillermo_Kahlo-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Frida_Kahlo_by_Guillermo_Kahlo-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Frida_Kahlo_by_Guillermo_Kahlo-587x880.jpg 587w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Frida_Kahlo_by_Guillermo_Kahlo-787x1180.jpg 787w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Frida_Kahlo_by_Guillermo_Kahlo.jpg 800w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> anything about the genetics behind what gave them their distinctive bushy brows.
A<a href="https://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160301/ncomms10815/full/ncomms10815.html"> new study</a> by researchers at the University College London identified some of the genetic variants associated with having a unibrow, and also plucked out associations for such things as beard thickness, hair curl, graying and baldness.
This study was unique because it focused on Latinos, who carry mixed European, Native American and African ancestry, and also because it looks at common traits –traits regarding hair – as a way to better understand human variation. Previous studies looking at these traits have focused largely on European and Asian populations.
For 23andMe’s part, we use data from 56 different genetic variants to report back customers with European ancestry their likelihood of having a Frida-esque unibrow, also known in medical parlance as synophrys. But only one of the 56 variants included in our trait report is mentioned in the University College London study. The variant those researchers found that had the strongest association isn’t on 23andMe’s chip.
We also have reports on hair curl, baldness and hair color. Each of those reports looks at many different variants some of which are also singled out in the University College London study.
That study also includes something else that is new, a variant associated with graying of hair.
&#8220;We already know several genes involved in balding and hair color but this is the first time a gene for graying has been identified in humans, as well as other genes influencing hair shape and density,&#8221;<a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0316/010316-first-grey-hair-gene-discovered"> said Kaustubh Adhikari</a>, a biologist at University College London and the lead author of the study.


While the researchers in this study said their findings could one day be valuable for a cosmetic company or used for criminal forensic work, we know the findings also more directly tie to the study of human variation. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-23656 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Hair-Phenotypes-300x225.jpg" alt="Hair Phenotypes" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Hair-Phenotypes-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Hair-Phenotypes-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Hair-Phenotypes-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Hair-Phenotypes-880x660.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Hair-Phenotypes-1180x885.jpg 1180w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
This is something that 23andMe<a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1000993"> knows something about</a>, having innovated ways of engaging with our customers, who in turn share information on hundreds of traits from the curl of their hair to whether they can do a cartwheel.
While seemingly trivial, these associations can broaden our understanding around human variation, something scientists are still grappling with.
23andMe has created an efficient and accurate way of collecting both phenotypic and genetic data that allows for genome wide association studies of a wide assortment of traits within large groups of individuals, like what the University College London has done here by recruiting more than 6,000 individuals from Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia and Brazil.
For instance, 23andMe found that variants in the PAX3 gene are not only associated with the likelihood of having a unibrow, but also whether you’ve got a <a href="https://www.23andme.org/topics/traits/cleft-chin/">chin dimple</a>, or upper back hair. Other variants in the gene are associated with a syndrome that leads to deafness, facial abnormalities and skin pigmentation irregularities. So understanding these associations with common but complex traits can also provide insight into serious conditions.

Unibrows And The Study of Human Variation

An accomplished scientist and businessman, Stephen Levine has spent his whole life <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-23645" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Stephen-Levine-200x200.jpg" alt="Stephen Levine" width="200" height="200" />searching.


That restlessness is driven by a quest that is both emotional and intellectual, a desire to learn more about the world around him and himself. It was also driven by what he calls a deep emotional trauma. But that intense curiosity about who he was and where he came from was recently rewarded with a family connection he could have only made with the help of 23andMe.
“There is a lovely tender, tear rendering story here,” said Stephen, a Ph.D., who lives in Northern Washington and works in nutritional medicine.


He’d been adopted and grew up in Brooklyn in a family in which he felt alien and disconnected to his adoptive mother.
Using details from a story his adoptive mother told him about his birth, Stephen tracked down his biological mother when he was in his early 30s.
It wasn’t the kind of reunion he’d hoped for, however.
“She was a broken person, a street person,” he said.
His mother had agreed to meet him at a White Castle fast food restaurant in Brooklyn. It was a strange place for a mother and son reunion, and while he drove to the meeting, Stephen questioned whether he’d really found the right person at all.


“Intellectually I knew it was her, but emotionally I was so shaken up I just didn’t know,” he said.


But he thought to himself:
“If this is really my mom, then when I look at her face, I will know 100 percent,” he said. “And, she’ll have green eyes.”


Just after he parked his car at the restaurant a woman knocked on his window.
“I saw her face and I saw my face within it, with her green eyes,” he said.
Wanting to get to know her and learn more about his biological family, Stephen spent two days with her in a large hotel suite that he’d rented.
“She was obviously mentally imbalanced and depressed,” Stephen said. “I asked her many questions including the name of my biological father. She did give me his last name.”


After that initial meeting, he tried to develop a relationship with her, but it was too painful and difficult for her, he said. She eventually asked him to leave her alone.
His reunion with his mother stopped any additional searching for family for three decades until his own daughter, Ariel, reignited it when she tested with 23andMe.
Ariel’s 23andMe results showed a close connection with a woman she didn’t know. That woman, Marilyn, sent her a message. Marilyn wanted to figure out how they were so closely related. 23andMe showed that Marilyn was either Ariel’s aunt or a close cousin, and Marilyn’s father matched her as a grandfather.
Ariel told Marilyn, who was from Brooklyn, about her dad being adopted and originally being from Brooklyn. Marilyn and Stephen then connected and in an email exchange Marilyn asked Stephen if he knew his biological father’s last name. He told her he didn’t, only that it was a short name and started with “Z.”


“My maiden name is Zwick,” Marilyn emailed back.
“I knew in that instant, that this was the name that my mother had told me, over 30 years ago, and that this was my father’s family,” Stephen said. “I’ll never forget that moment.”
Stephen quickly booked a flight back to New York, renting an apartment where he met his sister Marilyn as well as his biological father and a collection of other relatives
At first his father, a retired sociology teacher, was standoffish, but as they talked it became obvious that Stephen was genuine. The two men looked a lot alike and even have similar mannerisms. At some point, it seemed to dawn on his biological father that Stephen was indeed his son.
He got up and walked over to Stephen, embracing him and saying:


“I have always wanted a son.”


It was more than Stephen could have hoped for, he said. They sat together and talked and Stephen learned that he and his father shared some of the same interests. They both liked doing yoga, meditation, and that they have some of the same sensibilities. For Stephen, who’d been searching for so long, meeting his biological family was a revelation.
“They accepted me,” Stephen said. “In my mind why should they love me, but they do. It’s very deep healing.”

Deep Healing

There’s a lot to like about the <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-23384" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Precision-Medicine-Initiative-200x125.jpg" alt="Precision Medicine Initiative" width="200" height="125" /> Obama recently make clear that enlisting patients as partners will ensure it works.


At a White House forum held on Thursday, President Obama said <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/politics/president-obama-weighs-in-on-data-from-genes.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&#038;action=click&#038;contentCollection=science&#038;region=stream&#038;module=stream_unit&#038;version=latest&#038;contentPlacement=2&#038;pgtype=sectionfront">patients own their data</a>, and that they are key to making this new research initiative succeed.
This kind of consumer-centered approach to research has been core to 23andMe since we started the company almost ten years ago. It’s heartening to hear it not just from the president, but also from other top administration officials including National Institute of Health Director Francis Collins. Dr.
Collins explicitly called this out saying individuals who participate in the Precision Medicine Initiative, should be treated as “partners in research, not subjects.”
The core of this initiative is enlisting a million Americans to contribute their data to research.
Pooling genetic sequence data from a million people will in turn help power unprecedented insights into the genetics of disease and could lead to new breakthroughs. At the forum on the initiative last week the NIH announced that they had taken some of the <a href="https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/preparing-launch-precision-medicine-initiative-cohort-program">first steps</a> to build the infrastructure for that work.
But building the infrastructure and collecting data simply isn&#8217;t enough.
People are the key to this kind of consumer-driven research.


This is something that 23andMe knows a little about. Last year we became the first direct-to-consumer genetics company to genotype a million customers, and more than 80 percent of our customers consent to participate in research. Doing this right means enlisting a million people in research, who are both engaged in their health, and empowered to understand and use their personal health information.
People want access to this information, and for the most part they also want to participate in meaningful research, but they want to be treated as partners not as subjects.
23andMe has already seen the power of this sort of “people powered” research model, and it&#8217;s heartening to see officials recognize that for the Precision Medicine Initiative to succeed they must enlist people&#8217;s as partners in research.

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