Of course he knew he was adopted but that only made Tony Mercer wonder more <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23002" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-300x300.jpg" alt="Tony Mercer Quote" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />about what made him so tall, what made his thumbs so stubby, and where he got his passion for playing the piano.
“My adoptive family was very caring and supportive as I was growing up, but I never felt completely …integrated,” said Tony, a professional pianist and church music director. “My personality and interests and theirs were just not quite the same.”
He loves his family, but he also knows that there are differences that can only be explained by genetics. So, Tony decided to use 23andMe to learn a little bit more about himself – information he said he didn’t think he could learn any other way, he said. He was interested in learning more about his health, the genetics behind some of his traits, and where in the world his ancestors came from. Even though he was adopted and curious about his biological parents, he was still wary about connecting with biological relatives, however.
“Actually, I had no desire to find my biological family,” Tony said. “I had a lot of fear of rejection. I assumed they gave me up for a good reason, and I was afraid of what that reason might be.”
<div id="attachment_23007" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23007" class="size-medium wp-image-23007" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-300x169.jpg" alt="Tony Mercer, right, with his adoptive dad Lindy Mercer, and his biological mother, Lydia Raska. " width="300" height="169" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-300x169.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-768x432.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-880x495.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Tony Mercer, right, with his adoptive dad Lindy Mercer, and his biological mother, Lydia Raska.</div>
He’d seen his adoptive brother go through being rejected when he tried to connect to his biological family, and Tony didn’t want to go through the same thing.
“I didn’t want to face that kind of emotional pain,” he said.
It’s a fear that a lot of adoptees go through – the possibility of being doubly rejected by their biological families. (Once when they were given up for adoption, and a second time when they try to connect later in life.) At the same time, there is often an overpowering need to know. Tony skated along that border between simply wanting to know who his mother and father were and the fear of being rejected by them.
So, when he first got his results, he focused on health information, his traits, and his ancestry. He did look at his DNA Relatives, but they were all very distant.
“I hadn’t really expected to find any close relatives,” he said.
But in 2015, all that changed when Tony connected with a first cousin named Melanie. They exchanged some information. Tony figured out they were connected on his maternal side, and he asked if perhaps she had an aunt who had given up a child for adoption in Alaska in 1984.
Yes, she did.
Melanie knew a family secret about her aunt Lydia giving up a baby boy born on the same day,  in the same year, and the same city in Alaska as Tony.
“Besides my mother, she was the only person who knew about me,” said Tony.
He marvels at the luck that the one person who knew about him, besides his biological mother, had also tested with 23andMe.
“I know how lucky I am,” he said.
Things happened very quickly after that. Melanie connected Tony with her aunt Lydia, his biological mother. First, Tony and Lydia had a few email exchanges, then they talked on the phone, and finally she came to Florida to meet him in person.
“As far as Lydia is concerned, just meeting her and seeing that connection … it was very positive and stabilizing for me,” he said.
He saw in her traits he had in himself, and felt connected in a way that he hadn’t ever felt before. It’s not just that he’s tall, has stubby thumbs, and plays the piano, he said.
“Watching her interact with my friends, I immediately noticed that all their positive traits, and the reasons I love all of them, are traits that she has,” said Tony.
He wondered if perhaps his friends were representative of his own search for finding a deep connection to who he was.
“I think it’s just the most awesome thing in the world,” he said.
Tony also was able to learn a bit about his birth and eventually connect to his biological father. He learned that both his biological mother and father came from musical families, which explained a lot.
“Although I was inspired by my adoptive family in North Carolina and Tennessee who were musicians, I think a lot of that inborn talent is genetic,” said Tony, who first started playing piano as a six year old.
Tony’s adoptive father supported his search. His adoptive mother died when he was 16. That also made connecting with his biological mother that much more important, he said. It wasn’t so much that she filled a void he had with losing his mother, but that she is giving him another chance to have a maternal presence in his life.
He also got more context about himself. He’s 6’5” and he learned that all the men in his mom’s family are tall. He learned musical talent and red hair runs in the family. Even how he’s gravitated to work that involves helping others seems to be genetic, he said.
From his mother, Tony was also able to learn more about why he was put up for adoption. That gave him the ability to finally get an answer to the question he always had growing up.
“I have so much closure and peace about my adoption now, and I’ve got an awesome mom back in my life from all this,” he said.
His mother also helped Tony connect to his biological father, and the two have talked on the phone and hope to meet each other in person soon. More recently he met with his biological mother, his aunt, and his biological brother in Las Vegas.
“I know this might not happen for everyone, but I am so thankful to 23andme for making this experience even possible. Technology and science is so crazy these days, and I thank you guys for being on the cutting edge and making this accessible to the public.”

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

How Lucky I Am

Happy Thanksgiving!
This week, families across the United States will celebrate Thanksgiving with a sumptuous meal.
We’ve created a short video looking at the dinner table&#8217;s DNA.
Have a look.
<iframe loading="lazy" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TEJXPXrNK7A" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
<div class="visually_embed"></div>

Happy Thanksgiving

23andMe offers a look into what your genes say about you, and this week the first <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23266" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-300x134.jpg" alt="chromosomes" width="300" height="134" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-300x134.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-768x343.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-1024x457.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-880x393.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-1180x527.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes.jpg 1440w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />wave of our customers will begin getting that glimpse through our new experience.


The new experience offers multiple ways to understand what your genes say about you, whether you want to look at your ancestry, the traits you share with family, how your genetics plays a role in food preferences, or what conditions you might pass on to your children.
The new experience is also the first and only direct to consumer genetic test to include reports that have marketing authorization from the FDA.
The new experience includes some of the same features and tools that 23andMe first pioneered including our Ancestry Composition reports and DNA Relatives tool, but how that information is conveyed to customers has been fully reimagined.
There are simpler and more elegant ways to trace inheritance, and easier ways to share and compare data with others.
To see for yourself, take a look at this short video and look at some of the features being offered in the new 23andMe experience.
<iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pon3zOxMH8M?list=PLFvkfbvHpp1lUT1UqvtFW3KTx5pEKogr6" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

The New 23andMe Experience

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-23259 size-full" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/History-in-our-DNA-1.jpeg" alt="" width="375" height="996" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/History-in-our-DNA-1.jpeg 375w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/History-in-our-DNA-1-113x300.jpeg 113w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/History-in-our-DNA-1-331x880.jpeg 331w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px" />
23andMe’s new mobile application is changing how genetic research is done.
The new app offers unique access to the world of genetic research through your smartphone. By engaging in simple surveys, you can contribute to scientific research while also gaining insight into the discoveries made by 23andMe researchers.
In this first iteration, the application allows customers the chance to answer survey questions and gain new insight into the genetics behind <a href="https://www.23andme.org/dna-ancestry/">traits</a> and conditions. Similar to the logged-in experience, as customers answer questions, they will receive milestone insights with information about different studies and research data to directly see what they’re contributing to.
“Part of our mission at 23andMe is to empower people, providing access to genetic information and tools to understand it,” said Moti Sorkin, who heads up 23andMe’s mobile applications team. “Almost half of our customers access our product on a mobile device, and that number is rapidly growing.”
Ultimately, the application will allow customers to connect to their accounts and see their genetic reports on ancestry, <a href="https://www.23andme.org/dna-health-ancestry/">health</a> and traits.
Right now the application, which is free, is only available for people in the United States with smartphones on the iOS platform.
Developers are working on expanding to other platforms. Ultimately, most of the features in the 23andMe logged-in experience will also be available through the app. But what’s even more interesting is what developers hope to add to the application in the long run.
“This is a first step,” Moti said. “We’re excited to empower consumers, and to bring genetic knowledge and understanding to anyone who wants it. Stay tuned for more!”

23andMe Research and Insight on the Go

A morning cup of coffee is its own reward, but a new study by researchers sweetens the deal a bit concluding that drinking <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-19414 size-large" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/CoffeeInfographic-177x768.jpg" alt="CoffeeInfographic" width="177" height="768" />more coffee – even decaffeinated coffee – is associated with a longer life.


The<a href="http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2015/11/10/CIRCULATIONAHA.115.017341.abstract"> study</a> by researchers at Harvard looked at mortality in a group of more than 200,000 nurses and doctors involved in a 30-year study that tracks health outcomes, diet and lifestyle. Among the many things tracked was coffee consumption, measured in cups a day.


In the first pass at the data the researchers compared those who drank one to five cups of coffee, and found a clear association with a lower risk for early death. That wasn’t actually new. There have been many studies that looked at the benefits of drinking a moderate amount of coffee. But what was striking about this study were the results when researchers looked at heavy coffee drinkers.


At first the researchers didn’t find the same association when they looked at individuals who drank more than five cups of coffee each day. But, perhaps thinking of the cliche of coffee swilling smokers, the researchers eliminated smokers from the dataset.
They still found the same association with moderate coffee consumption, but it was what they found among the heavy coffee drinkers that surprised them. Those who drank more than five cups of coffee also had a lower risk of an early death.
The study showed that individuals who drank from one to three cups of coffee had an eight percent lower risk for premature death; those who drank three to five cups had a 15 percent lower risk; while those who drank more than five cups a day had a 12 percent lower risk.
The results persisted even when correcting for age, sex and diet.
The study authors<a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/coffee-tied-to-lower-risk-of-dying/?ref=health"> have said</a> that while promising, the data doesn’t indicate whether there is a causal link between drinking coffee and lower mortality. There clearly is more work needed to look into that, but this study adds to the list of others that found associations between drinking coffee and beneficial outcomes including lower risks for type 2 diabetes, liver cancer, lethal prostate cancer, cardiovascular disease and certain neurological diseases.

&nbsp;
<div style="float: left; text-align: justified; width: 600px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-23243" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Reports-Wellness-About-Caff-Consumption-300x183.png" alt="Reports - Wellness - About Caff Consumption" width="300" height="183" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Reports-Wellness-About-Caff-Consumption-300x183.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Reports-Wellness-About-Caff-Consumption-768x469.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Reports-Wellness-About-Caff-Consumption-1024x625.png 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Reports-Wellness-About-Caff-Consumption-880x537.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Reports-Wellness-About-Caff-Consumption-1180x721.png 1180w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Java and Genetics 
23andMe’s wellness reports offers you insight into how your genetics might influence your consumption of caffeine.The amount of caffeine you consume – whether it&#8217;s from coffee, tea, or soft drinks – may be influenced by your genes. 23andMe’s caffeine report looks at variants in the CYP1A2 and AHR genes involved in regulating an enzyme that breaks down caffeine, and other substances, in the body.Find out more about 23andMe’s Wellness reports and other offerings <a href="https://www.23andme.org/service/">here</a>.</div>

Good News for Coffee Drinkers

<div id="attachment_23228" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23228" class="wp-image-23228 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/MJFF-photo-1-e1447799948582-300x254.jpg" alt="MJFF photo" width="300" height="254" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/MJFF-photo-1-e1447799948582-300x254.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/MJFF-photo-1-e1447799948582.jpg 483w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />The panel discussing Parkinson&#8217;s Progression Marker Initiative at the MJFF&#8217;s Parkinson&#8217;s Disease Therapeutics Conference in New York.</div>
From implanting cells into the brain to prevent the loss of dopamine producing nerve cells, to placing light sensitive channels in nerve cells to better treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, researchers are pushing into new realms in the fight against the disease.


At the ninth annual<a href="https://www.michaeljfox.org/research/parkinsons-therapeutics-conference.html"> Michael J. Fox Foundation Parkinson’s </a><a href="https://www.michaeljfox.org/research/parkinsons-therapeutics-conference.html">Therapeutics Conference</a> in New York City earlier this month, more than 300 gathered to learn about a wide range of new experimental treatments and therapies.
Always groundbreaking, this year’s conference didn’t disappoint, and offered attendees much to be optimistic about. 23andMe’s Paul Cannon, Ph.D., who manages our<a href="https://www.23andme.org/pd/"> Parkinson’s Research Community</a>, was there along with Linda Yu, Ph.D., a project manager in business development here, and other business leaders, researchers and scientists.
“This was my second year attending the conference and I continue to be impressed by what I see,&#8221; said Paul. &#8220;It&#8217;s also a great opportunity to meet with like-minded researchers all interested in one thing – finding new breakthroughs in the fight against Parkinson’s.”
<div id="attachment_22380" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22380" class="size-medium wp-image-22380" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-300x235.jpg" alt="Paul Cannon, 23andMe's Parkinson's Research Community manager." width="300" height="235" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-300x235.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-768x602.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-1024x802.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-880x689.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-1180x924.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul.jpg 2016w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Paul Cannon, Ph.D., 23andMe&#8217;s Parkinson&#8217;s Research Community manager.</div>
Bringing together the foundation’s partners and grantees, the annual conference is meant to offer a snapshot of the state of the science around the study of Parkinson’s and its treatments. The daylong conference is broken into sessions that focus on treatments that can modify the progression of the disease, or those that treat the symptoms, as well as sessions that focus on what’s on the horizon, and new tools that can be used in Parkinson’s research.


There was a lot packed into one day, but Paul singled out a few presentations that he found particularly interesting.
The first is a treatment that is now in the preclinical phase, a first step in the process of drug development. The treatment involves an innovative technique that implants cells into the brain. Those cells are engineered to express<a href="https://www.wikigenes.org/e/gene/e/2668.html"> glial derived neurotrophic factor</a> (GDNF), a protein that could help prevent or even reverse the loss of dopamine producing neurons due to Parkinson’s. Dopamine acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain and helps individuals regulate their movements, their body and emotions even. There is still much to be done, and an important next step in the process is a planned clinical study next year, the purpose of which is to make sure that this therapy can be safely administered to patients.


Paul was also struck by the unusual cooperation between three competing drug companies and The Michael J. Fox Foundation. The companies – Genentech, Pfizer and Merck – are all developing inhibitors of the LRRK2 kinase, the product of the well-known LRRK2 gene, mutations in which cause Parkinson’s disease in some individuals. An exciting feature of this approach is that it may also help all Parkinson’s patients, not just those with the deleterious LRRK2 mutations. The consortium members, led by the foundation, are sharing their compounds and data to work through safety concerns and understand the potential impact of this approach on lung function, which was discovered during animal models.
“This is a cool and rare example of cross-company collaboration,” said Paul. “The Michael J. Fox Foundation did well to pull it off.”
<div id="attachment_23232" style="width: 234px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23232" class="size-medium wp-image-23232" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2014-09-14-15.21.36-224x300.jpg" alt="Linda Yu, Ph.D., a 23andMe project manager in business development." width="224" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2014-09-14-15.21.36-224x300.jpg 224w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2014-09-14-15.21.36-768x1028.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2014-09-14-15.21.36-765x1024.jpg 765w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2014-09-14-15.21.36-657x880.jpg 657w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2014-09-14-15.21.36-881x1180.jpg 881w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2014-09-14-15.21.36-scaled.jpg 1912w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px" />Linda Yu, Ph.D., a 23andMe project manager in business development.</div>
There were many other interesting new therapies, such as the use of optogenetics in the treatment of Parkinson’s symptoms. This involves placing light sensitive channels in nerve cells and then stimulating them with light to open or close those channels as a way to treat certain symptoms of the disease. Paul said there were also many updates on other treatments in development for Parkinson’s including better techniques for administering the drug Levodopa in order to minimize the development of drug induced <a href="https://www.michaeljfox.org/understanding-parkinsons/living-with-pd/topic.php?dyskinesia">dyskinesias</a> (abnormal involuntary movements).


Beyond drug development the conference also included presentations on new ways to detect Parkinson’s and monitor its progression, as well as interesting new uses for smartphones. Dr. Ray Dorsey, a researcher at the University of Rochester who has worked with 23andMe as a member of our Parkinson&#8217;s Research Scientific Advisory Board, spoke about the potential of using smartphones as an unobtrusive way to monitor the symptoms and progression of Parkinson’s in patients. Motion sensors in the phones apps that can measure changes in changes in gait, or voice monitors that can measure changes in the tone of voice, are likely to be the next big tool for those treating people with Parkinson’s. Working with researchers at Harvard and the company Sage Bionet, researchers have already developed two applications that leverage smartphone technology. This is also helping researchers who are collecting survey data and gathering patient feedback.
“It’s a fascinating area,” said Paul “The key is to collect data with a view to the questions you are trying to address otherwise drowning in data is a real possibility.”

What’s New In Parkinson’s Research

Many adoptees talk about walking through a crowd, looking at the faces of strangers and wondering if they are brushing shoulders with one of their parents or a brother or sister.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_22978" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22978" class="size-medium wp-image-22978" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/FB_IMG_1444610175227-300x285.jpg" alt="Carole, center, with her sister Felice Weinbaum, left, and Sabrina Goldberg on the right." width="300" height="285" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/FB_IMG_1444610175227-300x285.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/FB_IMG_1444610175227.jpg 720w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Carole flanked on her left by sister Felice Weinbaum, and her sister Sabrina Goldberg on her right.</div>
Carole Huber, an adoptee, was no different. That urge to learn more about her biological parents, about her story, never really went away. But decades of wondering left her thinking she would never find her biological family or learn her story. That changed after using 23andMe.


“This brought me to my family,” she said.


In fact, Carole met her mother, without even knowing it, more than 2,500 miles from where she had been placed for adoption.
Carole worked as an oncology nurse at a Florida hospital’s cancer unit. She now thinks hard about one patient in particular, as well as his wife, daughters and sister-in-laws that had visited him daily over his three week hospital stay on her unit.
Many years later, Carole now has trouble remembering his family and any conversations they may have had, but she thinks about them all the time.
“My (biological) mother’s husband was admitted onto the oncology unit. I was the charge nurse so I met my mother, sisters, cousins and aunts. I was in the room with them, but I didn’t know,” she said. “I had no idea.”


She now also wonders about a house, not far from her home.
“It turns out my aunt lives in that house and I pass it every day and I didn’t know,” she said.
Now after learning about her family, those encounters and her daily trips past her aunts house suddenly take on a new meaning.
<div id="attachment_22982" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22982" class="size-medium wp-image-22982" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Carole-and-Family-300x271.jpg" alt="From left to right Carole's daughter Carley, Ryan Kaplan, Carole Huber, Marissa Kaplan and Joan Sinkin, Carole's aunt." width="300" height="271" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Carole-and-Family-300x271.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Carole-and-Family.jpg 720w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />From left to right Carole&#8217;s daughter Carley, her cousin Ryan Kaplan, Carole Huber, Ryan&#8217;s sister Marissa Kaplan and Joan Sinkin, Carole&#8217;s aunt.</div>
Until recently Carole didn’t know anything about her biological family. Put up for adoption in 1964, she had almost no information about herself. By accident she’d been given her mother’s maiden name, but it was so common to be unhelpful. And her mother had also told her something.
“My mother thought I was part Swedish,” Carole said.
Wanting to learn a little more about herself, Carole turned to 23andMe in 2011.
“So I set on a journey to find my ancestry,” she said. “I never intended to find family.”


She learned that her adoptive mother was not far off with what she knew. Her 23andMe results showed she had about 40 percent Norwegian ancestry and she learned many other things, but initially didn’t connect with any close family. All that changed in 2014 when two new matches popped up in her DNA Relatives on 23andMe.
Carole connected with a brother and sister with whom she shared about 7 percent DNA – meaning a close relative match. For Carole, who’d never before been connected to a close biological relative, this was a big deal.
Messaging the two through 23andMe she explained that she was adopted and that she knew almost nothing about her biological family. Giving them her email address and the one bit of information she did have about her birth mother, her mother’s maiden name. She got a quick message back.
“I’ll get back to you.”
This man and woman turned out to be the children of Carole’s first cousin. Their grandmother is Carole’s aunt, the aunt who lives in the house Carole passed by almost daily on her way to work.
In the meantime, she went to Facebook and looked them up scanning through their family photos.


“Within 15 minutes I was looking at my mother’s face,” she said.


The next morning she heard back from her new found relatives and was brought into a very large family. Her biological mother had only died nine months before, but Carole&#8217;s aunt gave her the backstory of her birth and her biological mother’s life.
She’d been conceived after her birth mother moved to Los Angeles, but that had remained a secret. After Carole was given up for adoption, her mother moved back to New York, ironically not all that far from where Carole grew up.
Within a few months of returning from Los Angeles, Carole’s birth mother met her husband and was married. Soon thereafter, she had two more daughters, Carole’s half sisters. Her aunt told Carole all this only 12 hours after they made their connections through 23andMe.


“She knew about me and she told me I have two sisters,” Carole said.


Right after talking to her aunt, Carole got a call from one of her sisters.
“It was so immediate,” Carole said.

Wondering for more than 50 years about her biological family and where she’d come from, the immediacy of learning was a little shocking for everyone.


“I wasn’t sad or happy, just emotional,” she said. “I know I got very, very lucky, I know that something like this could have gone very differently, but they’ve embraced me and I’m part of their family now.”
Carole now has two sisters, two aunts, an uncle, nine first cousins, and 5 nieces and nephews. Her own three children are intrigued and her adoptive mother is tickled by the whole story.
“She’s very solid in her own shoes,” said Carole about her adoptive mother. “She thinks it’s a hoot.”


Carole’s one regret is that she made this connection just a few months too late and wasn’t able to meet her birth mother. That’s when she thinks of all the times she might have crossed paths with her mother and her aunt. It turns out that her mother and her husband retired to Florida and had lived in the same town as Carole. Her aunt lives there too, only a few blocks from her home.
“My aunt lives in the next development over and I pass her house every single day on the way to work,” she said.
She’s sure she met her mother when her husband was admitted to the oncology unit where she was the charge nurse.
“I met my mother, sisters, aunts and uncles,” she said “But I had no idea.”


Carole feels extremely fortunate and is so grateful for 23andMe who has helped change her life forever.

Hidden in Plain Sight

In two recent reports , Parkinson’s researchers describe findings that may lead to new ways of detecting early signs of the disease and a potential new treatment.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22635" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Brain-Logo-287x300.jpg" alt="Brain Logo" width="287" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Brain-Logo-287x300.jpg 287w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Brain-Logo.jpg 438w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 287px) 100vw, 287px" />


In the first case, researchers in Scotland are looking at the possibility that even before a patient begins to have obvious symptoms of the disease, their body chemistry may change in a way that can be detected through a difference in<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-34583642"> how they smell</a>.
While it’s been long known that a loss of smell is a common symptom for those with Parkinson’s, being able to detect whether someone has the disease through odor is a new idea.
The study was prompted after the wife of a Parkinson’s patient in Scotland, Joy Milne,   noticed that people with Parkinson’s had the same distinct smell she’d noticed in her husband before he began to show signs of the disease.
She mentioned this to a scientist in passing who was intrigued enough to test her in a study at the <a href="http://www.crm.ed.ac.uk/research/diseases-we-study/parkinsons-disease" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Edinburgh University</a>. 
There and at the University of Manchester, researchers found that Joy could indeed discern between people with Parkinson’s and those without the disease by smelling t-shirts they’d worn. In fact she was even able to detect the disease in one of the “control” subjects eight months before they were diagnosed. Now they are working on studying why that might be.

<iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CCZ5rFs7El4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>


Researchers believe that changes in the skin in the early stages of Parkinson’s produces a distinct smell that could be used for early detection. They hope to find the molecular signature responsible and then develop a simple test to detect it. This could help in early detection of the disease.
23andMe Parkinson’s research community manager, Paul Cannon, said that this is a potentially important finding since
<div id="attachment_22380" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22380" class="size-medium wp-image-22380" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-300x235.jpg" alt="Paul Cannon, 23andMe's Parkinson's Research Community manager." width="300" height="235" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-300x235.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-768x602.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-1024x802.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-880x689.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul-1180x924.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/paul.jpg 2016w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Paul Cannon, 23andMe&#8217;s Parkinson&#8217;s Research Community manager.</div>
reliable early detection of the disease is key both to improve the management of patients as well as enable the clinical development of treatments that slow the progression of the disease.
In a second intriguing study, researchers at Georgetown University found a potentially effective<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilymullin/2015/10/21/could-a-cancer-drug-reverse-parkinsons-disease/"> new treatment for Parkinson’s</a> symptoms using a drug approved for those with leukemia.
In a small study designed to look at how well Parkinson’s patients tolerated the drug, nilotinib, researchers found that low doses of the drug resulted in dramatic improvements in cognition, motor function and even some non-motor function symptoms like constipation. Researchers hypothesize that low doses of nilotinib may help reduce the build up of misfolded proteins in the brain.
Paul noted that these findings are intriguing and encouraging, but that this was a small uncontrolled study and much more research is needed to know how important a treatment this will ultimately be.
To learn more about 23andMe&#8217;s Parkinson&#8217;s Research Community go <a href="https://www.23andme.org/pd/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.

New Developments in Parkinson’s Diagnosis and Treatment

Seth McFarlane brought the humor, Pharrell Williams the glam, and this year’s winners of the<a href="https://breakthroughprize.org/"> Breakthrough Prize</a> brought the wonder of science.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_23180" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23180" class="wp-image-23180 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Breakthrough-Winners-300x200.jpg" alt="Image courtesy of the Breakthrough Prize. Credit: GettyImages" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Breakthrough-Winners-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Breakthrough-Winners.jpg 574w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Breakthrough Prize winners at the ceremony. Image courtesy of the Breakthrough Prize. Credit: GettyImages</div>
At a glitzy awards ceremony broadcast live from Silicon Valley Sunday night on the National Geographic Channel, the winners were singled out for their achievements in fields ranging from mathematics, to fundamental physics and life sciences.
“By challenging conventional thinking and expanding knowledge over the long term, scientists can solve the biggest problems of our time,” said Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who with his wife Priscilla Chan helped establish the prize along with Google’s Sergey Brin, Jack Ma, of Alibaba, Internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner, and 23andMe’s very own Anne Wojcicki.


“The Breakthrough Prize honors achievements in science and math so we can encourage more pioneering research and celebrate scientists as the heroes they truly are,” Zuckerberg said.


Now in its third year, the prize turns the table on celebrity culture by having stars hand out awards to the luminaries who have made outstanding contributions to math and science. This year’s awards were no different with Academy Award winners Russell Crowe and Hillary Swank, as well as pop singer Christina Aguilera, among those handing out the trophies.


“Tonight we put the spotlight where it belongs,” said Aguilera.
<div id="attachment_23181" style="width: 244px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23181" class="wp-image-23181 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Anne-234x300.jpg" alt="Anne" width="234" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Anne-234x300.jpg 234w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Anne.jpg 447w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 234px) 100vw, 234px" />23andMe&#8217;s CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki. Photo courtesy of The Breakthrough Prize. Photo credit: Getty Images.</div>
This year’s prizes included awards to the five teams of more than one thousand scientists from around the world that have made new discoveries around the oscillation of neutrinos, one of the fundamental particles of the universe; as well as an award to mathematicians who’ve solved the long standing problems of symplectic geometry, Riemannian geometry and differential geometry.


But for us here at 23andMe, we were particularly interested in the awards handed out for work in the life sciences.
“This year’s laureates have all opened up ways of understanding ourselves,” said Anne, 23andMe CEO and co-founder. “In the life sciences, they have pushed forward new ideas about Alzheimer’s, cholesterol, neurological imaging and the origins of our species. And for that we celebrate them.”


Among the winners were Svante Paabo, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, who pioneered the sequencing of ancient DNA. His work sequencing the Neanderthal DNA has helped change our fundamental understanding of human evolution.
Also recognized for his achievement was <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/rlweston-inst/people/john">John Hardy</a>, of University College London, for discovering the variants in the Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) gene that causes early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The discovery has helped give us greater insight into how the accumulation of APP-derived beta-amyloid peptide leads to Alzheimer’s and will help map out ways to better treat the disease.


And finally, also particularly inspiring for the researchers at 23andMe is the work of awardee <a href="http://profiles.utsouthwestern.edu/profile/13232/helen-hobbs.html">Helen Hobbs</a>, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Hobbs was singled out for her discovery of human genetic variants in the gene PCSK9 that trigger the clearance of cholesterol and other lipids and protect against heart disease. The discovery of this protective variant has led to the development of two new drugs that are saving people’s lives.
In all a combined $21.9 million was awarded to the winners.
To find out more or to see the full list of winners <a href="https://breakthroughprize.org/News/29">go here</a>.

Latest Posts — Page 106