Over the last few months 23andMe has assembled a virtual dream team to make up its therapeutics group.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04272015_BioPhoto_Robert_2x-229x300.jpg" alt="04272015_BioPhoto_Robert_2x" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22511" height="300" width="229" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04272015_BioPhoto_Robert_2x-229x300.jpg 229w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04272015_BioPhoto_Robert_2x.jpg 650w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 229px) 100vw, 229px" />


Starting with the appointment of Richard Scheller, Ph.D. as chief science officer and head of therapeutics, 23andMe has filled out the team with some top-notch talent including another luminary Robert Gentleman, Ph.D., as vice president of computational biology.
The two have talked about the potential for using 23andMe’s novel research model to make some real breakthroughs and bring better treatments to people who really need them. As Robert recently said in an interview with Bio-IT World, most of us have friends or family who have suffered from illness.
“And the motivation for doing some of this stuff is really not personal in the sense [of being] about you yourself, but it’s about your family, it’s about your friends, it’s about people around you,” Robert said.

It’s hard not to hear these men talk about their work, as Robert did earlier this month with a writer from Bio-IT World, and not feel a sense of excitement about the future.
“I also want to emphasize, this is just a fantastic time to be a computational biologist,” he said.


Check out his interview <a href="http://www.bio-itworld.com/2015/3/17/23andme-therapeutics-wont-change-drug-discovery.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

A Computational Biologist And A Gentleman

If it’s true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, then Jimmy Cygler and Paul Leventhal are plenty tough.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_22516" style="width: 278px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22516" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul1-268x300.jpg" alt="Jimmy, left, and his brother Paul." class="size-medium wp-image-22516" height="300" width="268" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul1-268x300.jpg 268w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul1.jpg 449w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 268px) 100vw, 268px" />Jimmy, left, and his brother Paul.</div>
When both were infants, they were taken from their mother, Rebecca Kaufman, and raised worlds apart without knowing of the others’ existence.
With the help of 23andMe, the brothers recently found each other and were able to meet in person in early 2015.
Jimmy traveled from his home in Sao Paulo, Brazil to spend a week with Paul in Florida.
There the two men got to talk about their lives. Paul shared with Jimmy the little he knew about their mother, a brilliant but troubled woman. Jimmy was able to share with Paul a little about his improbable life.


“Stories of this kind, they are hard to believe,” Jimmy says. “Do you know the book ‘Life of Pi?’ A fantastical story, but it is nothing compared to my life.”

Paul downplays the drama in his own life – the separation from his mother, spending his first five years in a foster home, and growing up in a house where his father and stepmother were distant.
Paul has one fleeting memory of sitting on his mother’s knee – almost everything else he knows about her comes from what he’s gleaned from relatives. It wasn’t until Paul turned 18, after his father’s death, that he learned he’d been the product of an affair.
At first Paul pushed this information out of his head, but a few years later as a young man, a relative confirmed it was true.
“My life was turned upside down,” Paul said.


He had to live with not only his mother abandoning him but her family cutting ties with him as well. Jimmy thinks that Paul having to endure their mother’s abandonment and rejection may have been harder than the physical abuse he suffered.
Paul’s not so sure, but he knows that it affected him.


“I was angered by the fact that her brothers – two doctors and two lawyers – didn&#8217;t step up to the plate and save me from going to a foster home,” Paul said. “I must have been quite an embarrassment to them and my maternal grandmother, who was still living at the time.”


Rejected by his mother and her family, Paul spent years trying to find his biological father. That’s part of why he eventually got his DNA results with 23andMe. While he hasn’t yet found the identity of his biological father, Paul did find his brother Jimmy.
“My father had no idea who his mother was and finding his brother finally helped us solve that puzzle,” Jimmy’s daughter, Orly, said. “Now we know who she was.”


Her father agrees that it has helped.
“You know Nietzsche, ’that which does not kill us makes us stronger?’” Jimmy asks from his office in Sao Paulo. “Well, it is true for me.”


Paul disagrees with his brother on this point. What doesn’t kill you might make you stronger or it may damage you for the rest of your life.


Jimmy survived years of abuse as a child, life at a kibbutz, four wars, and three marriages. But he doesn’t feel damaged.


“I’m a rebuilt human being,” Jimmy says. “Really all the conditions of my life were anything but normal or positive, but the art of my life was to become a good human being.”


But it wasn’t easy.
When Jimmy first went to Israel at the age of 13, he began getting psychological help to work through his childhood trauma.
<div id="attachment_22476" style="width: 265px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22476" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-255x300.jpg" alt="Jimmy as a young man on a kibbutz in Israel." class="size-medium wp-image-22476" height="300" width="255" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-255x300.jpg 255w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-768x905.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-869x1024.jpg 869w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-747x880.jpg 747w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-1001x1180.jpg 1001w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz.jpg 1640w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 255px) 100vw, 255px" />Jimmy as a young man on a kibbutz in Israel.</div>
“When I came to Israel I was a pile of wreckage, and I had to do something to these broken pieces to reassemble a human being,” Jimmy said.
But not having all the pieces about his life made that “reassembling” a life-long process.
“The story with Paul is part of it, but just one part of it,” said Jimmy. “I’m one of nine brothers and sisters. I’m the only brother (related to) all of them and I spent my whole life searching for those missing pieces.”
Jimmy mentions connecting this process with what psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl wrote about in his book Man’s Search for Meaning.
“He says a person who has meaning can bear almost anything,” Jimmy said. “So this search for meaning became important to me.”
Part of that search has included trying to learn more about who he was, where he came from and to whom he is connected.
“First I had to gather all the pieces and then you start putting the puzzle together and you try to find meaning in the picture that emerges,” Jimmy said. “You might have the whole picture or, like me, just parts of it.”
Jimmy said he also learned that one small piece of information could change everything. Recently a relative in London found a travel document Jimmy’s father had used when Jimmy was a baby. On it was the name James Maurice Goldberg.
“That’s my name (from his birth certificate, before his father changed his last name), but I’d never known it before,” he said.
The name also helped him find out more about his father, Izrael Aron Goldberg. Jimmy’s father fled Poland before the start of World War II and settled in Peru. There he married a woman and had two children, a son Lucho and a daughter Alina, and converted to Christianity. He would later say that all the family he had in Poland died in the Holocaust. After experiencing financial troubles, Izrael left his family in Peru and moved to New York City.
“I do have a business card of his from his time in New York,” Jimmy said. “It says ‘I. Aron Goldberg, specialist in furs.’”
<div id="attachment_22477" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22477" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-300x123.jpg" alt="Jimmy's father's business card when he lived in New York." class="size-medium wp-image-22477" height="123" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-300x123.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-768x314.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-1024x419.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-880x360.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-1180x483.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116.jpg 1581w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Jimmy&#8217;s father&#8217;s business card when he lived in New York.</div>
It was in New York that he met Rebecca Kaufman, who already had two sons, Paul and Jay, who were several years older than Jimmy.
Paul ended up in foster care and Jay was taken by Rebecca’s first husband. Rebecca was unable to care for Jimmy when he was born in 1949, and she was subsequently placed in an institution. Izrael, alone with his infant son, asked his estranged wife in Peru to come to New York with their two children.
“The interesting part of the story is that he didn’t tell her that he had a baby, me,” Jimmy said.
Jimmy’s half-sister, Alina, was almost 10 years old at the time. His half-brother, Lucho, was about eight. His sister remembers holding Jimmy as an infant, and falling in love with him. But it would be the last she’d see him for almost 55 years because the family quickly fell apart.
<div id="attachment_22478" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22478" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Israel-Alina-e-Jimmy-1951-300x282.jpg" alt="Jimmy with his father and his half sister Alina before he was taken to Brazil." class="size-medium wp-image-22478" height="282" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Israel-Alina-e-Jimmy-1951-300x282.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Israel-Alina-e-Jimmy-1951.jpg 408w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Jimmy with his father and his half sister Alina before he was taken to Brazil.</div>
Jimmy doesn’t know all the details but is aware that his father fought with his wife. She stayed just a few months before returning to Peru with her two children, leaving Jimmy and his father in New York. Izrael took Jimmy to Brazil shortly thereafter. Jimmy thinks his father suffered from survivor’s guilt and wanted to somehow reconstruct the family he lost in the Holocaust, which might explain why Izrael had three children from two different mothers. Jimmy’s father took the name Israel Cygler when they moved to Brazil. He also quickly remarried and that’s when Jimmy’s life turned into a nightmare.
“I thought I had a ‘normal life,’” Jimmy said about what things were like after his father remarried. “I had a father, a woman whom I thought was my mother, and four younger brothers. I was raised Christian, studied with the nuns at school and went to mass on Sunday. Had a first communion. That was my life. But what I thought was normal at the time was not normal at all. “I was maltreated and tortured as a kid.”
His stepmother once punished him by putting him in a hole under the house for a week without food. Another time she smeared hot pepper juice “on all the holes of my body.” And after getting caught playing with matches as a seven-year-old, his mother placed his hand into a gas fire to punish him. He was burnt so badly that it took years of surgeries and skin grafts before he could properly open and close his hand.
“My mother did that to me,” Jimmy said. “She was the real villain in this, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t know she wasn’t my mother, if I had known I could have dealt with that. But the only conclusion I could draw from those punishments was that I was a monster, that I deserved that because I was a monster. That was me at 13.”
Then the trajectory of his life changed when his father became critically ill and a stranger shared with him some surprising news.
“Out of the blue this young lad appears, speaks with me for half an hour and tore down the basis of my life,” Jimmy said. “He tells me ‘I’m your brother from another marriage. I’m from Lima, Peru. You also have an older sister, and your mother is not your mother. You were born to a woman in New York.’”
Jimmy was stunned. His father then told him it was all true.
“’Well son, now that you know you are a Jew, you are going to the land of the Jews, which is called Israel,’” Jimmy recalled his father saying. “I didn’t know anything about that country or those people. I didn’t know anything about the Jewish people. ”
He arrived in Israel in October 1962, and stayed for the next 27 years. “The country embraced me,” Jimmy said.
He lived in a special area of a kibbutz for teenagers who didn’t have parents. They were from 30 to 40 different countries and many had been orphaned or displaced by World War II. Jimmy received good care, including intensive psychological treatment to help deal with the emotional wounds from his stepmother’s abuse.
“That’s why I say I’m a rebuilt human being,” Jimmy said.
He served as a soldier in four wars, was married, has two sons and a daughter, divorced, married again, and had another daughter, and then divorced again.
“And then I met a Brazilian girl and fell in love and went to Brazil,” he said.
Jimmy reinvented himself &#8211; the twice divorced veteran who was a father of four went to college, married again, started another family, and now he runs a very successful business. But he was always looking, “desperately looking,” he says, for the pieces to the puzzle of his life. He was able to find his four half-brothers from his father’s family in Brazil. His stepmother told them he died in the war. With the help of a Peruvian businessman, Jimmy tracked down the phone number of a woman in Lima he thought might be his sister, Alina. He called her, said his name was Jimmy and that he was from Brazil.
“My dear little brother Jimmy, I have been looking for you all my life!” she replied. Jimmy pauses to control his emotion as he recounts meeting his sister.
“From this moment I felt love for her,” he said.
Jimmy traveled to Peru to get to know his sister, and she shared a blurry old photo she had of him being held by his biological mother. She also told him her own memory of holding him as an infant. She never forgot that and spent her life looking for him, never knowing how she could find him.
<div id="attachment_22479" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22479" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949-225x300.jpg" alt="A blurry photo of Jimmy being held by his mother Rebecca. The only photo he has of his mother." class="size-medium wp-image-22479" height="300" width="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949-660x880.jpg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949-886x1180.jpg 886w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />A blurry photo of Jimmy being held by his mother Rebecca. The only photo he has of his mother.</div>
“She kept that memory her whole life, always wondering what had happened to me,” Jimmy said.
She also told him about their father, his financial problems in Peru, some of his history fleeing Poland and losing all of his family in the Holocaust. And he learned about being born in New York, but he still didn’t know anything about his biological mother. Jimmy says he and Alina became very close.
In 2013, his sister was diagnosed with cancer, a year later she died.
“Alina was a wonderful woman,” he said.
Losing her so soon was a huge blow to Jimmy. Jimmy’s story took another turn in early 2015 when his daughter, Orly, got her 23andMe results. She saw a match with Paul, thinking he was a cousin. But when she shared with Jimmy Paul’s date of birth and how much DNA he shared with Paul, they concluded that Paul and Jimmy were brothers.
In that first meeting, both men were overcome as they hugged and shed tears.
“It was very emotional,” Jimmy said. “We’re kind of old guys and I could see in his eyes how much he had suffered. I know what I went through and I came out a real strong person – a leader, a teacher and a family man. We both survived.”

A Fantastical Story

Sunscreen? Check. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Airplane-300x199.jpg" alt="airplane" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-14471" height="199" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Airplane-300x199.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Airplane.jpg 425w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />

Paperback? Check.
Meds?&#8230;
Traveling with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), the umbrella diagnosis that includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, can be complicated but it doesn’t have to be with a little planning.
Before you head out on summer vacation, we’ve compiled a tip sheet.
Some of these ideas are pretty obvious and are probably already part of the daily routine for people with IBD.
But a little preparation goes a long way to ensuring both fun and safe travels. 
Prepare before you go, which means talking to your doctor. Your healthcare team is going to know you and your symptoms and what specific advice works for you. The Centers for Disease Control recommends travelers make this visit more than six weeks before any long trip.
This gives you and your doctor time to review things like immunization records and ensure you are up to date on the appropriate shots.
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 200px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">Here’s a quick checklist for your IBD road trip survival kit: 
 § medication (in the original bottles) 
 § OTC antacids and anti-diarrheals 
 § Toilet paper and moist wipes 
 § Hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes 
 § Change of clothes 
 § Protein or granola bar(s) 
 § Bottled water 
 § Map of travel route (if traveling by car) to allow for rest-stop planning 
 § Insurance card and if possible a letter from your doctor regarding your condition (in case of emergencies). 
 § CCFA also has a “I can’t wait card” available to it’s members. Learn more here.</div>
Your doctor will also be able to help you go through the medication, if any, that you are using for your condition and ensure that you have enough to last through your trip. In addition, he or she may also take into consideration where you are going, and how you are getting there, to make suggestions about other medication that you may want to have with you.
You should pack your medications in your carry on luggage and not have it checked in, just in case your baggage is lost. Your doctor may also recommend a contingency plan for a prescription in case your medication is lost or stolen.


Traveling when you have IBD also means you may have to take some matters into your own hands, like reviewing TSA air travel restrictions and making sure that you know what you can and can’t bring with you. The Crohn’s &amp; Colitis Foundation has put together a TSA FAQ to help you wade through some of that.


Some other helpful resources

<a href="https://www.sitorsquat.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sitorsquat.com</a> 
Charmin-sponsored bathroom location app that allows visitors to search, view, report, rate, and add bathrooms.
GI Monitor 
A symptom-logging application for patients with IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease), Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, which allows patients to easily and accurately log symptoms and provide this data to their doctors for optimal treatment. In addition, patients can see correlations between symptoms, meals and medications.

IBD Travel Tips

In less than a year’s time, 23andMe is more than halfway to its goal of enrolling 10,000 patients in its study of <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22439" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_ibd-300x300.png" alt="04092015_communityBadge_ibd" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_ibd-300x300.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_ibd-150x150.png 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_ibd-768x768.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_ibd-880x880.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_ibd-271x271.png 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_ibd-372x372.png 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_ibd-574x574.png 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_ibd-980x980.png 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_ibd.png 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />affect the condition.
As we recognize <a href="http://www.worldibdday.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World IBD Day</a> May 19th, we wanted to update you on our progress in recruitment and share some of what we’ve learned from those who have already enrolled. We have also expanded our enrollment so that existing 23andMe customer diagnosed with IBD can join this study.
Learn more about <a href="https://www.23andme.com/ibd/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">how to enroll</a>.
IBD is an umbrella diagnosis that includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis – two serious and chronic digestive diseases that affect about five million people worldwide.
With symptoms that can be both painful and embarrassing, the disease often leaves patients isolated and alone. World IBD Day is meant to raise awareness, offer solidarity among patients and advocate for more research to find a cure.
That’s just what 23andMe and Pfizer hope to do with the IBD study, teaming up to learn more about what genetics can teach about the progression of the disease and why certain medications work for some patients and not others.
We still have a lot of work to do but from our initial surveys, we’ve already learned a lot about what our participants have to deal with every day.
When participants join the study, they are asked to complete a short survey describing their symptoms and history with the conditions. We will soon ask participants to come back and fill out the survey again a few months down the line as a way to track any changes in their condition. This will allow researchers to learn how the disease progresses differently in different people.
For some participants, having IBD means almost constant discomfort, since about 30 percent reported they are either in pain all the time or most of the time. And for just over 10 percent of participants, the pain is ranked at a nine or 10 on a scale of zero to 10. While about a third of the participants have regular flare-ups – which might include digestive problems, stomach pain, joint pain, swelling, anemia or even eye pain – a quarter of participants said they haven’t had any issues in the last year.
We share all this mostly to convey some of the real struggles faced by those with IBD. Our IBD community is growing and we will continue to engage with participants by offering tips and updates. (Check out our IBD Travel Tips post <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/ibd-travel-tips" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>, for ideas on how to prep for your summer vacation if you suffer from IBD.)
In March, we hosted a Google hangout with the non-profit Crohn’s Journey Foundation founder, Sarah Choueiry. If you missed it, you can <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b178MDMX2Mc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">watch the video.</a>
Stay tuned for more updates on our IBD research.

World IBD Day And Research

World Records often involve peril and great feats of courage, and in a way A.J. Jacobs’ plan to stage a <a href="http://globalfamilyreunion.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Global Family Reunion</a> in New York City this June is a kind of daring <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/aj_about-291x300.jpg" alt="aj_about" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21667" height="300" width="291" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/aj_about-291x300.jpg 291w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/aj_about.jpg 301w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 291px) 100vw, 291px" />tightrope walk of its own.
The daylong event – which the <a href="http://globalfamilyreunion.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New York Times</a> recently described as “part TED talk, part Coachella and part family picnic” – is billed as the largest family reunion ever.
AJ has put together an event that sprinkles in a little science, a little fun and a lot of socializing. Among the featured speakers are Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., who is also a host of the PBS show <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Finding Your Roots&#8221;</a>, the documentarian Morgan Spurlock, and performances by the illusionist David Blaine and the group Sister Sledge.
If A.J., an editor at large at Esquire and good <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/all-in-the-family/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">friend of 23andMe</a>, pulls it off, it will clearly be one for Guinness’s record book, but more than that the reunion also marks a sea change in the use of genetic testing for genealogical purposes. This direct to consumer genetic testing thing is really here to stay.
There’s also a point to the reunion beyond just setting a record. As A.J. has said both here on our blog but also in his well-received talks, we’re all family.
“I want to remind people that we are, in fact, one big family,” A.J. told the Times. “We do share 99.9 percent of our DNA, and that we need to treat each other with a little more kindness.”


There are still tickets available with money from the event going toward Alzheimer’s disease research. 23andMe will be on hand as well.
So if you plan to be in New York City on June 6 why don’t you drop in on some family?


(Ed’s note: A.J. really wants to connect with you if you are a 23andMe customer and are signed on you can connect with him <a href="https://www.23andme.com/user/?community_profile=2c85e926031b871d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>. In addition, A.J. has been generous enough to offer a discount for 23andMe customers. You can go <a href="https://globalfamilyreunion.eventbrite.com/?discount=23ANDME" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a> and get 25 percent off tickets.)

<div style="float: center; text-align: justified; width: 600px; background-color: #eeeeee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/global-family-reunion.jpg" alt="global family reunion" class="alignright size-full wp-image-22488" height="51" width="140" /> 
<a href="http://globalfamilyreunion.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">GLOBAL FAMILY REUNION</a> 
The Day the World Connects</div>
<div style="float: center; text-align: justified; width: 600px; background-color: #eeeeee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
WHAT: The largest, most inclusive, most fascinating family reunion in history. 
WHO IS INVITED: All members of the human family.</div>
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AGENDA: The Reunion will have TED-style talks from scientists, genealogists and entertainers about every aspect of family, including DNA, genealogy and personal stories. There will be music, comedy, games, exhibits, food and booths. And the world’s largest family photo.</div>
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WHEN: June 6, 2015 (all day long)</div>
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WHERE: The New York Hall of Science, on the grounds of the historic World’s Fair. 
THE CAUSE: Proceeds from the event will benefit the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund and the Alzheimer’s Association NYC.</div>
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THE BOOK AND MOVIE: The Global Family Reunion will be featured in a book by bestselling author A.J. Jacobs and a documentary by Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me).
</div>

Family Reunion Time

<div id="attachment_22440" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22440" class="wp-image-22440 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-300x300.png" alt="04092015_communityBadge_lupus" height="300" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-300x300.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-150x150.png 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-768x768.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-880x880.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-271x271.png 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-372x372.png 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-574x574.png 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-980x980.png 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus.png 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Find out more about the Lupus study <a href="https://www.23andme.com/lupus/">here</a>.</div>
<a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/communityBadge_lupus.pdf">Download Lupus Community Research Badge Image</a>

Learn More About 23andMe’s Lupus Study

23andMe, Pfizer, Inc. and the <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-300x300.png" alt="04092015_communityBadge_lupus" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22440" height="300" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-300x300.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-150x150.png 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-768x768.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-880x880.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-271x271.png 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-372x372.png 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-574x574.png 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus-980x980.png 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04092015_communityBadge_lupus.png 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />on the genetics of the autoimmune disease known as lupus.


The aim is to quickly enroll 5,000 people with the disease, which affects about 1.5 million people in the United States alone.


“The ability to effectively personalize treatments for lupus patients is limited, due in large part to our incomplete understanding of the disease,&#8221; said 23andMe CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki. &#8220;We hope to change that by studying human genetics alongside environmental and health history factors to ultimately help inform better treatment options for lupus patients.”
Recruitment for the study begins this month, which is also Lupus Awareness Month.
The disease is characterized by the body’s immune system attacking normal, healthy tissues almost anywhere in the body. People with lupus might have symptoms that include inflammation of the joints, or skin rashes, sores or damage to the kidneys, or heart or lungs.
While there is no cure for the disease and it isn’t very well understood, researchers know some factors linked to the disease. They know that there are both environmental and genetic factors involved, and hormones also play a role. 
The research to be lead by 23andMe will focus on genetic factors, but it will also incorporate data from participants’ medical records and look at how the disease progresses over time. The hope is that this research will uncover some of the genetic causes for lupus that could indicate onset of the disease, how it progresses and how patients respond differently to different treatments.
“Pfizer is committed to bringing forward new treatments for patients suffering from lupus,” said Belen Carrillo-Rivas, D.Phil., Head of Research &amp; Development Innovation Projects, BioTherapeutics Research &amp; Development, Pfizer. “By enhancing our understanding of the underlying biology of the disease, we hope to better support our clinical research activities and development programs.”
For the lupus study, 23andMe will recruit new participants as well as conduct outreach to existing customers, who once determined eligible, will be required to provide consent to participate in this new project. Recruitment of eligible study participants is expected to be completed by mid 2016.
For more information, including eligibility requirements for joining the study, please visit https://www.23andme.com/lupus/.

23andMe Launches Lupus Research Community

Some of us are just tastier, or at least to mosquitoes.
Just in time for summer, a <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122716" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new study</a> of twins by researchers at the London School of Hygiene &amp; Tropical Medicine, found that genetics may play a role in why some of us get bit more often by mosquitoes than others.


Beyond being the bane of summer evening barbeques, mosquitoes also spread deadly diseases like malaria and dengue fever. This kind of research could help in efforts to protect those most vulnerable, according to the researchers.
“By investigating the genetic mechanism behind attractiveness to biting insects such as mosquitoes we can move closer to using this knowledge for better ways of keeping us safe from bites and the diseases insects can spread through bites,” <a href="http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2015/twins_mosquito_study.html">said coauthor James Logan</a>, a medical entomologist at the London School of Hygiene &amp; Tropical Medicine.
To test what makes two people more or less attractive to mosquitoes the researchers unleashed dozens of the bugs on both identical and non-identical twins.
The researchers didn’t actually allow the mosquitoes to bite the participants, merely smell them. The researchers used something called a “Y-tube olfactometer,” which allowed mosquitoes to fly down one chamber or another in choosing between two people based on their body odor. The participants were also asked to avoid alcohol, garlic, and other strongly spiced foods for 24 hours prior to the test to ensure those strong smelling foods didn’t play a role.


The mosquitoes showed no preference in the case of identical twins – who are genetically identical. But in the case of the non-identical twins they clearly picked one twin over the other.

<iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8Es9SUECPlc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
“Twins that were identical were very similar in their level of attractiveness to mosquitoes, and twins that were [not identical] were very different in their level of attractiveness,” Logan told <a href="https://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/04/22/401469931/why-do-mosquitoes-like-to-bite-you-best-its-in-your-genes" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Public Radio</a>.
The researchers concluded that the test suggested that there is a genetic trait for being “attractive” or “unattractive” to mosquitoes.
This isn’t the first time scientists have delved into the realm of <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/bug-bite-genetics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bug bite genetics</a>.
Not long ago, researchers here at 23andMe looked at the genetics behind the different reactions people had to mosquito bites, finding an association between different genotypes on the SNP , which is on chromosome 4. People of European ancestry who are AA at that SNP are more likely to have larger bites. Those who are AC have average size bites, while those who are CC have smaller bites.


Overall about 41 percent of customers who’ve consented to research and responded to the survey said they get bit more often than others and 30 percent said when they were bit the bites were bigger and itched more than in other people.
The focus of research on the pests could help stop the spread of disease.


“If we understand the genetic basis for variation between individuals it could be possible to develop better ways to control mosquitoes, and develop new ways to repel them,” said Logan. “In the future we may even be able to take a pill which will enhance the production of natural repellents by the body and ultimately replace skin lotions.”

Itchy and Scratchy Genetics

There’s nature and nurture and then there’s all that bickering – or lack of it – with our brothers or sisters.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Slide11-300x169.jpg" alt="Slide1" width="300" height="169" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22426" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Slide11-300x169.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Slide11.jpg 720w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Birth order, and the family dynamic between siblings – or whether or not you have siblings – plays a role in determining who we become as people.
So in honor of National Sibling Day, which was a few weeks back, one of our scientists, Aaron Kleinman, looked at what our data could tell us about how birth order and family size influence us.
First off, it is pretty clear that it does make a difference if you were born an only child, or were the first, or last or middle child in a family, according to 23andMe data. Aaron found that being older or younger affects measures of intelligence and personality, impacting things like whether you’re more likely to have taken advanced math or whether you are more agreeable and altruistic.
This is all well-trod territory, with plenty of studies over the years looking at birth order and its influence on everything from <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/10/6/482.short" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">personality traits</a> to <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/316/5832/1717.short" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">intelligence</a> and health. Some of those studies confirm the stereotypes we have about first and last born children, and some – like its influence on allergies or the risk for cancer – are harder to peg.
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 200px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">Some Birth Order Findings
A First Born Child 
&#8211; Tends to start reading earlier 
&#8211; Tends to take more advanced math classes 
&#8211; Tends to be less tactful
A Last Born Child 
&#8211; Tends to be more altruistic 
&#8211; Tends to be less tense 
&#8211; Is more likely to own a dog
An Only Child 
&#8211; Tends to start reading earlier 
&#8211; Is more likely to learn another language as an adults 
&#8211; Is less likely to be able to do a cartwheel
</div>
Ever since Cain and Abel, there has been a fascination with sibling relationships. And with that interest come some well known clichÃ©s – the luster of the smart and driven first born, the carefree and crafty youngest child and the middle kid who is just trying to keep the peace.
But there has also been some interesting science around sibling relationships and birth order and what influence it has on development.
One of our <a href="http://psr.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/04/28/1088868310361241.abstract" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">favorite studies</a> looked at differences between 700 brothers who played in Major League Baseball. The data showed that younger brothers attempted to steal bases way more than their older brothers. The study, by researchers at UC Berkeley and Guilford College, tended to support the evolutionary theory that younger siblings are more likely to be risk takers. The theory is that the youngest sibling has to fight harder and be a little craftier to get his or her parents’ attention.
In our data Aaron also found that birth order affects personality, and although we didn’t see anything about base stealing, 23andMe data showed that younger siblings were less tense, more agreeable and more altruistic than their older siblings.
But studying these kinds of differences among siblings can be tricky, said Aaron.
In other words, some of the differences might be more a reflection of why the family is big or small as opposed to whether a child is older or younger. For example, it may be that people who are religious tend to have big families. So to control for family size and other things, Aaron ran several different analyses, all using data from 23andMe customers of European ancestry who’d consented to research. Aaron did things like restrict the customers he looked at to those who had precisely one sibling and then looked at the effect of being the first-born versus the last-born.
Aaron found that the 23andMe data confirms what some others studies have said about first-borns being <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w19542" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">smarter</a>. Or more specifically, 23andMe data showed that first-born kids read earlier and take more advanced math classes.
But other findings in the 23andMe data were for things we hadn’t seen before.
Aaron found a correlation between birth order and taste. Those who had fewer older siblings were more likely to enjoy cilantro and dark chocolate, for instance. We couldn’t explain that one with evolutionary theory.
Another odd correlation shows that younger siblings were more likely to be able to whistle and own a dog.
Not wanting to leave anyone out, Aaron also looked at only children. He found that they were more likely to have learned another language and less likely to be able to do a cartwheel.
This focus on you family dynamic is helpful for researchers here at 23andMe as they try to sort out the interplay of genetics and environment for various conditions.

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