Over the summer 23andMe launched a new research initiative in collaboration with Pfizer to study Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">Eligible Individuals 
1. You have been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis by a qualified physician. 
2. Your willingness to submit a saliva sample for DNA testing and complete online surveys related to your condition. 
3. You have access to the internet. 
4. You are at least 6 years old (those under 18 require a parental consent to enroll). 
5. You are not a current 23andMe customer.* 
6. You reside in the United States.*If you are a current 23andMe customer, learn how you can participate here.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-21220" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Learn-More-300x99.jpg" alt="Learn More" width="300" height="99" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Learn-More-300x99.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Learn-More.jpg 744w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></div>
We’ve been encouraged by the numbers of people with IBD, who’ve already enrolled in the study, which will look more deeply at the role genetics and environment play in the condition.
It’s those individuals who are living with IBD – an umbrella diagnosis that includes both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis – who have already taught us a lot about resilience.
We recently wrote about some of <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/gut-check-a-short-list-of-ibd-blogs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">our favorite bloggers</a> on the topic writing about the condition with both flair and humor.
Over at <a href="https://thegreatbowelmovement.org/">The Great Bowel Movement</a>, guest blogger Christy Stone, a health advocate who runs Crohnie Bologna IBD, and also has IBD.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

People Powered IBD Research

Svante Paabo and his team in Leipzig are up to it again, <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Svante-Paabo-and-Nikolay-Peristov-200x200.jpg" alt="Svante PÃ¤Ã¤bo and Nikolay Peristov discuss the Ust'-Ishim discovery" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-21817" width="200" height="200" />and revealing more detail about interbreeding between modern humans and our early human cousins, the Neanderthals.
No stranger to extracting ancient DNA, Paabo, the director of evolutionary genetics at the <a href="http://www.mpg.de/eva-en?section=eb-evb-g" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology</a> in Leipzig, Germany, was the first to decode the Neanderthal genome.

<h6>Neanderthals and Modern Humans</h6>
That was when researchers first learned that Neanderthal and humans mated, and that all human with Asian or European ancestry, who are living today carry remnants of that Neanderthal DNA.
Beyond the marvel of actually extracting DNA from the femur of the ancient human known as the “Ust’-Ishim man,” and sequencing that DNA to the same accuracy as that achieved from sequences for living people, is what this sequence is telling scientists about human evolution and migration.
“The population to which the individual belonged may have split from the ancestors of present-day West Eurasian and East Eurasian populations before, or at about the same time, when these two first split from each other,” Paabo in an <a href="http://www.mpg.de/8710423/genome-earliest-modern-human?filter_order=L&#038;research_topic=" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">announcement</a> regarding the paper. 
<h6>Interbreeding</h6>
Although some of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/22/358047524/a-45-000-year-old-leg-bone-reveals-the-oldest-human-genome-yet" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">coverage</a> this week, has focused on the fact that humans and Neanderthals were interbreeding, that really is old news. What’s more significant is what that DNA is telling us about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/science/research-humans-interbred-with-neanderthals.html?ref=science&#038;_r=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">when the interbreeding occurred</a> and hinted at when and where humans first migrated out of Africa and then into Asia and Europe.
The sequence indicated that this early human also had about the same percentage of Neanderthal DNA as we do today, but that the segments of that DNA were much longer. Because of how DNA recombines with each generation, this is what researchers thought they would see. It also helped them more precisely pinpoint when interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals occurred to sometime between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago.
<h6>Migration Timeline</h6>
Previous estimates ranged much wider saying that it occurred between 30,000 and 80,000 years ago. Pinpointing the time is significant because that period also corresponds with when humans were first migrating out of Africa and through the Middle East, according to Janet Kelso, who did the computer based analyses of the sequence. Humans likely migrated out of Africa about 100,000 years ago, and perhaps came into contact with Neanderthals in the Middle East, mixing with them there before migrating into Europe and Asia.
There is much more value in this ancient genome for researchers as they compare it to the genomes of modern humans. For instance, it allowed researchers to estimate that between one and two mutations per year accumulated in human populations in Europe and Asia since the Ust’-Ishim walked the earth.
Not much is known about this one man, however. There were no artifacts found with him. But looking at his DNA, researcher learned that he has more in common with modern Asians than with modern day Europeans. In their paper the researchers suggested that this lends weight to a theory that there were waves of migration into Europe, but that modern humans descend from a population who “did not participate in the initial dispersal of modern humans into Europe and Asia.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-14049" title="neanderthal icon" alt="" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/neanderthal-icon-96x150.jpg" width="50" height="77" />
Got Neanderthal DNA?
23andMe customers can <a href="https://www.23andme.com/you/labs/neanderthal/">find their inner Neanderthal</a> or at least how much Neanderthal DNA they have. Not yet a customer? <a href="https://www.23andme.com/store">Visit our store</a>!

Dem Bones

This interview is part of an occasional series of profiles introducing you to the people behind 23andMe’s content curation team. This team of 23andMe scientists has the unique job of researching, evaluating, and <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Alison4-200x300.jpg" alt="Alison4" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21584" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Alison4-200x300.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Alison4-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Alison4-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Alison4-587x880.jpg 587w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Alison4-787x1180.jpg 787w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Alison4-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />developing the health-related information that is reported to customers. Their rigorous process of combing through scientific literature, vetting genetic information and ensuring that published scientific findings meet our standards for inclusion, directly impacts what you see when you log into your 23andMe account. 
&#8220;What we currently know about the genotype-phenotype link in terms of human health and disease is only the tip of a very huge iceberg.&#8221; 
What were you researching before you came to 23andMe? 
The common thread of my academic research was using DNA sequences from different populations and different species to help understand how they are related; this field is called molecular phylogenetics. During my master&#8217;s program I used molecular phylogenies to study the population genetics of Hawaiian freshwater fishes, and during my PhD work, I studied the evolutionary relationships among modern bird lineages. Interestingly, I used similar analytical techniques to the ones we use here at 23andMe to figure out our customers&#8217; ancestry information, but I used them for fish and birds, not humans &#8212; when it comes to DNA, the same analytical principles can apply to any group of organisms. One huge difference is that my data sets were much much smaller! Back when I started, most people were only using mitochondrial DNA sequences to build evolutionary trees of animals. I was able to amplify and sequence a nuclear gene that no one had ever tried before and showed that it, too, had utility for studying evolutionary relationships.
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 200px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">Alison Chubb, PhD, 
Health Content Scientist 
From: Olmsted Falls, Ohio 
Education: 
BA, English, Princeton University 
MS, Conservation Biology, University of Minnesota 
PhD, Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley 
Fun Fact: Alison loves bird watching and this spring had chickadees, towhees, juncos, and wrens all nesting in her backyard. She also rescued and raised a baby hummingbird for a few days before releasing it back into the wild.</div>
Why are you excited about genetics? 
I&#8217;ve always wanted to delve more deeply into the genotype-phenotype link, and the advent of whole genome genotyping and sequencing has really accelerated our ability to do that as scientists, especially in the realm of health and disease. Being married to a doctor and having a child with a congenital heart defect (successfully repaired) has brought me much closer to the medical world than I ever would have expected, and has increased my curiosity about how our genes influence our own health. When I learned that 23andMe&#8217;s goal was to help elucidate and communicate the link between our health and genetics on a really huge scale, I knew it was something I wanted to be a part of.
I&#8217;ve always loved reading scientific literature, but the hectic schedule of grad school doesn’t allow you time to read much outside your field. At 23andMe, I get to look at a wide breadth of literature and think about how to communicate those concepts to our customers &#8211; that’s an incredibly inspiring challenge.
How do you decide what to include in 23andMe reports? 
In my role at 23andMe, I look at everything through the lens of clinical validation. That means that our team takes a genetic variant thought to be pathogenic (capable of causing disease) and we try to find scientific papers to support or refute that claim. In general, we look for population studies to show that a case population (with the disease) has the genetic variant far more often than the control population (without the disease), or that both the variant and the disease co-segregate, or show up together, in family-level studies.
You’ll see links to scientific literature in our health reports, and our goal is that those papers show a significant effect size, are replicated, functionally relevant, and present convincing evidence that particular variants are strongly associated with particular conditions.
Tell us about a recent breakthrough in technology that you think will have a big impact. 
Next Generation Sequencing is a breakthrough that will change the world of clinical genetics. Being able to sequence patients&#8217; genomes faster and less expensively will hopefully accelerate diagnoses, treatments, and cures. The big challenge, of course, is parsing all that data and figuring out how to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of variants that matter (are pathogenic) and those that don&#8217;t. Data generation is no longer the obstacle &#8212; but data analysis on a mammoth scale is.
Did you learn anything interesting from your 23andMe results? Did you make any changes as a result of taking the test? 
One fascinating thing about the 23andMe health results (for customers who joined before November 22d, 2013) is that you can keep coming back to them again and again and learn something new. This is, in part, because your own health status, or that of a family member&#8217;s, can change over time and certain results may become more relevant.
For example, when I first received my own 23andMe results I didn&#8217;t pay much attention to the fact that both my husband and I are considered &#8220;rapid metabolizers&#8221; of a particular class of drugs known as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), which are used to reduce stomach acid. &#8220;Rapid metabolizer&#8221; just means that our bodies are likely to break down the drug fast enough so that standard doses may not always be enough to improve symptoms like heartburn or acid reflux. Neither my husband nor I have problems with stomach acid, so at the time, I didn&#8217;t give this result a second thought.
Fast forward to 2014, and our son has recently developed symptoms of reflux and has been prescribed a PPI to take every day. Based on our genetic results, we know that he is also a &#8220;rapid metabolizer,&#8221; even though he doesn&#8217;t have his own 23andMe account. Consequently, we are paying close attention to whether the drug seems to be improving his symptoms or whether we should talk to the doctor about possibly adjusting the dose or switching medications. The jury is still out. But it&#8217;s great to have some extra information that can help inform our approach to this drug.
<h6>What&#8217;s one thing the average consumer should know about genetics?</h6>

Consumers should understand that we still know very little about the interplay of genes, lifestyle, and environment for most of the most common conditions. Those include serious conditions that impact us personally and as a society such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, for example. What we currently know about the genotype-phenotype link in terms of human health and disease is only the tip of a very huge iceberg.

A Conversation with Health Content Scientist Alison Chubb

Geneticists from all over the world have converged in San Diego this week as part of the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-6586" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-300x300.jpg" alt="23andMe_Logo_blog" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog.jpg 350w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
A team of scientists from 23andMe joined the thousands of geneticists in attendances to present some of our own research. Below are links to some of the posters presented.
In addition, 23andMe also gave previews of our new &#8220;Research Portal,&#8221; which will allow qualified researchers to access aggregated, anonymized 23andMe data from our 600,000 genotyped individuals who have given consent for research under an Independent Review Board approved protocol.
By offering access to 23andMe&#8217;s unique research model, we believe we can help accelerate research and fuel discoveries. 
Below are the list of some of the 23andMe posters presented at ASHG with links to PDFs versions of the posters. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21788" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Posters-Jpg.001-300x225.jpg" alt="Posters Jpg.001" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Posters-Jpg.001-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Posters-Jpg.001-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Posters-Jpg.001-880x660.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Posters-Jpg.001.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />


&#8211; <a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ASHG_pierson_kleinman_eriksson_hinds_8-12.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Like Mother, Like Daughter: Analysis of Parent-Child Phenotypic Correlations for Hundreds of Medical and Behavioral Traits</a> 
Author(s): E. Pierson, D. Hinds, A. Kleinman, N. Eriksson
&#8211; <a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ASHG2014_Chao_CryEasily-1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Genes Involved in Brain Development Influence Crying Habits -A Genome Wide Association Study</a> 
Author(s): C. Tian, C. Y. McLean, E. Y. Durand, N. Eriksson, J. Y. Tung, D. A. Hinds


&#8211; <a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Bryc_ASHG2014_textboxes.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The genetic ancestry of African, Latino, and European Americans across the United States</a> 
Author(s): K. Bryc, E. Durand, D. Reich, J. Mountain


&#8211;<a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Bell_ASHG2014_varicose.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> A Large Scale Genome Wide Association Study of Varicose Veins in the 23andMe Cohort</a> 
Author(s): R. K. Bell, E. Y. Durand, C. Y. McLean, N. Eriksson, J. Y. Tung, D. A. Hinds
&#8211; <a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Morning_person_poster.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">GWAS of 89,283 individuals identifies genetic variants associated with being a morning person</a> 
Author(s): Y. Hu, A. Shmygelska, D. Tran, N. Eriksson, J. Tung, D. Hinds
&#8211; <a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ASHG_D23_poster_v3.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Accelerating Drug Development with 23andMe Phenome-Wide Association Studies</a> 
Author(s): F. Sathirapongsasuti, B. T. Naughton, J. L. Mountain, D. A. Hinds, J. Y. Tung, C. Y. McLean
&#8211; <a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nfurlotte_ASHG_2014_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Risk prediction and Type II Diabetes</a> 
Author(s): N. Furlotte, S. Dandekar, R. Smith, N. Eriksson, D. Hinds


&#8211; <a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/DH_ASHG_2014.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Genetic discovery in the 23andMe participant cohort</a> 
Author(s): D. A. Hinds, C. A. M. Northover, M. H. McIntyre, C. Wilson, K. E. Huber, A. Kleinman, F. Sathirapongsasuti, R. K. Bell, E. Pierson, K. Bryc, A. S. Shmygelska, N. A. Furlotte, Y. Hu, C. Tian, E. Y. Durand, C. Y. McLean, B. Naughton, J. L. Mountain, N. Eriksson, J. Y. Tung

23andMe’s Research At ASHG 2014

In her wonderful book, “The Invisible History of the Human Race,” writer and <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Invisible-History-of-the-Human-Race.jpg" alt="Invisible History of the Human Race" class="alignright size-full wp-image-21767" width="230" height="346" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Invisible-History-of-the-Human-Race.jpg 230w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Invisible-History-of-the-Human-Race-199x300.jpg 199w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 230px) 100vw, 230px" />journalist <a href="http://www.christinekenneally.com/http://" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Christine Kenneally</a> conveys how your life is part of a thread of life that extends both backward and forward in time.
“We live in a temporal envelope,” Kenneally writes. “For most of us the horizon extends forward maybe two generations and back just two or three… It isn&#8217;t until you populate the family tree that it becomes clear how brief a human life is, how soon it is over, and how you only play a bit part in a story line that expands out and contracts back and goes off in directions that no one can predict or control.”


And it’s DNA – which is both the recipe for life and a record of it – that offers the thread linking the past, present and future.
It’s a beautiful idea and one that might change some people’s perspective about the importance of knowing a bit about where you come from.
This is just one of many delightful insights in her book that looks at how DNA, history and environment shape us. Using some of her own personal history, as well as fascinating stories from others, Kenneally conveys how the complicated interplay of biology, the past and the present makes us who we are. We are not fated by our biology, yet we are not free from it either. Understanding it can help us understand much about ourselves and where we’re going.
A few reviews – in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/books/review/christine-kenneallys-invisible-history-of-the-human-race.html?action=click&#038;pgtype=Homepage&#038;version=Moth-Visible&#038;module=inside-nyt-region&#038;region=inside-nyt-region&#038;WT.nav=inside-nyt-region&#038;_r=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Times</a>, and <a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/10/12/is_race_genetic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Salon</a> – have already noted that her book marks a nice counterpoint to Nicholas Wade’s <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/08/11/reviews-of-nicholas-wades-a-troublesome-inheritance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“A Troublesome Inheritance.”</a>
Kenneally didn’t write her book to be played off Wade’s, but her story illustrates that human behavior and culture isn’t just about biology. It’s all much more complicated than that. But your DNA gives you insight that you wouldn’t be able to know otherwise. Indeed for many, using genetics is the only way to dig into a past that was erased by the Holocaust or slavery or simply not knowing ones parents.
The book isn’t just about looking back and self-exploration, Kenneally also tackles the science and gives us a quick tour of the uncomfortable history of eugenics, both in the United States and in Nazi, Germany. But she also quotes from Wendy Roth, a professor at the University of British Columbia, who notes that DNA testing might do more toward bringing people together by showing us how much we have in common.


“This kind of testing seems to make people more aware of how much racial mixing has gone on historically,” Roth said.
Kenneally is at her most interesting when she explores the stories revealed by delving into our DNA. She marvels at how genetics can confirm or alter what we know about our identity and ourselves. It’s also can reveal more about the human story.


“If everyone had his DNA analyzed, and that information were linked to everyone’s historical information, it would be the nearest thing to the book of humanity,” Kenneally writes.
Give it a read.

Invisible History

23andMe Carrier Status Reports

By Robin Smith
In his 2008 bestseller Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argued anecdotally that when it came to success, intelligence isn&#8217;t <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Classroom-Hands-picture-300x211.jpg" alt="Classroom Hands picture" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-15370" width="300" height="211" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Classroom-Hands-picture-300x211.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Classroom-Hands-picture.jpg 413w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />everything.
A <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/10/02/1408777111.abstract" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">study</a> published this month in the journal PNAS found just that — by looking at the heritability of academic performance of teenagers on set of British standardized tests.
<h6></h6>

<h6>Academic Achievement</h6>
By looking at 13,000 twins identical and fraternal twins aged 16, the study <a href="http://theconversation.com/how-genes-can-influence-childrens-exam-results-32535" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">found</a> that 62 percent of the variability of test scores could be explained by genetics. The authors found that achievement was highly correlated with intelligence. But almost as important were other characteristics such as self-belief, personality, well-being, perception of the school environment, and behavior problems. However, all of these characteristics were to some extent influenced by genetics. 
So what are these genetic factors?
o far, only a handful of large-scale studies have identified factors affecting academic achievement.
<h6>Educational Attainment</h6>
A 2013 <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6139/1467.abstract" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">study</a> published in ScienceExpress identified a SNP (rs9320913) that was associated with whether or not a person had attained a college diploma. Another two variants (rs11584700, rs4851266) that were associated with &#8220;EduYears&#8221; — the number of years of schooling a person had.
These variants confer modest effects. The strongest one is associated with the equivalent to about a month of schooling difference per copy of the mutation. But the identification of new parts of the genome that correlate with academic achievement is a promising future direction for research.
<h6>Replication</h6>
Scientists at 23andMe were interested to see if these associations held true with our customers.
A <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25287667" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">study</a> published this month in the journal Psychological Sciences showed that they were. Replication studies are vitally important. They can confirm that the results of one study apply to different groups of people and are not due to confounding factors.

Robin Smith

Ten percent inspiration, ninety percent perspiration (and sixty percent genetics)

This interview is part of an occasional series of profiles introducing you to the people behind 23andMe’s content curation team. This team of 23andMe scientists has the unique job of determining which genetic<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rob2-200x300.jpg" alt="Rob2" class="alignright wp-image-21583" width="300" height="450" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rob2-200x300.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rob2-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rob2-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rob2-587x880.jpg 587w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rob2-787x1180.jpg 787w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rob2-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> associations will be reported to customers. They have a rigorous process. Along with combing through scientific literature, they vet genetic information and published scientific findings. They ensure that all of that meets our standards for inclusion, and that directly impacts what you see when you log into your 23andMe account. 

“You can store so much information with a four-letter alphabet, and I’ve always been impressed and amazed by that.”
<h6>
What were you researching/doing before you came to 23andMe? </h6>

My doctoral research at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center focused on finding genetic Achilles Heels in non-small cell lung cancers with specific cancer-causing mutations so that we could help develop more targeted cancer therapies, specifically for pancreatic, lung and colorectal cancers.

<h6>
Tell us about one of your interesting findings at 23andMe, or in your previous scientific life.</h6>

During my graduate work at UT Southwestern, my lab discovered that manipulating the levels of small regulatory RNA molecules, called microRNAs could change how sensitive lung cancer cells were to commonly used cancer drugs.
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">Robert Borkowski, PhD, 
Health Content Scientist 
From: Connecticut 
Education: 
BA, Biochemistry, Wheaton College 
PhD, Genetics and Development, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center 
Fun Fact: Robert was at the last ever Hartford Whalers hockey game in Hartford.</div>
<h6>
Why are you excited about genetics? </h6>

You can store so much information with a four-letter alphabet, and I’ve always been impressed and amazed by that. In recent years, the scientific community has shed light on how our genes influence our health and development, but this is still just the tip of the iceberg. There are lots of opportunities to integrate genetics into people&#8217;s everyday decisions, and it&#8217;s really exciting to think about what&#8217;s left on both of those fronts.


I was attracted to 23andMe after a talk I heard [23andMe CEO] Anne Wojcicki give a talk at the Broad Institute. She explained how 23andMe was on a mission to take genetics and turn it into something useful for people. After my experience in grad school, I knew I wanted to do something consumer-focused. 23andMe seemed like the natural place to pursue that goal.

<h6>
Tell us about a recent breakthrough in genetics research that you think will have a big impact on the industry.</h6>

I believe CRISPR has the potential to accelerate research into the function of genetic variants and mutations. This type of genetic engineering could allow scientists to change what’s in a piece of DNA in a specific and targeted way. With CRISPR, researchers can manipulate DNA more quickly than historical methods. This would allow them to quickly see if they’re targeting appropriately. If they’re then able to see what a specific mutation does, there are implications for both conventional and gene therapies.
 
<h6> 
Did you learn anything interesting from your 23andMe results?</h6>

I found out that I&#8217;m a carrier of the Factor V Leiden mutation. That means I have a risk factor for deep vein thrombosis. That was a big part of why I switched to a standing desk. I also bought an activity monitor to remind me to not sit still for too long!

<h6>
What&#8217;s one thing the average consumer should know about genetics? </h6>

Genetics is complicated! What&#8217;s hard-coded in the DNA is just the starting point. It&#8217;s important to remember that anything from the way the gene is processed to the person&#8217;s surroundings can influence what a gene does.

A Conversation with Health Content Scientist Robert Borkowski

There are grand visions about what genetic discoveries will be made in the distant future, but what about in the next five years.
That was the question Dr. Eric Green, the director of the National Genome Research Institute, asked of 23andMe&#8217;s CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki. Anne recently participated in a discussions with Green and Yale University genetics professor, Dr. Richard Lifton, as part of a symposium at the Smithsonian&#8217;s National Museum of Natural History. The talk revolved around the future of genomics, medicine and the impact genetic research will have globally on health care.
For Anne, what is happening right now is most interesting.
&#8220;It&#8217;s the most exciting time in science,&#8221; she said.
Check out their conversation. 
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