Last week, 23andMe launched a new research initiative to study <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/l_smarr_2x-221x300.jpg" alt="l_smarr_2x" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21362" width="221" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/l_smarr_2x-221x300.jpg 221w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/l_smarr_2x.jpg 314w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 221px) 100vw, 221px" />
Along with collaborating with Pfizer on the study, 23andMe has also enlisted the help of five scientific advisors, who each bring deep expertise that will assist our scientists in analyzing data and developing surveys for the study.


One of those advisors, <a href="http://lsmarr.calit2.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Larry Smarr</a>, PhD, who is the founding director of the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technolgy (Cali2), said this study could illustrate the power of the 23andMe research model.


“I believe that a more accurate stratification of IBD disease states will result from classifying based on combinations of (genetic markers) than on symptoms,” said Larry. “23andme is the best way to quickly get a large number of people classified to test this hypothesis.” 
<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>
<h6>
 Self Tracking</h6>

Larry, who also holds the Harry E. Gruber professorship in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering, has over the last decade tracked everything from his weight to his sleep patterns to his caloric intake. He even tracked the microbes in his stool to learn about his own health.
But what had started as a simple effort to track weight loss soon became a focused effort to apply all his scientific skills to manage his own health and his own struggle with what he later learned was IBD.
Larry said he sees huge potential in gathering together many people with IBD.
“The study will be successful if it results in a large number of people classified with both (genetic markers) and phenotypes,” he said. “This will immediately yield a first cut at the emerging IBD stratification landscape.”

He knows why he is so interested in participating as a scientific advisor, but he also knows what might motivate someone with IBD to enroll.


“By participating in this study you will help accelerate research toward a new approach to understanding IBD,” he said. “And hopefully to creating more personalized therapy approaches.”

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

Science Advisor, Larry Smarr

Jeremy Kuykendall grew up in Texas, went to college there and settled down. He has a good job, is happily married and has two daughters. His life is pretty normal.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jeremy-300x225.jpg" alt="Jeremy" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21349" width="300" height="225" />
“I’m just a middle class family man,” said the 38 year-old IT worker.
But the regular trajectory of Jeremy’s life took an extraordinary turn after testing with 23andMe. His results connected him for the first time with a guy named Steven, a man he’d never met, who just happened to be his biological father.
“I am awed by how this happened,” Jeremy said. “The chances of us ever meeting and learning about how we are related would have been impossible without a service like 23andMe.”
<h6>Connecting</h6>
Steven is single, 58, and lives in Fort Worth. His life – working dozens of different jobs, serving in the Army and moving around the country before settling into a job with the Veterans Administration in Fort Worth – has been anything but ordinary. Yet even Steven says connecting with Jeremy has been one of the craziest things that’s ever happened to him.
“I remember telling him on the phone once that I don’t know what to say to him or how to feel,” Steven said. “We’re in uncharted territory here. I know I can’t be a father to him. The best I can do is to be his friend.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jeremy-Steven-300x169.jpg" alt="Jeremy &#038; Steven" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21352" width="300" height="169" />
And the two men – who are strangers although they are father and son, have gotten to know each other – they’ve started to become friends.
<h6>Creating a Family Connection</h6>
This sudden connection has probably been most jarring for Steven. While Jeremy always knew he’d been adopted, Steven never knew he’d even fathered a child, and long ago given up on the idea of ever having a family.
“I never got married, never thought about having a family a whole lot honestly,” he said. “I just never got to that point. I was engaged once but I got cold feet and called it off.”
So it was a surprise when he got his results from 23andMe. He’d signed up because he wanted to use 23andMe for his genealogy research, but his results were unexpected.
“It said I had a DNA match with someone who is identified as my son,” Steven said. “It was a shock.”
23andMe’s DNA Relative feature matches customers with other 23andMe users who share DNA. Customers can choose not to take part in DNA Relatives, remain anonymous or opt-out of viewing close relatives. Both Jeremy and Steven had opted in. When Steven saw that he and Jeremy shared 47.5 percent of their DNA, he decided to send him a message via 23andMe.
“I didn’t say much, I think I said ‘it appears as though we’re related and I was wondering where you were born.’”
Steven misread Jeremy’s profile and thought Jeremy was ten years younger than he is. Doing the math, Steven knew he lived in California when at the time Jeremy would have been conceived. Thinking back he tried to figure out who the mother might have been and was at a loss, so he wasn’t sure if the match was real.
While Steven anxiously waited for an answer to his message, Jeremy was suspicious about who he was. Jeremy always knew he’d been adopted, but he’d waited until he was in his 30s, when he was having children of his own to try and make any contact with his biological mother, who he did meet. They got to know each other. He learned she’d gotten pregnant in high school. She’d given Jeremy up for adoption because she was just too young to raise him on her own. But she’d watched him grow up from a distance. Occasionally seeing his sports or school achievements in the local paper. Jeremy’s adoptive mother worked as a nurse in the clinic that his biological mother went to for care, although she never identified herself as his biological mother.
“Our relationship has been positive and amicable,” said Jeremy, who has since also met his two half-sisters.
His mother also shared with him as much information about his biological family as she knew, including, he thought, the name of his biological father, a man she identified as Wayne.
“The stories she told me were not very flattering,” Jeremy said.
Based on all that, Jeremy decided not to reach out to him.
“It was enough to have this good interaction with my ‘Bio-Mom,’” he said.
Then all a sudden Jeremy gets a message from a guy named Steven.
Jeremy had tested with 23andMe because he wanted to know more about his ancestors and from where they came. He didn’t expect anything else, so the message from Steven caught him off guard. He was a bit suspicious.
“I responded: ‘What do you want dude?’”
Before getting the response, Steven had almost given up hope of hearing from Jeremy, he said.
“When I didn’t get an answer back I thought, you know, maybe he already knows who I am or maybe he didn’t know his real father was not his real father or a dozen other reasons why he wouldn’t want to talk to me,” Steven said.
He tried to be philosophical about it, telling himself that, “whatever happens, happens.” But that was easier said than done.
“Anyone would be really curious,” he said. “It would drive you crazy wanting to know.”
Although they both were skeptical that they were indeed father and son, they connected through 23andMe nonetheless. Steven had thought he was in California at the time of Jeremy’s birth, which was in Texas. That was until he learned that Jeremy was born in 1976, 10 years earlier than he thought.
Steven explained to Jeremy that when he was 19 he’d lived in Dallas for nine months and during that time spent about a month in Menard, Texas.
“Now you’re freaking me out,” Jeremy told Steven. “I was born in Menard.’”
He sent Steven an old photo of his birth mother. Steven thought he recognized her, but he wasn’t sure. Jeremy’s mother doesn’t remember Steven, but the dates and timing of everything matched up.
“Look I was a product of my time, a real wild child,” said Steven. “It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s just the way it was.”
Jeremy and Steven have since met in person. Jeremy looks more like his biological mother, but Steven can see some of his brother in Jeremy.
“They have the some of the same mannerisms,” he said. “He’s real gentle and hardworking like my oldest brother.”
Steven said he’s still trying to get his head around meeting a son he didn’t know he had.
“It’s certainly not a bad thing, mainly because he’s such a wonderful person, highly intelligent, very successful and a great family and everything,” Steven said. “You can tell. He had wonderful adoptive parents.”
And while Steven knows he could never be a true father to his son, he said he thinks the two men will be friends, and that he could get to know his family and Jeremy’s two young children.
“I’d like that,” Steven said.
For Jeremy the experience has reminded him how lucky he was to have had such supportive adoptive parents. But the experience has also left him wondering more about what makes him who he is – how much a role genetics plays versus the environment he grew up in.
“It’s been very positive,” he said. “But I’m struggling with this whole nature versus nurture thing and how much of what we are is genetic and how much is you know influenced by our environment. I’m amazed by how much comes from my blood.”

An Extraordinary Turn

For people battling <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-21215 size-large" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IBD-Image-325x768.jpg" alt="IBD Image" width="325" height="768" /> – it’s easy to feel isolated and alone.


There currently are very few medicines to treat the condition, which affects an estimated 1.4 million people in the United States.  
Those with IBD often feel embarrassed by their symptoms, enduring on their own severe abdominal pain, cramping, inflammation, and diarrhea that often accompany the condition.
23andMe wants to change that with its <a href="https://23andme.com/IBD/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new study of IBD</a>.
23andMe is collaborating with Pfizer Inc. to learn more about what role genetics and environment play in the development of IBD as well as how the condition progresses. We hope this research will give scientists new insight into the disease.
“We are excited to team up with Pfizer to take an innovative, consumer-centered approach to understanding the fundamentals of inflammatory bowel disease and the variability of treatment response,” said 23andMe CEO and Co-Founder, Anne Wojcicki. 

<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">Eligible Individuals</div>
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
1. You have been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis by a qualified physician.</div>
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
2. Your willingness to submit a saliva sample for DNA testing and complete online surveys related to your condition.
</div>
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">3. You have access to the internet.</div>
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
4. You are at least 6 years old (those under 18 require a parental consent to enroll).</div>
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
5. You are not a current 23andMe customer.*</div>
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
6. You reside in the United States.</div>
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">*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>

23andMe is using the unique research model that it developed to study other diseases. Our research model is different in that it allows people to participate from home and to do so anonymously. Traditional research often involves travel to clinics or research facilities, blood tests, and even drug trials. Because individuals can participate from home using internet access, 23andMe’s research offers people who might not be able to participate otherwise a simple and non-intrusive way to get involved in important research.
Our goal is to enlist 10,000 people in this effort. To those who participate we will give updates not just on the progress of our recruitment efforts but on the status of the research as well. 23andMe can’t promise that this work will lead to a cure or to new treatments but our researchers do pledge to keep participants informed of our work.


You can learn more about this research or how to participate <a href="https://www.23andme.com/ibd/">here</a>.  
Participants do not just help drive important research — they can also explore their own genetic information using 23andMe’s unique tools.

New Study To Look At The Genetics Of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Even as a little girl, Rachel Kilgore wanted to know more about where her ancestors came from, what they looked like, and who they were.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21319" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Rachel-Oslo-300x130.jpg" alt="Rachel-Oslo" width="300" height="130" />
And as she grew, Rachel learned a lot about her family’s past. She learned about her father’s family and their roots in Scotland. But finding the details about her mother’s family eluded her. She knew her great grandmother had come from Norway, but little else.
“For the last ten years I’ve been trying to track my family back to Norway,” Rachel said.


She’d looked at records online, quizzed family members and used genealogical services, but had little luck.
“I thought the best I could hope for was finding some old Census record,” she said.
Then she tried with 23andMe, and connected with a distant cousin who helped her find a living breathing connection to her past.


But before explaining how that all happened, Rachel said she has to go back to just before she tested. She and her boyfriend had planned a vacation in Europe, and Rachel, frustrated because she’d had so little to show for her ancestral search, tagged on a final stop on her trip. She made Oslo, the couple’s last stop in Europe. Maybe, Rachel thought, she couldn’t find out more about her ancestors directly, but at least could see the country.
<div id="attachment_21317" style="width: 212px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21317" class="size-medium wp-image-21317" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Great-grandm_grandpa-202x300.jpg" alt="Rachel's great grandmother and great grandfather." width="202" height="300" />Rachel&#8217;s great grandmother and great grandfather.</div>
While her trip was still a few months off, Rachel had tested with 23andMe. When she got her results, all but one of her DNA Relative matches clustered in different areas of the United States. The one that wasn’t was in Norway.


“So I sent him a message right away,” Rachel said.


Although he was a very distant cousin, he was her only direct living connection to Norway. His name is Henning and although it took some time for him to respond, when he did only two weeks before she was schedule to head to Europe, things happened fast, Rachel said.


“Henning is really into genealogy and had traced his family back to the 1600s so he knew a lot,” Rachel said.
The two exchanged messages. Rachel shared the little information she knew about her family’s roots in Norway and her great grandmother. It was enough for her distant Norwegian cousin to work with. He began tapping his Norwegian genealogical sources.
Within 48 hours the two – with the help of some complete strangers – were able to find the home of her great great grandfather built more than 150 years ago. They found her relatives&#8217; gravesites and she learned that her great grandmother, who had immigrated to the United States so long ago had had seven siblings and not two as she’d always been told. Her Norwegian cousin also helped translate an old document in which her great grandmother had stated why she came to America.
She said she left the bleak prospects in her homeland for the states saying: “I deserve more.”
All of that was amazing to Rachel but what was most thrilling was what her cousin had found out about her living relatives.
In tracking down family grave sites, the two discovered where her great uncle had been buried, and then in a brilliant sleuthing move they found out who had paid for the burial. The answer led Rachel to Eddy, a second cousin once removed.
“He was still living in the home that had been in the family for 150 years,” Rachel said.
She learned all this on the eve of her trip to Europe and made arrangements to visit with him. When she arrived in Oslo, her new found cousins met her. Eddy and Henning took her to the family home in Drabak on the shores of the Oslofjord.
<div id="attachment_21318" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21318" class="size-medium wp-image-21318" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Oslofjord-300x168.jpg" alt="Rachel near the family home on the Oslofjord." width="300" height="168" />Rachel near the family home on the Oslofjord.</div>
Her cousin showed her the pencil drawings her great Aunt Ruth had made in 1910, and Rachel thought of how that connected to her own brother who is an artist. Together she and her cousins stood in the home and looked out at the fjord, the same view her ancestors had. And she walked through the small home – smaller than her one-bedroom apartment – where her great grandmother lived with her seven siblings and parents.
This was all more than she thought she’d ever find.
“I had chills,” she said. “I thought the best thing I would find would be some old Census record but I was talking to a living relative who lives in the very house that was in my family for 150 years.”

More Deserving

Last week was a good one for research at 23andMe with two announcements that offer more examples of the power of our research model.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-11373" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/researchrevolution-fist-173x300.jpg" alt="researchrevolution-fist" width="173" height="300" />
First was the publication of a massive <a href="https://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.3043.html">Parkinson’s disease study</a> that our scientists worked on with a consortium of 50 other organizations that were lead by researchers at the National Institute on Aging. Among other things the study found five new genetic associations for the disease. Then a few days after the publication of the paper, 23andMe announced that we had received a <a href="https://mediacenter.23andme.com/press-releases/nih_grant_2014/">$1.4 million grant</a> from the National Institutes of Health for a two-year project to refine our online genetic database and the research engine we use for making genetic discoveries.
While these two announcements were not related, they both illustrate the power and potential of our data. In the case of the Parkinson’s study, data from more than 66,000 23andMe customers who’d consented to participate in research helped power that study, which identified six new genetic variants associated with the disease.
The NIH funding was more about embracing the future, and refining some of the online genetic research tools 23andMe pioneered and opening up our database for other researchers.
Here’s how some others wrote about the announcements.
&#8211; <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2014/07/30/23andme-gets-a-1-4m-nih-grant-still-awaits-fda-approval/">Venture Beat</a>
&#8211; Reuters
&#8211; <a href="http://www.bio-itworld.com/2014/7/29/23andme-gets-1.4m-nih-publishes-parkinsons-research.html">Bio-IT World</a>
&#8211; <a href="http://www.fiercebiotechit.com/story/23andme-open-database-external-researchers-after-securing-nih-grant/2014-08-04" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FierceBioTechIT</a>
&nbsp;

23andMe’s Research Model Makes News

Most people know 23andMe empowers people to learn about themselves through their genetic information, but perhaps fewer know that a major part of our mission is to advance genetic science and ensure we do so with the highest research ethics.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-17419" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ResearchModel-300x235.png" alt="ResearchModel" width="300" height="235" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ResearchModel-300x235.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ResearchModel.png 523w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
As the recent controversy involving a joint study published from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/01/facebooks-emotional-manipulation-study-was-even-worse-than-you-thought/">Facebook and Cornell University</a> on emotional contagion brought the idea of research ethics to the top of people’s minds, it might be helpful to review some of the highlights of our own research program.
<h6>The Belmont Report</h6>
Our research program is built on the ethical principles laid out in the <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.html">Belmont Report</a>, which basically describes guidelines for treating people right in research. However, much of 23andMe’s research actually adhere to a much stricter federal standard called the <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/commonrule/index.html">Common Rule</a>. Although technically only federally funded research has to meet that standard, 23andMe voluntarily applies it to our own internal research.
23andMe invites every customer to join our research program, and our goal is to be as clear as possible about what the research involves, so people can make a well-informed decision to participate or not.
<h6>Informed Consent</h6>
To take part, a customer must <a href="https://www.23andme.com/about/consent/">consent to research</a>. The consent agreement describes what the research is about, as well as the benefits and risks of participation. Choosing not to take part doesn’t impact a customer’s access to the rest of the 23andMe service, and if a customer initially decides to join the research program but changes her mind later, she can simply change the settings in her account and leave the study.
<h6>Oversight by an IRB</h6>
Our entire research program is overseen by an external and independent ethics committee known as an institutional review board, or IRB. The job of the IRB is to review and monitor our research to make sure that the people taking part in the research are fully informed about the risks and benefits of participating. Since 2009, we have been working with an independent IRB. An IRB helps guide to 23andMe as we strive to break the boundaries of traditional biomedical research while prioritizing the welfare of our customers.
Every one of our researchers undergoes training on protecting human subjects as well as the responsible conduct of research. We also have a team dedicated to making sure all our work follows the federal regulations and the instructions of our IRB.
“People really want to participate in our research because they feel like they are an important part of the project,”<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/23andme-researcher-katie-huber/">Katie Huber</a>, who leads our IRB team. “We work hard to make our customers true partners in research rather than ‘human subjects’.”
<h6>Research Collaborations</h6>
While we have great geneticists and scientists on staff, we also recognize that we’re not experts on everything. We want to respect the enormous contributions of our customers by making the most of the information they’ve shared. One of the most important ways we can help accelerate research is to get the world’s best scientists working on the data.
To this end, we regularly partner with experts from academic, government and industry research centers. In these collaborations, we share only de-identified data from a large group of participants. This ensures that research participants remain anonymous and that their names or personal identifying information are not connected to the genetic data used in research. If for any reason, a project would involve sharing the genetic information or survey answers of a single person, we get specific additional consent from that individual before the project moves forward.
<h6>The Promise of 23andMe Research</h6>
On average, it now takes more than a decade and about <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the-truly-staggering-cost-of-inventing-new-drugs/">$4 Billion to $11 Billion</a> to bring a new drug to market. But 23andMe’s new model for research can fuel discoveries and help bring new therapies to market more quickly and efficiently.
Thank you to each and every person who has opted-in to our research program and made the time to answer the questions we have put out there &#8211; from your family history of cancer to size of your feet. All of this information is helping us to better understand how DNA influences human biology.
We hope you are proud of the contribution you are making and are clear on how your data will be used in these efforts. Go here, to see some of the research papers our scientists have published.

Protecting People In People Powered Research

A large new study spearheaded by researchers with the National Institute on Aging that involved scientists from more than 50 different institutions worldwide – including 23andMe – has found new genetic risks for Parkinson’s disease.<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" />
Published in this week’s Nature Genetics, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng.3043" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the study</a> is significant for both its size and its findings. It is the largest Parkinson’s genome wide association study (GWAS) ever done, looking at more than seven million variants in about 13,000 patients with the disease. The researchers used the data from more than 100,000 people without Parkinson’s who were used as controls.
23andMe contributed data from more than 4,000 of our customers with Parkinson’s and about 62,000 without the disease who all consented to participate in research.
Along with replicating more than two dozen known genetic associations with Parkinson’s the researchers were able to find half a dozen loci in genes previously unknown to be associated with the disease  – SIPA1L2, INPP5F, MIR4697, GCH1, VPS13C, and DDRGK1.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-3133" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/parkinsonsdisease.jpg" alt="parkinsonsdisease" width="260" height="236" />
What’s interesting about these variants is that they are located in genes that are associated with <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-role-of-methylation-in-gene-expression-1070" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">DNA methylation,</a> one of the processes which control gene expression. The results indicate that gene regulation in the brain plays an important role in the development of Parkinson’s disease progress. The newly discovered loci also have other known associations with disease.
For instance, INPP5F, has been found to be associated with late onset Alzheimer’s disease, VPS13C is associated with some neurodegenerative diseases, while GCH1 has been associated with the onset of early and atypical Parkinson’s disease.
The researchers in the study, led by <a href="http://www.irp.nia.nih.gov/branches/irp/asingleton.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Andrew Singleton</a>, were able to find these previously missed genetic associations because they used such a large sample size, combining all existing genotype data on Parkinson’s disease.
The success of this effort helped researchers conclude that ever-greater detail on genetic risk can be found by gathering ever larger study sample sizes.
23andMe’s contribution to this study was made possible through the participation of the more than 10,000 people in 23andMe’s <a href="https://www.23andme.com/pd/">Parkinson’s Research Community</a>, the world’s largest cohort of genotyped Parkinson’s patients.
It was also made possible because of 23andMe customers, who do not have the disease but have consented to participate in research. Thank you.

New genetic variants found to influence risk of Parkinson’s disease

If he hadn&#8217;t known his story was true, Phil Silvers said even he would have been skeptical.
“Who would believe it?” said Phil, a 72 year-old retired middle school social studies teacher in New York City.
<div id="attachment_21257" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21257" class="size-medium wp-image-21257" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-300x225.jpeg" alt="Phil with his grandson Frederick Silvers." width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-300x225.jpeg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-880x660.jpeg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-1180x885.jpeg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image.jpeg 1280w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Phil with his grandson.</div>
“If they put something like this in a television show no one would think something like this could happen.”
He grew up in New York City, and although he wouldn’t say so, his early life was tough. He wasn’t particularly close to his parents, and they never told him of his origins.
<h6>“It might have been better if they’d told me when I was young but they didn’t do that back then,” Phil said. “This was the 1940s and they didn’t talk about this sort of stuff then.”</h6>
<h6>
</h6>
<h6>Making His Own Way</h6>
Phil&#8217;s father had always been distant, which Phil thought was just part of his culture.
“I figured it was a European thing. He just didn’t take much interest in me.”
<div id="attachment_21254" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21254" class="size-medium wp-image-21254" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image_2-300x199.jpeg" alt="Phil on the right with his daughter Katie and his brother William. His biological father Norman Aghassi is in the photo on the right." width="300" height="199" />Phil on the right with his daughter Kate and his brother William. </div>
But nonetheless Phil was thankful for what his parents gave him:
“They did do one thing for me that made up for all that.”
They sent him to college, he said.
Phil became a teacher. His father died of a brain tumor in 1963 and Phil’s mother eventually moved to Florida. Phil married, raised two great kids, who became successful on their own. The closeness he lacked with his own parents he made up for with his wife and kids. He was happy.
<h6>A Surprising Revelation</h6>
But when Phil’s mother died. She left him – her only child – out of his will. She’d said he would know why. He didn’t, and her decision started him asking questions. What Phil learned was that he’d been adopted. Although there had been some hints that maybe he wasn’t his parents’ biological child, Phil hadn’t known. Some of his cousins knew however.
“It was a bit of a soap opera,” he said.
So at 50, Phil started to learn a bit about his history. But what he found out just deepened the mystery.
<h6>Unraveling the Mystery</h6>
He heard from a relative that he’d been adopted from a Jewish agency that took in the children of unwed mothers, but he couldn&#8217;t find out much more. Phil was born in 1942. He did the math and realized he’d been conceived right around the time of Pearl Harbor. Lacking the real story, he’d thought maybe he’d been the product of a liaison with a sailor who was being shipped off to war. It was a nice story, but it wasn’t true, as he would find out much later.
After learning he’d been adopted, Phil soon stopped keep digging for information. He figured his biological parents were possibly already dead or at the very least elderly, so he didn’t pursue it.
“Fast forward 20 years,” his daughter Katie said.
<div id="attachment_21248" style="width: 233px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21248" class="size-medium wp-image-21248" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IMG_6958-223x300.jpg" alt="Phil's biological father Norman Aghassi." width="223" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IMG_6958-223x300.jpg 223w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IMG_6958-655x880.jpg 655w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IMG_6958.jpg 762w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 223px) 100vw, 223px" />Phil&#8217;s biological father Norman Aghassi.</div>
<h6>Breaking Things Open with DNA</h6>
They’d been watching the PBS show Finding Your Roots with Louis Gates Jr. who explores the ancestry of his guests using historical records and DNA testing, including testing done by 23andMe.
“I convinced him that we should use 23andMe to at least find out where we come from,” Katie said. “None of us really thought we’d find actual family. We did the test and were amazed at our results.”
Because he’d been adopted from a Jewish agency in New York, Phil and his family believed he likely had Eastern European ancestry. When they got his results, however, they saw something unexpected.
<h6>23andMe Makes the Connection</h6>
Although Phil’s maternal line showed Eastern European ancestry, his paternal line showed ancestry from Iraq.
“This surprised me,” Phil said.
For a long time, there was a sizable Jewish community with a long and rich history in Iraq dating back to the days of Babylon. But many Jews began leaving Iraq in the 1930s and in the decades that followed. For Phil and his daughter, just learning where they came from was enough, they said.
<h6>Finding Family</h6>
But then a few years after learning this, Phil got a message from a 23andMe customer, who was identified as a possible first cousin.
“I told the person that we didn’t know anything about where our family had come from,” said Katie, who helps maintain her father’s account for him. “The next thing I knew the same person contacts me saying that his father and my father are matching as half brothers.”
Phone calls followed and finally, Phil and his entire family met his half brother and his family.
“I was in shock,” said Phil.
<h6>Connecting with His Brother</h6>
He was taken aback by the similarities. He and his half brother were both teachers in New York City schools. They both have a daughter and a son. Their daughters are both lawyers and their sons were high achieving students. (Phil’s son became an actuary, while his half-brother’s son is an oceanographer.)
His half brother shared photos of their father with Phil and he immediately saw the resemblances. He learned that he’d been a good dad. Phil also learned he’d been conceived before his biological father was married.
<h6>Learning about his Father</h6>
His father came to New York in 1939 and lived in NY before visiting Iraq in 1947 where he met his bride and then returned to New York to raise a family. Phil also learned that one of his family names is Aghassi, and he wonders now if he’s somehow related to the famous tennis player Andre Agassi. There’s a lot for him to learn about the history of his ancestors, he said.
“But much of my life is over now,” he said. “I wish I’d learned some of this when I was younger, but I’m thankful to know. I’m going to read some books and learn about the ancient history of Baghdad.”
He also plans to get to know his half brother better. Phil has visited his brother and his family at their home in upper Manhattan. His brother’s family will also be attending Phil’s grandsons first birthday.
Phil’s daughter Katie is still amazed that the mystery of her family’s ancestry is solved.
“It was truly an incredible experience and would not have happen without 23andme,” she said.

Who Would Believe It?

Adding more credence to the saying that “birds of a feather flock together” a new study published this week found that friends are as genetically similar as fourth cousins.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/02122014_ValentinesDayPost_4-522x1024.jpg" alt="02122014_ValentinesDayPost_4" class="alignright wp-image-20325" width="300" height="589" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/02122014_ValentinesDayPost_4-522x1024.jpg 522w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/02122014_ValentinesDayPost_4-153x300.jpg 153w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/02122014_ValentinesDayPost_4-768x1507.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/02122014_ValentinesDayPost_4-448x880.jpg 448w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/02122014_ValentinesDayPost_4-601x1180.jpg 601w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/02122014_ValentinesDayPost_4.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />The findings in the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/07/10/1400825111" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a> by researchers at U.C. San Diego and Yale found that friends are more alike genetically than strangers. The study, which looked at about 2,000 adult friends, adds to a growing body of data indicating that people tend to bond with those with whom they are more alike. 
&#8220;The striking thing here is that friends are actually significantly more similar to one 
 another than we were expecting,&#8221; said the paper’s co-author James Fowler in <a href="https://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/07/14/331354227/do-we-choose-our-friends-because-they-share-our-genes?utm_source=npr_email_a_friend&#038;utm_medium=email&#038;utm_content=20140714&#038;utm_campaign=storyshare&#038;utm_term=" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">an NPR story</a> this week.
In February 23andMe scientists Aaron Kleinman and Emma Pierson <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/23andme-couples-correlated/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">looked at correlations</a> between more than 15,000 couples to find that men and women with children tend to be more alike than they are different. And in May, scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder <a href="http://www.dailycamera.com/science_environment/ci_25793224/people-more-likely-marry-others-similar-genetics-cu?utm_medium=referral&#038;utm_source=t.co" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">made similar findings</a> among married couples in a study that looked at almost 1,000 people.
Beyond torpedoing the notion that opposites attract, the studies may point researchers into looking at the evolutionary reasons why humans not just mate with those with whom they share genetic similarities but also why they join social groups with individuals with whom they are a like.

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