This interview is part of an occasional series of profiles introducing you to the people behind 23andMe’s compelling research. Meghan Mullins, a research assistant, previously did work on obesity and diabetes among the Pima Indians in Arizona. Here at 23andMe, Meghan works with our cancer and Parkinson’s research initiatives. She also ensures that the research we do adheres to ethical guidelines. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20735" alt="Meghan Mullins photo" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Meghan-Mullins-photo-200x300.jpg" width="200" height="300" /> 
“People are excited about the research we’re doing because we’re making it so accessible.”
<h6>What were you researching before you came to 23andMe?</h6>

Before I started working at 23andMe, I spent two years with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, a division of the National Institutes of Health. I worked in the genetics lab studying obesity and diabetes in Pima Indians.
<h6>What’s your job at 23andMe?</h6>

I’m a Research Assistant at 23andMe, so I work on our research initiatives for Parkinson’s and cancer where we study the associations between genetics and disease. I also create protocols for our studies and work with our Institutional Review Board to protect the rights of research participants. And I helped spearhead the recruiting efforts for our <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/23andmes-african-ancestry-project/">African Ancestry project</a>.
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 200px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">Meghan Mullins, Research Assistant 
Originally from: Norman, OK 
Education: 
BA: Human Biology from Stanford</div>
<h6>Why are you excited about genetics?</h6>

I accidentally ended up in genetics, but I really enjoy it. Because it’s a relatively new field in biology, the pace of research is very fast.
For example, the most comprehensive genetic research to date has been on people of European descent. We don’t really know how that applies to people with other ethnic backgrounds because the research hasn’t been repeated to include them. That’s why I’m excited about what 23andMe did with our <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/news/announcements/roots-into-the-future/">Roots Into the Future project</a>, a research initiative addressing the African American community. We’re closing the gap to include more people with African descent in genetic research, and we’re generating knowledge that will help people with more diverse backgrounds in the future.
<h6>Tell us about a recent breakthrough in genetics research that you think will have a big impact on the industry. 
</h6>
I’m interested in a recent <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2813%2961939-X/fulltext">European study</a> about gene therapy for Parkinson’s Disease. They’re testing a new gene therapy and while very preliminary, results have shown that patients were able to come off of dopamine replacement medications without the temporal flux of other Parkinson’s drugs.
<h6>What&#8217;s one thing the average consumer should know about genetics?<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20711" alt="SocialPosts_Spotlight" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-300x300.jpg" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> 
</h6>
It’s something that most people know, but have a hard time applying: who you are is a function of your genetics and your environment. When people see the results of genetic tests, they often forget about the environmental factors like where and how you live. It’s really all these elements coming together that make you who you are.
<h6>What interesting thing have you learned about yourself from being genotyped? 
</h6>
I have a tiny percentage of sub-Saharan African DNA, which could be from my Cherokee background. I also learned that I carry the “redhead gene” &#8211; and while I currently live my life with red hair, it’s naturally brown.
In general, my 23andMe results inspired me to commit to more regular exercise given how much risk that contributes to any given condition. In fact, I have been running regularly and was able to lower my cholesterol by about 30 percent.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

23andMe Researcher Meghan Mullins

Anyone with a brother or sister doesn’t need a national holiday to remind them how special bonds between siblings can be, but in recognition of<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siblings_Day"> National Sibling Day</a> we bring you another in a long list of stories of siblings who found each other through 23andMe.


Tricia had a few details, but never enough to find her father.
John and Charlene, her brother and sister, never knew Tricia even existed. Apparently neither did their dad. It wasn’t until Tricia tested with 23andMe that they found each other and learned that they were all related.
<div id="attachment_20717" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20717" class="size-medium wp-image-20717" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Siblings-on-dads-bench-selfie-300x232.jpg" alt="Trish, center, and her brother John and sister Charlene." height="232" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Siblings-on-dads-bench-selfie-300x232.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Siblings-on-dads-bench-selfie.jpg 574w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Trish, center, and her brother John and sister Charlene.</div>
Tricia first started searching for information about her biological parents more than a decade ago. With the help of her adopted brother, Tricia had tracked down the name of her biological mother, who’d passed away.
She was also able to find the town where her mother had lived, even the old school she attended. When she visited the old school building she saw for the first time a photo of her biological mother hanging on the wall. It was a striking moment for her to see some of herself reflected in the face of a person she’d never met.
“That was a kick in the pants,” Tricia said. “To see her face and that ‘Oh yeah, I got all things from her.’”
Later she tracked down her biological mother’s sister, who helped her cobble together a few more details around her birth. Her aunt told her that her parents were college students, when she was conceived. Her mom at Oregon State University, and her dad was a basketball star at a nearby college.
“In my head I thought maybe it was one of those spring break flings,” Tricia said.
According to her aunt, once the family learned of the pregnancy they took her mom out of school. The family moved to another town, and Tricia was put up for adoption and given to a new family on Christmas Day in 1957 a few days after her birth.
Those were all details Tricia had never had before. She learned a little about her mother, saw some more photos and learned that she had Irish and Norwegian ancestry.

<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
More Stories About Siblings
&#8211; <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-20609 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg" alt="Mike &#038; Leslie smiling" height="219" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling.jpg 697w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
&#8211; <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-18559 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/RN4_9696-300x199.jpg" alt="Stacy Arena and Greta Creech" height="199" width="300" />
&#8211; <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-20438 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen-300x206.jpg" alt="Cy &#038; Kathleen" height="206" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen-300x206.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen.jpg 648w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
<a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-20723 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square-300x300.jpg" alt="tile01-neil_Jolie-square" height="300" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square.jpg 460w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />&#8211; </a><a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/stories-from-23andme-neil-schwartzman/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> 
Hey Bro&#8217;
&nbsp;
</a><a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square.jpg"></a>
</div>

But in all those details there was nothing about her father. And she left it at that, until she tested with 23andMe in late 2013.
Tricia said she signed up for 23andMe to find out a little bit more about where in Europe her ancestors came from.


“I was tickled to find out how much Cro-magnon (Neanderthal) I was,” she said.


But a match with a first cousin named Randy was a total surprise, she said.
“I did not expect that,” Tricia said.


She and Randy began exchanging messages and Tricia’s surprises kept coming. He wanted to figure out how they were related and began asking her about her background. Tricia told him what little she knew. A few of those details stuck out, basketball, a small college town in Oregon and the date of her birth. Randy connected the dots.


“I think my Uncle Ralph was your dad,” he said.


Tricia was stunned. Randy explained that his uncle had died a few years ago, but he added a happy surprise.
Ralph had two children, a son and a daughter. Tricia had a brother and a sister.
She didn’t know what to say.
In Texas, a woman Tricia had never met soon got a surprise of her own. When Charlene’s cousin Randy called, he started the conversation by asking if she was sitting down.
“My first thought naturally was, “Who died?” Charlene said.


Randy quickly explained that he’d tested with 23andMe, gave her a short description of DNA testing for ancestry and said he told Charlene that when he tested he’d connected not just to third and fourth cousins but to a single first cousin, who he didn’t know. He tried to explain how overlapping genetic segments are used to calculate “relatedness.” That the closer a relation the longer the overlapping segments. Charlene wasn’t following all of what he was saying until he got to the punch line.
You’ve got an older sister Charlene, he told her.
She said she was thankful that she was sitting down.
Charlene then talked to her brother. Randy helped connect them to Tricia and after exchanging messages, photos and family details, it was clear that they were indeed siblings.
“I’d always wanted a sister,” Charlene said.


Around Christmas time 2013 Tricia flew to San Diego where her half brother lived and her biological father was buried. She met him and Charlene. They spent the holidays together. They visited their father’s grave. They bonded. They learned of some uncanny shared family traits – an interest in painting, the sea and oddly dragonflies.
For Tricia the connection to family couldn’t have happened at a better time. Over the last few years she’d endured some difficult health problems and a divorce.
Now she feels blessed and finds herself, &#8220;smiling like a Cheshire cat all day long.&#8221;
She recently spent a week in Texas with Charlene and her family.


“Life is good thanks to 23andMe,” she said.
23andMe provides genetic testing services for informational purposes; your results may or may not help you to search for or identify relatives or family members.

A Siblings Story From 23andMe

23andMe mapped geographic patterns for more than 1,500 traits using aggregated and anonymous customer data to produce regional traits that constitutes an American tapestries of everything from personality to food preferences.


The data, compiled by researcher Emma Pierson, show that there are statistically significant regional differences that go beyond<a href="https://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/the_reckoning/2012/10/ElectoralOct23.gif.CROP.original-original.gif"> red states and blue states</a> or whether you call a soft drink a<a href="http://www.popvssoda.com/"> “soda” or a “pop.”</a>
Eating habits show statistically significant discrepancies by region, for example:
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_20760" style="width: 650px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20760" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/How-Often-Do-You-Consume2-640x460.jpg" alt="All visualizations in this post can be viewed here. Note the maps appear all black, but if you roll over the image, the states and percentages will appear." class="size-large wp-image-20760" width="640" height="460" />All visualizations in this post can be viewed <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/emmap1/visualizations/melting_pot.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>. Note the maps appear all black, but if you roll over the image, the states and percentages will appear.</div>

And, somewhat unsurprisingly, the states where people eat the most fast food are also the states where they exercise the least. Dog owners and cat owners also favor different states. That’s probably a good thing.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-20694" alt="Fast Food:Pets" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Fast-FoodPets-700x496.jpg" width="700" height="496" />
Illnesses also show regional differences. People catch more colds in the northern states, particularly the northeast, while people appear to get frizzy hair in humidity more often in the East.  <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/emmap1/visualizations/map_subset/iqb.poison_oak_map_2.html">Rashes from poison oak, ivy, and sumac</a> are most common where the plants are common. <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/emmap1/visualizations/map_subset/iqb.kidney_infection_map_2.html">Kidney infections</a> are more common in the South. People who report that they <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/emmap1/visualizations/map_subset/modtosevere_altitude_sickness_map_2.html">suffered from altitude sickness</a> tend to favor the flatter Great Plains states, and coastal states like California and Hawaii.

Emma also found regional differences in the prevalence of certain genetic variants. This is likely tied to the concentration of people with similar ancestry in certain states.
For example, genetic variants in the GBA gene that cause Parkinson’s and Gaucher disease are most often found in people of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Concentrations of people with these variants are found in the Northeast where some of the highest concentrations of people with Ashkenazi ancestry live. Other genetic traits common in people with Ashkenazi ancestry, like lactose intolerance, also peak in the Northeast.
G6PD mutations, which can cause anemia and are more common in people of African ancestry, peak in states with large African populations.

While these maps highlight regional differences, they also speak to what unifies us. In some traits, especially personality traits, it’s very hard to pick out a regional pattern.
Emma, who also has a blog about statistics called <a href="http://obsessionwithregression.blogspot.com/">Obsession with Regression</a>, then looked at how traits correlated with how people moved from place to place.


For instance, she found that – as essayist Joan Didion said 50 years ago about New York City being “for the very young” – young people tend to flock to Gotham.
Inspired by <a href="http://hint.fm/wind/">this wind map</a>, she produced maps that track rivers of movement of people. These lines follow the path of older Americans migrating from New York to Florida, and in general out of the northeast and to the south and to California. The line means that customers who move from New York to Florida are older than those who move from Florida to New York.  The redder the line, the bigger the difference and the thicker the line, the more people moving.


The maps also track Latinos moving out of California and Florida and into other parts of the country, as well as showing people with <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/emmap1/visualizations/flow_arrow_maps/maps/flow_arrows_ashkenazi.html">Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry</a> moving out from the Northeast.
The maps also track the many different types of people moving either to the Northeast or California, regions that attract <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/emmap1/visualizations/flow_arrow_maps/maps/flow_arrows_completed_college.html">college graduates</a>, <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/emmap1/visualizations/flow_arrow_maps/maps/flow_arrows_income.html">people with higher incomes</a>, <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/emmap1/visualizations/flow_arrow_maps/maps/flow_arrows_klein_sexual_attraction_qt.html">people attracted to those of the same sex</a>, and the <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/emmap1/visualizations/flow_arrow_maps/maps/flow_arrows_iqb.self_rated_attractiveness.html">physically attractive</a>. E
mma was even able to see <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/emmap1/visualizations/flow_arrow_maps/maps/flow_arrows_iqb.political_views.html">political conservatives</a> migrating out of the Northeast to places like Texas, Arizona and Florida.
While these are fun bits of seemingly random bits of data, they also have the potential to shed some light into other parts of 23andMe’s research.
We ask our customer any number of things from the odd &#8212; like whether they can do a cartwheel or curl their tongue &#8212; to more serious questions about reactions to medication and whether they have had cancer. Taken together this data will help our researchers gain insight into both the genetic and non-genetic influences on various diseases and conditions.

23andMe Looks At Regional Traits

This interview is part of an occasional series of profiles introducing you to the people behind 23andMe’s compelling research. Early in her career, Joanna Mountain, 23andMe’s Senior Director of Research studied the language and genetic diversity in Kenya. At 23andMe, Joanna still studies the genetic diversity of Africa, most recently as part of our African Ancestry projects, but she also spends time investigating how people react to their genetic results.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-20615 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/joanna-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/joanna-200x300.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/joanna.jpg 341w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> 
“Each tiny segment of the genome has a history.”
What are you working on at 23andMe?
One of my current areas of interest is learning more about how having access to genetic test results impacts people’s lives. We wanted to know how customers reacted to their genetic risk for breast cancer, for example, and what we found is that the test results prompted people to take positive steps, including talking to their doctors and discussing the results with family members.
We’re currently looking at similar research in people with genetic risk of venous thromboembolism.
Our team is also researching genetic factors that influence how people respond to medications. Preliminary findings show that people report a very short list of side effects to a variety of drugs, with the most common being hives and stomach pain. My colleague, David Hinds presented on the topic of opioid-induced vomiting at last year’s American Society of Human Genetics meeting in Boston and we expect to publish further research this year.
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 200px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">Joanna Mountain, Senior Director of Research 
Originally from: 
 Fanborough, Hampshire, England 
Education: 
BS in Mathematical Sciences, Stanford 
PhD in Genetics, Stanford 
Post Doc, University of California, Berkeley 
Fun fact: 
Joanna played on Stanford’s women’s soccer team when it was a club level sport. Now she plays on 23andMe’s soccer team, Unzipped Genes.</div>
How does your research in Africa apply to your work at 23andMe?
I am very interested in the great depth of genetic diversity in African populations. Because our species has lived in Africa for so long, it impacts our ability to tell African Americans where their ancestors are from. Many African Americans hit a brick wall when they start researching their genealogy, but where there aren’t paper records, we hope genetics will be able to fill in the gaps.
Why are you excited about genetics?
I was first studying applied math, and there’s a lot of math in population genetics. Being able to predict what will happen over the course of generations is a cool application of math, and I was initially drawn to that.
Tell us about a recent breakthrough in genetics research that you think will have a big impact.
Today, huge numbers of people are participating in genetic research. By providing researchers with information about your health and ancestry, we can do so much. We’re getting closer to understanding human prehistory and the genetic factors and history of disease, for example. 23andMe’s customers contribute to that, and future generations will benefit in the long run.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20711" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-300x300.jpg" alt="SocialPosts_Spotlight" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
What&#8217;s one thing the average person should know about genetics?
Each tiny segment of the genome has a history. And every section that we compare can be traced back to your ancestors. When 23andMe calculates your Ancestry Composition, that’s a valuable concept. What we’re really trying to do is pick out the history of each segment to show to which regions you’re most closely connected.
 
What interesting thing have you learned about yourself from being tested?
I really enjoyed comparing my children to their grandparents using 23andMe. My mother and mother-in-law have both been tested and therefore we can trace from all four grandparents to our sons’ DNA to see exactly where their blue eyes come from. More importantly, it connects my sons to people who are important to their lives, but they never had the opportunity to meet.

A Conversation With 23andMe’s Joanna Mountain

The 23andMe<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-17706" alt="pd-graphic" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pd-graphic-300x300.jpg" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pd-graphic-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pd-graphic-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pd-graphic-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pd-graphic-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pd-graphic.jpg 400w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />more severe non-motor symptoms.
These studies, which will be published later this year, were made possible by the participation of the now more than 10,000 people in 23andMe’s Parkinson’s Research Community, the world’s largest cohort of genotyped Parkinson’s patients. Our work has also received vital assistance from 23andMe’s partnerships with organizations like The Michael J. Fox Foundation, The Parkinson’s Institute, and the Cleveland Clinic.
<h6>Differences in Symptom Severity</h6>
In our recent study, 23andMe’s researchers studied the symptoms of thousands of Parkinson’s patients of European descent. We found differences in symptom severity between different groups:
&#8211; Patients with a mutation in the LRRK2 gene had less severe motor symptoms. 
&#8211; Patients with a higher body mass index (BMI) experienced more severe symptoms. 
&#8211; Women had less severe motor symptoms but more severe non-motor symptoms.
We also found factors that were associated with earlier age of Parkinson’s onset, which may be of potential relevance to clinicians deciding when to screen for the disease. Patients who carried a GBA gene mutation, patients not of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and patients with higher BMIs tended to have earlier ages of onset.
Our researchers also confirmed previous studies that showed that both smoking and caffeine consumption was associated with a lower risk for Parkinson’s. (We do not suggest anyone take up smoking.)
<h6>Much to Learn</h6>
Such information on the onset and symptomology of different populations could benefit both patients and their doctors. It could give both an idea of what to expect, and what&#8217;s needed in building a treatment plan.
We still have much to learn about this disease. For instance, the relationship between genes and environment in causing Parkinson’s. We also want to know how the disease develops differently in different people. And we want to know the role genetics plays in influencing how patients respond differently to different treatments. Participants in the 23andMe Parkinson’s Research Community continue to help researchers make strides toward a greater understanding of Parkinson&#8217;s. We hope it will also lead to new treatments for Parkinson’s disease.
<a href="https://www.23andme.com/pd/?utm_source=23andMeBlog&#038;utm_medium=2014Aprilblog&#038;utm_campaign=PDUpdate">Learn more</a> about how you can become part of the genetics revolution underway in Parkinson’s.

Parkinson’s Symptoms Different For Men and Women

This is the first in an occasional series of profiles introducing you to the people behind 23andMe’s compelling research. Katie Huber is a scientist who spent years studying infectious diseases, like typhoid and anthrax. Here at 23andMe, she has the much less scary task of ensuring that our customers who participate in research are properly informed and that the research itself abides by ethical guidelines.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-20678" alt="katie" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/katie.jpg" width="300" height="400" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/katie.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/katie-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“If it kills people and is exotic, I’ve worked with it.”
<h6>
</h6>
<h6>What were you researching before you came to 23andMe?</h6>
Before I came to 23andMe I worked as a contractor for the US Navy studying anthrax. I also helped design typhoid vaccines in the Centers for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at Arizona State University with Roy Curtiss III.
My claim to fame is that our typhoid vaccine flew on the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2011. Because earlier studies had shown that spaceflight triggers a wide range of virulence behaviors in Salmonella, we wanted to look at how the vaccine bacteria behaved under the same circumstances.   Would they be able to act as aggressively or would they have trouble turning on certain genes?   It was really a way to get at what happens in the low fluid shear environment of the intestine &#8211; there are a surprising number of similarities between the environment inside your intestinal tract and the weightless environment of space.   The group at ASU is still analyzing the data from this experiment.
<h6> 
Why are you excited about human genetics?</h6>
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 200px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">Katie Huber, Scientist 
Originally from: Stroudsburg, PA 
Education: 
BS: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Penn State 
PhD: Microbiology from Ohio State 
Post Doc: Arizona State University</div>
Genetics is just one component of human health and disease; a topic I’ve always found fascinating. During my time with the Navy, we were studying soldiers that had been repeatedly vaccinated against anthrax. Typhoid was a real puzzle since the disease only infects humans.   We had to be really creative with our experiments to figure out how the vaccines would behave in humans without actually vaccinating anybody!   We ended up collecting a lot of blood samples and watching what white blood cells did when they met the bacteria.   In my experience, the people who participated in the research always wanted to know what happened with their experiment &#8212; did it work? What did we learn? Did their cells fight off the disease, or did they get sick? Most of the time, we weren’t allowed to share those results with the participants.
Working at 23andMe is a big switch.   We’re all about letting research participants (you) see what happened.   New research discoveries show up in the blog or on the website so you can see what we’ve found.   You can see first-hand the results of your experiment and how you fit in the big picture.   We’re making progress and you can watch it take place.
<h6>What’s your job at 23andMe?<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20711" alt="SocialPosts_Spotlight" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-300x300.jpg" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SocialPosts_Spotlight.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></h6>
I’m the human rights person who works with the Institutional Review Board (IRB).   What that really means is that I’m the one who makes sure that our research obeys all the rules and regulations and who watches out for the rights of the people in our research studies.   It is really exciting to see the amount of goodwill the 23andMe studies generate. People really want to participate in our research because they feel like they are an important part of the project.   And that’s absolutely true.   We are using the results of everyone’s experiences and genetics to find new risk factors for diseases and discover what makes some treatments work only for a subset of individuals with a disease.
<h6>Tell us about a recent breakthrough in genetics research that you think will have a big impact. </h6>
The breakthrough I’m thinking of is not technically in human genetics. It’s in the field of bacterial genomics &#8211; specifically microbiomics. There’s research happening now looking to see how the community of bacteria that live in your intestine interact with each other and with you and what the health consequences of these interactions are.   I’m really excited to see how personal genomics intersects with this kind of research.   Is it possible that your DNA biases you towards certain microbial companions?   Is it really just a chance that some people end up with bacteria that cause diseases like ulcerative colitis and others get bacteria that protect them from getting food poisoning no matter what they eat?   I think in the future, the combination of these two sciences will be able to explain so much about how your body works.
<h6>What&#8217;s one thing the average person should know about genetics?</h6>
Genetics is complicated.   Only a very small percentage of diseases are 100 percent genetically predetermined &#8212; that’s a tiny group. Everything else is some shade of grey, influenced by your genes, your family history of disease and environmental factors. What this means for the average person is that your genes are not your destiny.   They are only one piece of the puzzle.
<h6>What interesting thing have you learned about yourself from being genotyped?</h6>
Two interesting things came from my 23andMe test:
First, I learned that I’m lactose intolerant. This was a shocking result because my very favorite food is and always has been cheese &#8212; it’s something I eat every day. I’m a big fan of other dairy products as well and had never noticed any symptoms of lactose intolerance.   It was only as I was discussing my results with my mom that I learned that I’d had all kinds of problems with dairy as a child. My curiosity was sparked by this result and got me started researching lactose intolerance and how your diet and intestinal microbes can compensate for this genetic defect.
Second, I had a surprise in my Ancestry.   Both sides of my family are very interested in genealogy and have spent a fair amount of time tracking down where various ancestors lived and came from, so I was pretty sure I knew which countries were going to show up in my countries of origin.   What no one expected was the small percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage on my dad’s side of the family.   We still have no idea where that came from, but it has piqued my interest in our family’s history.   I think the genealogy torch has just been passed to my generation.
&nbsp;

23andMe Researcher Katie Huber

Here at 23andMe we have an interest in all things Neanderthal, so when none other than Svante Paabo authored the book Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes we had to check it out.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20650" alt="Svante book cover" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Svante-book-cover-197x300.jpg" width="197" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Svante-book-cover-197x300.jpg 197w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Svante-book-cover.jpg 365w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px" />


Professor Paabo, the director of evolutionary genetics at the<a href="http://www.mpg.de/eva-en?section=eb-evb-g"> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology</a> in Leipzig, Germany, was the first to decode the Neanderthal genome.
This book is the story of that Herculean effort.
Extracting ancient DNA isn’t as easy as they make it sound in Jurassic Park. Much of the book details the painstaking trial and error it took to figure out how to do so. Simply extracting the requisite amount of DNA from bones tens of thousands of years old often requires more than one bone sample. Finding samples of bones can take delicate negotiations with old guard museum curators or political hacks. And then there are the perennial problems of contamination, making getting an accurate sequence very difficult. Paabo’s feat was anything but easy.
If Paabo weren’t such a good storyteller, the book might have bogged down with descriptions of things like the different techniques of polymerase chain reaction, and all it takes to build a clean lab. But he’s a clever enough writer to to keep the reader’s attention with a fast-paced story and wonderful details.
<div id="attachment_20651" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20651" class="size-medium wp-image-20651" alt="Max Planck Forscher Prof. Dr.Svante PÃ¤Ã¤bo entschlÃ¼sselt Neandertaler-Genom" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Image12-300x209.jpg" width="300" height="209" />Svante Paabo with a reconstructed Neandertal skull. (Copyright: Frank Vinken)</div>
One of the many great details is an odd scene played out at the Natural History Museum in London. While there looking for possible sources of ancient DNA, Paabo was utterly astonished to watch a curator lick an old bone to determine whether it had been coated in some kind of preservative or not. Paabo, who’d been in the midst of his struggle to overcome contamination in ancient samples, stared in disbelief and wondered how many other bones in the collection had been “checked” in this way.


For us here at 23andMe, we paid particular attention to another short scene Paabo describes at Cold Spring Harbor, involving one of our scientists.
It happened just days after Paabo’s groundbreaking announcement of the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2010.
After he gave his talk, he described listening with complete delight to Cory McLean, then a doctorate student at Stanford and now a senior computational biologist at 23andMe, report on his work comparing human and ape genomes, looking specifically for regions where humans differed from other apes. Although the Neanderthal sequence had been published just days before, Cory had also included the Neanderthal genome in his analysis. Knowing the Neanderthal genome sequence in those regions helped to identify genome differences unique to modern humans versus those we share with Neanderthals.
<div id="attachment_20654" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20654" class="size-medium wp-image-20654" alt="(Copyright: Johannes Krause, Neandertal group by Atelier Daynes, Paris, France. In: Museum of the Krapina Neanderthals, Krapina, Croatia. Project and realization of the Museum: Zeljko Kovacic and Jakov Radovcic.)" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Image21-300x199.jpg" width="300" height="199" />Copyright: Johannes Krause, Neandertal group by Atelier Daynes, Paris, France. In: Museum of the Krapina Neanderthals, Krapina, Croatia. Project and realization of the Museum: Zeljko Kovacic and Jakov Radovcic.</div>
“I was so emotional about what (Cory) had done that I had to stop myself from hugging him,” Paabo said. “As far as I know he was the first person who had put our genome to use in his research.”


The publication of the Neanderthal sequence is, as University of Wisconsin-Madison paleontologist John Hawks said, “an immense gift to humanity.”
This is because it allows us to see the story of the evolution of modern humans.


“The Neanderthal genome gives us a picture of ourselves, from the outside looking in,” Hawks said. “We can see, and now learn about the essential genetic changes that make us human – the things that made our emergence as a global species possible.”

A Gift To Humanity

Leslie grew up with a family secret – somewhere out there she had a big brother named Michael, her father’s illegitimate son from before he married her mother.
<div id="attachment_20604" style="width: 300px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20604" class="size-medium wp-image-20604" alt="John Lesley Scott, Jr." src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/John-Leslie-Scott-copy-290x300.jpg" width="290" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/John-Leslie-Scott-copy-290x300.jpg 290w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/John-Leslie-Scott-copy.jpg 697w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px" />John Lesley Scott, Jr.</div>
As a child, Leslie made this mysterious brother her imaginary friend. And as she grew older, she became determined that one day, she would find Michael.
Meanwhile, in another part of the country, Michael had struggles of his own.
The man he thought was his father left the family when he was still a baby and married a woman he was having an affair with. Michael grew up fatherless and wondering why.
He had his doubts about the man he thought was his biological father. Then in the early 1990s, as the man he thought was his dad lay dying of cancer, Michael asked him if he was really his father. He didn’t know, so Michael asked him to take a DNA test, even though it upset many people in his family. Michael said he had to know whether the man who left him and his mother, was really his father. It turned out he wasn’t.
“I was glad to know,” he said, “but it left unanswered the question of who was.”
<h6>
Searching for Scotty</h6>

It took years of search by both Michael and Leslie and some help from 23andMe to finally answer those questions.
Back when he first learned the man he thought was his father, wasn’t, Michael went to his mother for answers, but she was little help and even tried to stop him from looking. Although Michael had a name on his birth certificate – the surname Scott – his mother had told him that it was just a friend named “Scotty.”
He took what she said at face value, but in retrospect, Michael admits it was obvious she was hiding the truth.
“People don’t casually put their names on birth certificates.”


Michael tried everything to figure out the mystery, but at some point, he said he gave up. He thought he might simply have to accept that he might never find his father.

“I wasn’t at peace with it, but I sort of had to come to terms with it,” he says.

<h6>Houston</h6>

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Michael someone was looking for him.
Leslie was hard at work. She’d found a birth certificate, which gave her a name – Michael Scott – and a birthplace – Houston, Texas.
So tried calling all the Michael Scotts in the phone book. She hired private investigators but got no leads. When she heard about 23andMe, she decided to take a chance.
“I knew it was a long shot, but I was just hoping that he was in the system,” she says.


He wasn’t.
So Leslie finally confronted her father as he lay dying after a car accident.


“I told him what I knew,” she said.
Her father didn’t remember his illegitimate son’s birth date, but he knew Michael’s mother’s last name.
She also learned that her father had only been 23 when he had the affair with Michael’s mother, then a woman of 43. At the time, he said he’d promised her that he would “stay out of their lives,” so he never tried to find his son.
Armed with a name, Leslie then decided to search for Michael’s mother instead. What she found was her obituary. Among the survivors, it listed a Michael Dougan living in Seattle, Washington.
That was her brother she thought.
“I almost threw up,” Leslie said.

<h6>
Like A Freight Train</h6>

It turned out he was an illustrator, and she was able to find a phone number online. She didn’t wait, calling him right then and there.


“I should have tried to calm down a little,” she says, “but I was like a freight train, out of control.”

&nbsp;

There was no answer, so she left a breathless message.<iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="450" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/139432651&#038;auto_play=false&#038;hide_related=false&#038;visual=true" frameborder="no" scrolling="no"></iframe>
Michael had heard the phone ring, and didn’t pick up, but when he listened to the message and heard the words “John Lesly Scott,” the name on his birth certificate, his heart skipped a beat. He rushed to pick up.
“I went to grab the phone, and I’m trying to figure out how to answer it, and then the call gets cut off,” he said.


For an agonizing five minutes, he tried to figure out and then realized he could use automatic redial to call back.
Leslie picked up the line.
“I was shaking,” Leslie said. “We spoke for probably three hours.”

<h6>
Missing Pages</h6>

There was no doubt in her mind that she’d found her long lost brother.
But Michael was more skeptical.
“She said, ‘you’re my brother.’ And I said, well I think I might not be. I don’t want to get your hopes up because there’s really a chance that we might not be related, and I was always told you were not.’”
To confirm their kinship, they agreed that he should take a DNA test through 23andMe, where Leslie already had tested.
“I thought, at least I’m going to get a chance to prove another negative,” said Michael, who agreed to get tested.
While they waited for the results, Michael and Leslie talked a lot on the phone, they swapped photos and arranged live-video chats.


Leslie saw in Michael’s gestures and expressions her own father. She just knew, she said.
Michael wasn’t so sure.
“No matter how many pictures we showed each other, none of them could provide the smoking gun.”

<h6>Bingo</h6>

Then it was Leslie who started to lose faith.


“I freaked out,” she recalls. “I started crying and went to bed. I thought if this is not right, I’ve destroyed this guy’s life. I just dropped a nuclear bomb in the middle of his life.”


Michael finally got his results.


“And bingo, it was right there,” he said. “I realized this was it, that it doesn’t get any clearer than this.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20609" alt="Mike &#038; Leslie smiling" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg" width="300" height="219" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling.jpg 697w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
It was 2 a.m. He texted Leslie, telling her to get up and go to the computer. They talked until 5 a.m.


“It’s like finding the other half of me,” Leslie says on reflection. “We have so much that makes us connect.”


He likes spicy food; so does she. He’s an illustrator; she’s artistic. She sings the blues; he plays blues guitar. She’s a chef; he loves to cook. She has olive skin; so does he.
Leslie had found her big brother, and Michael found a sister. They both answered questions that had eaten away at them all their lives.
Michael said up until the moment the connection was confirmed by 23andMe, his search for his father had been like an unfinished mystery novel.
“You get all the way to the end and the last five pages are missing,” he said.
Now he has the ending.


“It’s like finally finding the last five pages of that novel, and feeling, ‘So that’s how it turns out!’”

23andMe Helps Brother And Sister Connect

In the best children’s stories, the parents are done away with early on.
Mom or dad – sometimes both of them – are dead and gone even before the opening “once upon a time.”
<div id="attachment_20441" style="width: 204px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20441" class="size-medium wp-image-20441" alt="Cover of 1915 edition of J. M. Barrie's novel, first published in 1911, illustrated by F. D. Bedford." src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Peter_Pan_1915_cover-194x300.jpg" width="194" height="300" />Cover of 1915 edition of J. M. Barrie&#8217;s novel, first published in 1911, illustrated by F. D. Bedford.</div>
It’s a plot device that helps the reader make an emotional connection with the characters. It also starts the arch of the protagonist’s transformation from, say, a cinder-covered floor washer to a princess, or from puny sorcerer’s apprentice to King, or from a group of lost children into adventurers in Neverland.

<h6>Learning a Secret</h6>

As a successful children’s book editor, “Marcia Brady,” knows all about this storyteller’s tool. She’s even used it before. But what Marcia didn’t know was that the plot of her own life story had just such a twist.
In her early 30s, while Marcia was busy juggling her career and tending her young kids, she learned that the man who raised her wasn’t her biological father.
Her parents had used a sperm donor when they were told they couldn’t conceive on their own.
“I never even suspected it,” she said. “I look more like my dad than anyone else in my family.”
<h6>
 Donor Conceived Children</h6>

Marcia is not alone.
In a modern twist to the search for roots, donor kids like Marcia are turning to 23andMe for answers about their ancestry. For some the reasons to test often have less to do with finding a biological father and more to do with simply learning basic information about ancestry, medical history or finding out about whether they have siblings. They want information about themselves they can&#8217;t find any other way.
In Marcia’s case the revelation that her parents had turned to a donor to conceive, drove what turned into a years-long search into her background and family history. Even before coming to 23andMe, Marcia used the same kind of pluck and drive seen in the best characters of fiction to track down two half-sisters through a donor registry.
<h6>Turning to 23andMe</h6>
They confirmed their sisterhood with a DNA test. Then a few years later, when 23andme opened for business, she got tested.
<div id="attachment_20438" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20438" class="size-medium wp-image-20438" alt="Cynthia Lund, left, and Kathleen LaBounty." src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen-300x206.jpg" width="300" height="206" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen-300x206.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen.jpg 648w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Cynthia Lund, left, and Kathleen LaBounty.</div>
When Marcia’s results arrived, she was shocked to find a match for a half-brother. Because he was six years younger, Marcia assumed he would be the biological child of the donor, which would lead her to the donor’s identity.
“He didn’t log into his inbox on 23andme for three months. Those were the longest three months of my life!” she said. “When he finally saw my letter he replied that same night. It turned out he was another offspring of the donor. He hadn’t known of anyone else in his situation and was really excited to learn more.”
<h6>
 Connecting with Sisters</h6>

They discovered they only lived two hours apart and hit it off from the moment they met. Two years later, a new half-sister joined their 23andme list.
“It’s very exciting!” Marcia says. “I can’t wait to see if anyone else is out there.”
Unlike those great old children’s books, Marcia’s story isn’t fraught with suffering. She loves her father, the man who raised her. In fact, she’s never told him that she now knows that he isn’t her biological father, because she didn’t want to somehow hurt his feelings.
That’s why she wants to remain anonymous.
But still the news that he wasn’t her father changed Marcia’s understanding of who she is and it raised many questions.
Who was her biological father? Would he want to know about his offspring and (ten!) grandchildren? What traits might he have passed onto her that she has in turn passed on to her own children?
She and her newfound half-siblings feel like a family now, although one with a big mystery at the core. A mystery they are determined to solve.
Marcia isn’t alone in trying to fill in the blanks in her family history. Just like adoptees have done before them, the children of parents who used “assisted reproduction” to conceive want to learn more about their biological ancestry.
But this push for more information sometimes pits the desire of the donors to remain anonymous against the rights of their children to know even the most basic facts about their background. 23andMe allows people to contact members with whom they may be related, but keep both parties identities private. It’s up to the individuals whether they want to respond.
This kind of search for ancestry has even woven its way into popular culture.
The plot of 2010’s “The Kids are All Right” and the 2013 comedy “The Delivery Man” revolve around the offspring of donors searching for their biological fathers. Also in 2013 was a documentary on MTV called “Generation Cryo” that followed a teenager’s quest to find her biological father and her half-siblings.
But for many donor kids testing is less about finding a biological father but simply learning basic information about ancestry, medical history or connecting with a biological sister or brother.
<h6>
Finding A Sister</h6>

Cynthia Lund, a 33 year-old massage therapist in Salt Lake City, said that when she signed up for 23andMe in the back of her mind she had the idea of possibly finding her biological father. But for Cynthia, who knew since her 14th birthday that she’d been conceived using a sperm donor, it was also simply a practical decision.
“I had no family health history for one side, and I wanted to know if there was anything I should be concerned about,” Cynthia said.
She subscribed to 23andMe, in part, because she wanted to know about any potential health risks. In the back of her mind she wondered if she’d learn something more about who her father was.
Instead, she found her half-sister.
“I was playing with the site’s Relative Finder when I noticed a link to ‘view your close relatives,’” Cynthia said. “There was a disclaimer that said something like ‘are you sure you want to know’ and my heart started racing, of course I want to know.”
It was overwhelming, she said. She was crying and “freaking out.”
“As soon as I composed myself I started typing a message,” she said. “It probably took me an hour. I checked every five minutes for the next several days until I finally heard back.”
It took a little over two weeks before her half-sister saw the message. Then it was her turn to “freak out,” Cynthia said.

“She and her mom freaked out just like me and my mom did,” she said.
She responded to the email and the two women, who are about two years apart, finally talked on the phone. They spent several hours sharing their life stories with each other, finding that they had more than just DNA in common, but that they had some similar interests and personality traits. A few weeks later, Cynthia took a flight from her home in Utah to see her newly found sister in San Diego.
“It’s ridiculous how much alike we are,” she said. “We definitely pass for full siblings. We look SO much alike!”
Both Cynthia and her sister were raised as a single child, so finding a sister was both exciting and a little surreal for them both.
Since their first meeting, the two have become very close. They went together to Italy for a 10-day vacation, and they now are visiting each other pretty regularly. Cynthia said they’re either exchanging phone calls, texts or emails almost daily.
“It’s so great having a biological sibling, especially when I hadn’t had that experience for my first 30 years,” she said.
“We’re definitely family! “
While Cynthia is still interested in learning about her donor dad if possible, that’s not something that her half-sister is focused on.
“I don’t want anything from him, I just want to see what he looks like and help me understand family medical history,” she said.
“It’s hard to explain but I only have this half picture of myself. 23andMe is perfect service for anyone like me who has this sort of black hole in their history and wants to know more about themselves.”
<h6>
Still Searching</h6>

Kathleen LaBounty, another donor child searching for information about her biological father, has been searching for years. Oprah and National Public Radio featured her six-year search for her biological roots and her advocacy on behalf of the donor children.
In her Herculean search she’s sent more than 600 letters to prospective fathers, all went to the same medical school in Texas from which donors were used at the fertility clinic her mother used to conceive.
A well-grounded and happy child, Kathleen said that when she was 8 years old her mother told her she’d been conceived with the help of a donor.
The first thing Kathleen did was run downstairs and hug her father, saying she felt so much love for him for making her his own.
The revelation also helped her understand some of the most obvious differences between her and members of her family. She’s short and skinny. They’re tall and burly.
“In family photos I don’t blend in well,” she said.
<h6>
 Family History</h6>

Her search for more information about her ancestry has taken on more import in part because she now has children of her own. She wants to know about her family medical history. Recently she joined 23andMe. She learned that she has Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Raised as an agnostic but one who attended a Baptist school, this was news to her.
Many of her closest matches in 23andMe’s Relative Finder are from Russia. She connected with a third cousin, who lived just ten minutes from her home.
“He looks like Ben Stiller,” she said.
She’s been able to communicate with other distant relatives connected through 23andMe’s DNA Relative tool, which she said has helped her get a better picture of the paternal side of her ancestry.
She’s also recommended 23andMe to others who, like her, we&#8217;re looking for family. Two of those who she recommended the service to, turned out to be half-sisters, she said.
“I would love it if close relatives would eventually submit their DNA and I could connect through 23andMe, but if it never happens that’s OK at least now I know my heritage,” Kathleen said.

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