<div id="attachment_23961" style="width: 250px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23961" class="wp-image-23961 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/esteban-gonzalez-burchard-240x300.jpg" alt="esteban-gonzalez-burchard" width="240" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/esteban-gonzalez-burchard-240x300.jpg 240w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/esteban-gonzalez-burchard-768x960.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/esteban-gonzalez-burchard-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/esteban-gonzalez-burchard-704x880.jpg 704w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/esteban-gonzalez-burchard-944x1180.jpg 944w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/esteban-gonzalez-burchard.jpg 1157w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px" />Genetic Ancestry Matters in Precision Medicine Webinar: 1/19/2017 11 am &#8211; 12 pm PT To register go here.</div>
It&#8217;s long been known that disease risk is different among different ethnic groups, and so too is the effectiveness of certain treatments, but we still don’t know exactly why that is.


UCSF medical researcher Esteban Burchard, MD, MPH, has focused his work on solving this puzzle and focusing more genetic research on under-represented Latino and African American communities to achieve that.


For example, his lab is working to identify the risk factors that predispose Latino and African American children and teens to higher risks for asthma. His team is exploring how these new genetic discoveries could lead to improved treatments for the condition.
In a webinar intended for healthcare professionals, educators and academic researchers, Dr. Burchard, will discuss the role of ancestry in advancing socially responsible scientific research to precision medicine in the clinic.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

Genetic Ancestry Matters in Precision Medicine

If you think that opposites attract, you are likely mistaken, or at least that&#8217;s what the science says. Over a hundred years ago, researchers first discovered that couples are actually more alike than <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-17437" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/AfricanAmericanCoupleHeart-200x300.jpg" alt="AfricanAmericanCoupleHeart" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/AfricanAmericanCoupleHeart-200x300.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/AfricanAmericanCoupleHeart.jpg 283w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />they are different.


One of the first things researchers noted was that tall people tend to partner with other tall people. Since then, studies of this phenomena – called &#8220;assortative mating&#8221; – have found strong correlations among couples for almost all traits, including behavior, personality, and disease risk.


There are  a lot of reasons for this. Love is complicated, and figuring out precisely why couples get together is tricky.
But a new study the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-016-0016">Nature Human Behavior</a> has identified genetic evidence for assortative mating, reporting that, at least for one trait, height, there is a strong correlation between the genetic variants that influence height in one partner and the actual height of the other.
In this  study, researchers from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, the University of North Carolina, 23andMe and dozens of other institutions, were able to look specifically at genetic factors by using a new design and analytical approach that allowed for them to carefully control for non-genetic influences. 
Isolating all the different cultural and social influences involved in why people partner up, isn&#8217;t easy, however. We may be attracted to our partners for any number of reasons. For instance, partners might have similar BMIs because people are attracted to individuals with a BMI that resembles their own. Or, they might choose a partner who is culturally similar. Alternatively, their BMIs might converge over time due to shared environment.


To isolate some of those kinds of influences the researchers in this study used data from more than 24,000 couples, including 11,908 from 23andMe, and compared an individual’s genetically-predicted height and BMI to those of their partner. Because genetics are determined at birth, these shouldn’t be correlated if partners become more similar only after meeting each other.
The researchers also controlled for population, to remove the effects of shared cultural background.
They found a strong correlation between people’s genetic predisposition for height and the actual height of their partner. The findings showed that similarity in couples’ heights can be largely explained by people selecting mates who are like them. Tall people, it seems, are attracted to other tall people.
But the findings were not as strong for BMI, where there was a weaker correlation between people’s genetic contributions to BMI and the actual BMI of their partners.
One possible implication of this is that “mate choice” may, in turn, affect the genetic architecture of traits in humans as well. Assortative mating may increase the odds of parents passing on a trait, like height, to their children.


“These results have implications for the interpretation of resemblance between relatives and for estimates of genetic parameters in populations,” the researchers said.
You can find the paper in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-016-0016">Nature</a>.

Genetic evidence of assortative mating in humans

Just before we kick off another year of blogging, it’s worth taking a moment to look back and single out what for us were some of the big stories, breakthroughs or findings in genetics from last year. 
Here is our top five.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-4565 size-full" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/iStock_000004751590XSmall.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" />
<h6>Diversity</h6>
For a very long time, medical research in general has focused largely on people of European ancestry and that is even<a href="https://www.nature.com/news/genomics-is-failing-on-diversity-1.20759"> more apparent with genetic research</a>. Less than five percent of genetic research on disease includes people of African ancestry. In fact most genetic research is focused on people of European ancestry, meaning that we risk missing key scientific discoveries that could benefit people of all ancestries. Last year 23andMe launched two separate efforts meant to help alleviate some of these disparities. Both are NIH-funded studies but they approach the diversity issue in different ways.
Kasia Bryc, a senior scientist and population geneticist at 23andMe, is leading one of the studies that will use<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/news/announcements/23andme-scientists-improving-diversity-in-genetic-research/"> admixture mapping</a> to identify genetic variants associated with disease in under-represented populations. This leverages 23andMe’s existing database, which includes a large number of African Americans and Latinos who have mixed ancestry. The second study is the African American African American Sequencing Project that is being lead by Adam Auton, a 23andMe senior scientist and statistical geneticist. This project will help address health research disparities by creating a genetic resource for health research in African Americans that could improve the understanding of diseases in minority populations.
Gene Editing, Again
This is the third year in a row we’ve singled out the innovative technique for specific bits of DNA, called CRISPR. It is a simple and quick way of snipping out deleterious sections of DNA and stitching in “corrected” sections. This offers huge potential for treating diseases or other deleterious conditions. It has already been used to treat<a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v539/n7629/full/nature20134.html"> sickle cell anemia</a> and<a href="https://www.nature.com/news/chinese-scientists-to-pioneer-first-human-crispr-trial-1.20302"> lung cancer</a>. But CRISP also presents some serious ethical issues about tampering with human DNA, and there are other issues.
For instance, researchers working on treating HIV found that the virus could quickly develop mutations that resist editing. The findings by researchers at McGill University in Montreal were<a href="https://www.nature.com/news/hiv-overcomes-crispr-gene-editing-attack-1.19712"> published back in April.</a> It illustrates the complexity of creating gene therapies with CRISPR. But even with this kind of hurdle, the promise of this technology makes it likely we’ll be hearing more about CRISPR this year.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-22305 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/teardrop-300x234.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="234" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/teardrop-300x234.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/teardrop-768x600.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/teardrop-1024x800.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/teardrop-880x687.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/teardrop-1180x921.jpg 1180w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
<h6>Not Depressing</h6>
Past efforts to study genetics of major depressive disorder all came up short until last year. It turns out that size matters when it comes to the study of depression. Past efforts were limited by numbers. However a “mega analysis” of data from more than 400,000 people  found 17 genetic variants in 15 different genetic regions associated with major depressive disorder.
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/08/01/large-dna-study-using-23andme-data-finds-15-sites-linked-to-depression/?utm_term=.a6c976af27d5"> The study</a>, by scientists from Pfizer, Massachusetts General Hospital and 23andMe identified genes associated with depression and schizophrenia. The study also illustrates the<a href="http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2595522"> power of big data</a>. While identifying genes associated with the condition is useful to better understand the disease and its causes. It also gives researchers studying the biology of the disease clearer paths to follow, but much work is still needed.
<h6>Love and Science </h6>
Our year started with the<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/love-and-science/"> moving story</a> of the married couple, Eric Minikel and Sonia Vallabh.  Together they switched careers to become medical researchers and focus all their energy on the study and treatment for prion disease. It is a rare but devastating and fatal genetic condition. It hits the nervous system, impairs brain function, and causes other neurodegenerative symptoms. It typically manifests itself around the age of 50.
Sonia’s mother died of the disease at 52. Sonia inherited the genetic mutation that puts her at a very high risk for the disease. The couple formed a<a href="http://www.prionalliance.org/"> non-profit</a> focused on the disease. They’ve incorporated data from 23andMe in<a href="http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/8/322/322ra9.full"> their work</a> and their story has been featured in both the<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/insomnia-that-kills/384841/"> Atlantic</a> and the<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-prion-love-story"> New Yorker</a>.
<h6>The Election</h6>
The ascendance of Trump to the U.S. presidency leaves open a lot of questions about the future of government funded research in the US. Not just that even the<a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/waiting-science-adviser"> role of science</a> in setting policy is up in the air. Also unknown is whether the new administration will keep Francis Collins, as director of the NIH. At the helm of the agency since 2009, Collins has helped push the<a href="https://www.nih.gov/research-training/allofus-research-program"> Precision Medicine Initiative</a>, now called “All of Us.” He has deftly navigated the political waters of Washington, but<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2016/12/13/trump-collins-eisen/"> some</a> have publicly pushed for his replacement. Whether he stays or goes, it’s still unknown what if any science initiatives the new administration will champion.

Our Top Five from 2016

The stories all start the same – with a 23andMe kit given at Christmas – but then they follow their own fascinating narratives that are as unique as the customers who share them<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-17056 size-full alignright" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ChristmasTree.jpg" alt="" width="424" height="283" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ChristmasTree.jpg 424w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ChristmasTree-300x200.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 424px) 100vw, 424px" /> with us.
Almost daily we hear from people who’ve learned something new about themselves or their families using 23andMe. Some of the stories are moving or mysterious, others have a lighter touch, but they all carry the weight of someone’s humanity.
With the holiday just around the corner, we wanted to share a few stories with you.
There’s Pat Nosko’s story of finding family.
“It’s the most amazingly beautiful gift I could have ever hoped to give my mother,” said Kelle Scott, who gave her mother Pat a kit at Christmas. Pat, who’d been adopted and knew little about her biological parents, <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/a-most-amazing-gift">found a sister </a>she never knew she had.
It’s was Lenny Scoval’s wife how gave him a kit for Christmas, and he too <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/boy-south-carolina/">found family</a>.
An adoptee, who at 52, connected with seven of the twelve siblings he’d never knew he had.
It was Adam’s partner Steve who gave him a kit as a present. Adam <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/a-list-for-midlife">found biological family</a>, but also found that he could help someone else, someone who like himself had been searching for biological family. Adam probably best summed up what many customers have told of about using 23andMe.
“This entire experience has helped explain why I am the way I am,” he said, “and I am forever grateful.”
Happy Holidays! 
<iframe loading="lazy" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VnujfbhfVNA" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

A tree in the snow in a forest that is lit up like a Christmas tree.

The Gift

Editor’s note: We first wrote about the Christmas Tree genome a few years ago, but it&#8217;s worth another <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-17056" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ChristmasTree-200x200.jpg" alt="Chritstmas Tree" width="200" height="200" />look.  There is some real interesting science around sequencing various conifers, like the <a href="http://www.genetics.org/content/196/3/875">Loblolly pine</a>, the <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130522131039.htm">Norway spruce</a>, and  California sugar pine, which is endangered. While pines only have 12 chromosomes, the genomes of these massive highly evolved cone-bearing trees are huge. Understanding their genetic structure, and how these majestic trees, which have been around for hundreds of millions of years, survived through millennia is important. So we thought it worthwhile to run again for the holidays. Cheers!
If you could just get your Christmas tree to spit into a tube and extract some DNA, you might learn a lot about your holiday decoration.
For starters, you might be able to tell where it originated. Plant genetics, like animal genetics, is influenced by geography. A team of Douglas fir tree researchers, under the direction of Andrew Eckert and David Neale from the University of California, Davis, have discovered <a href="http://www.genetics.org/content/182/4/1289" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">seven genetic markers</a> with frequencies that vary with location across the Pacific Northwest. These markers were found in genes associated with cold-hardiness.
The implication is that northern Douglas fir trees, exposed to blustery winter weather, evolved to be genetically different from their southern-dwelling cousins. Their find, although not surprising, is interesting; science is now beginning to understand exactly how genetic variation leads to the cold-hardy trees of the north.
The real cutting edge of Christmas tree research, however, lies with cut trees and the mess that they make. Anyone with firsthand experience with a fresh-cut Christmas tree knows that shed needles are the price paid for that fresh piney scent. With an ever-earlier start to the Christmas season, needle retention research represents an opportunity; a tree which could retain its needles from Thanksgiving until well past New Year’s would be a commercial hit.
Gary Chastagner of the Washington State University, sometimes referred to as “Mr. Christmas Tree,” is leading a scientific quest for the holy grail of Christmas trees: better needle retention. The $1.3 million dollar project will use RNA sequencing and the “Denmark Needle Retention Scale” (which Chastagner developed with Danish tree scientists) to look for genetic associations.
Mr. Christmas Tree’s undertaking is an ambitious one, but could herald great news for those of us who prefer their pine needles on the Christmas tree and not in the vacuum cleaner. My next request? A tree which grows its own lights.

O Christmas Tree

23andMe again turned to <a href="http://www.arianakilloran.com/about/">Ariana Killoran</a> to complete its newest book, The One And Only Me, which communicates the <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-24606" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/61JsPEOMZvL-260x300.jpg" alt="61jspeomzvl" width="260" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/61JsPEOMZvL-260x300.jpg 260w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/61JsPEOMZvL.jpg 433w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px" />complicated and important science of genetics in a way that kids can understand. This is the second children’s book on genetics by Ariana, an illustrator who has worked with the company since its beginning. 
Her first book for the company, You Share Genes with Me, came out in 2013. Probably best known for her innovative and whimsical <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubq4eu_TDFc">Genetics 101</a> educational videos, Ariana sat down with us recently to discuss her work and the latest book. 


This is your second kids book on genetics. Why do an illustrated children&#8217;s book on this?


For two reasons, really: First, the world of medicine is being transformed by new genetic discoveries and increasing access to personal genetic information, yet there are very few children’s books out there that introduce genetics concepts to young children. I am a huge fan of the nonfiction picture book as a way of engaging kids in science.
Illustration, when paired with clear, concise text, is such a powerful tool for communicating complex information to any audience. And while these days you can learn just about anything online (I made a whole series of Genetics 101 videos for 23andMe a number of years ago), books are still those treasured objects that kids can linger over, immerse themselves in, and discover over and over again.
The other reason is more personal. My older daughter looks nothing like me (seriously, NOTHING like me), and exactly like her father. Ever since she was a baby, people have been unable to resist pointing out this fact to her. So she started asking me questions: Would she look just like Daddy when she grew up? Was she also related to Mommy? Could she be like Mommy in some other ways that she can’t see? Kids have their own questions about genetics and what it means for who they are and who they are going to be.
What was your goal for this book?
<div id="attachment_24605" style="width: 293px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-24605" class="wp-image-24605 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AK-photo1-283x300.jpg" alt="ak-photo1" width="283" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AK-photo1-283x300.jpg 283w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AK-photo1-768x816.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AK-photo1-964x1024.jpg 964w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AK-photo1-829x880.jpg 829w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AK-photo1-1111x1180.jpg 1111w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AK-photo1.jpg 1744w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 283px) 100vw, 283px" />Illustrator Ariana Killoran and some of her traits.</div>
To give kids the tools to answer some of their questions about genetics, and to inspire them to ask more questions and seek out more answers.


Science, and genetic science in particular, are pretty complicated, and yet you are able to communicate these concepts to kids. What&#8217;s your secret? 


I start by respecting kids as the powerful intellects that they are. To young kids, all new information is equal. There isn’t “hard” information and “easy” information. There is just new information and familiar information, information that sparks their interests, and information that doesn’t. Children are naturally curious about the world around them. It is only in high school and thereafter that we self-select into “science” and “nonscience” people. It’s then that some of us decide that we are incapable of learning whole subject areas of information.
Kids don’t have those hang-ups.
There are a zillion stories we could tell about genetics, but we have to pick just one to tell at a time, or else it becomes cluttered and noisy and impedes learning. I drive the scientists I work with crazy by cutting out all this stuff that they want to put into my book texts and video scripts.
All things can’t be equally important to every story, and I want to do the hard work of finding what is important so the reader doesn’t have to. A lot of times when writing about science for kids, adults think the key is to use folksy or cutesy names or metaphors, and sugarcoat the information to make it more palatable. But I find if you really trim down the text so that you say only what you need to say, and then create beautiful illustrations that clearly communicate the same point in a slightly different angle, you create the best conditions for learning.
Humor doesn’t hurt, either, because learning is supposed to be fun. If we give a kid a book that looks like that beloved bedtime story they curl up with every night, we are saying that within it there is  something special.


What interests you the most about genetics?

<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
23andMe&#8217;s Education Program
Ariana&#8217;s book is part of 23andMe&#8217;s broader mission to improve genetic literacy at all levels.
Both books are part of 23andMe’s broader commitment to genetics education that started with its founding and, over the last decade, has included an educational video series with Khan Academy,<a href="https://sslvpn.23andme.com/lessons/,DanaInfo=education.23andme.org,SSL+"> crowdsourced curriculum</a> for high school and college level science classes, webinars, speaking events, outreach activities, student contests, and even contributions to<a href="https://sslvpn.23andme.com/,DanaInfo=unlockinglifescode.org,SSL+explore"> a traveling museum exhibit</a> developed by the Smithsonian and National Institutes of Health.
More recently, the company established an Education Grant Program to inspire educators to create an interactive learning experience for students by integrating personal genetics into their curriculum.</div>
“Making genetics education fun and accessible has been core to our mission since we launched in 2006,” said Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe’s co-founder and CEO. “The mapping of the human genome is the most exciting scientific discovery of our lifetime, but to truly benefit from it we each need to better understand the basics of genetics. We know that there is a lot of work to do to improve genetic literacy and 23andMe will continue our commitment to science education at all levels.”

The limits of genetics are most interesting to me. I want to know more about the way our experiences and the world around us interact with our genetics to make us who we are.
As a parent of young kids, I love watching this phenomenon in action: these little people —— with some familiar looking eyes and ears and a whole bunch of other genetic bits and pieces they inherited from my husband and I —— develop into complex humans as they interact with the world around them.


Looking at your illustrations there’s a certain lightness and humor there. How would you describe your style?
Quirky, playful, at times irreverent. But I care about every character that I draw, and try to breathe some complexity into them. I am respectful of them, and I want to give viewers opportunities to connect with them.


What are the picture books that were your favorites as a kid?


The Babar books, Beatrix Potter books, Bread and Jam for Francis by Russell Hoban/Lillian Hoban, Harlequin and the Gift of Many Colors by Remy Charlip/Burton Supree, and People by Peter Spier.
You studied African history at Yale and Berkeley, how did you wind up becoming an illustrator?


Ha! A valid question. Classic Gemini? My husband used to call me “curveball” because of a particularly nutty email exchange we had while I was doing pre-dissertation research in Malawi. One day I sent him a message about how all the pieces of my project were falling into place, how I had made all these important contacts, how my language skills had progressed, and so forth. Less than 24 hours later, I sent him a message telling him I had decided to turn down my grant, leave grad school, and enroll full-time in art school to become an illustrator. I remember being really irritated when he thought I might be acting impulsively.
But I have never looked back. The truth is, I have wanted to be a book illustrator my entire life. I have never lost my love of children’s books and children’s book art.  I have always drawn, made, sculpted, built, collaged, what have you, but somehow didn’t realize it was a job I could have. Turns out being an illustrator is not only great because I get to draw all the time, but also because it requires that I constantly immerse myself in new subject areas. And, unlike the academic writing I was doing before, my illustrations let me communicate with all kinds of people, and lots of them.


You were with 23andMe at the beginning and have been involved with the company off and on through that whole time. What do you see as the biggest changes in people&#8217;s perception of genetics in that time? What do you think 23andMe&#8217;s role has been in all that?
When we started out ten years ago, the idea of personal genomics was a complete unknown for most people, myself included! The company had a ton of work to do just making people comfortable with the notion that individuals could access their genetic information and use it responsibly. There were a handful of companies on the market at the time, some more reputable and scientifically sound than others, and 23andMe worked hard to gain the trust of both consumers and the scientific community. Ten years later, many people have accepted that genetic data provides the next frontier in personalized medicine, and 23andMe is a trusted part of this change. From the very beginning, 23andMe has taken education very seriously and understood that the company has a responsibility to their customers to make sure they understand what their data is telling them. I think it is that commitment to education and transparency that has helped transform the industry into what it is today.

Genetics Education And The One And Only Me

Some of the dos and don’t of your annual office holiday party should be kind of obvious – don’t hit on your boss and maybe take it easy on the spiked punch – but knowing how your DNA influences how your body responds to alcohol or sweets might help you navigate the pitfalls of this year’s celebrations.
Your genetics influences how you metabolize alcohol, your preference for salty or sweet snacks, and whether your <a href="https://www.23andme.com/topics/wellness/alcohol-flush-reaction">face reddens</a> when you have a little alcohol.
“Lost in the merriment of holiday festivities is how our environment and the decisions we’re making are influenced by our genetics – and the consequence those decisions may have,” said Jeffrey Pollard, and MD and 23andMe’s director of medical affairs. “Most things we eat and drink can be enjoyed in moderation without having a harmful effect as long as you don’t overdo it.”
This year 23andMe dissected how your genetics may influences the ways your body may react to some of the choices you make at this year’s holiday office party.
Enjoy and season’s greetings. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-24897" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Holiday-Season-Survival-Guide-v1_US_hi-res-4.jpg" alt="holiday-season-survival-guide-v1_us_hi-res" width="1000" height="2994" />
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Holiday Party Genetics

Sarah Laskey, 23andMe Product Scientist
The Chromosome Painting is one of my favorite parts of the 23andMe experience because it is packed with information. Then again, it can also be a little intimidating because it shows so much all at once. In this blog post, I’ll walk through some basics of what your Chromosome Painting shows. And I&#8217;ll explain what kinds of stories it can tell you about <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/">your genetic ancestry</a>.
<h6>What is a Chromosome Painting?</h6>
Your Chromosome Painting is another way of looking at your Ancestry Composition results. It shows a colorful representation of the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up your genome. Here is a photo of what real human chromosomes look like under a microscope, side by side with my Chromosome Painting:<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24850 size-larger" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1_karyotype-880x464.png" alt="" width="880" height="464" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1_karyotype-880x464.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1_karyotype-300x158.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1_karyotype-768x405.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1_karyotype-1024x540.png 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1_karyotype-1180x623.png 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1_karyotype.png 1520w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 880px) 100vw, 880px" />
In the microscope photograph on the left, the chromosomes are laid out vertically. In the Chromosome Painting on the right, they’re shown as colorful horizontal bars. In both images, the chromosomes are shown in pairs and labeled with numbers (1 through 22) or the letters X and Y.
My Chromosome Painting has two copies of the X chromosome because I’m female. The picture on the left shows the genome of a biological male, who has one copy of the X chromosome and one copy of the Y chromosome. Y chromosomes aren’t shown in Chromosome Paintings.
In the Chromosome Painting, gray regions in chromosomes 13, 14, 15, 21, and 22 represent parts of the genome where 23andMe doesn’t test any markers because the DNA sequences in those regions are repetitive and hard to measure.
<h6>Exploring your genetic ancestry</h6>
In your Chromosome Painting, your genome is “painted” with colors representing up to 31 different ancestries. You can hover over or click on the different ancestries in your Chromosome Painting to learn where they’re found in your genome.
The 31 Ancestry Composition populations are organized in a hierarchy, which reflects the genetic structure of global populations. For example, Britain and Ireland are part of Northwest Europe, which is part of Europe. To see this hierarchy in action, take a closer look at my Chromosome Painting:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24851 size-larger" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2_painting-880x663.png" alt="" width="880" height="663" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2_painting-880x663.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2_painting-300x226.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2_painting-768x579.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2_painting-1024x771.png 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2_painting-1180x889.png 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2_painting.png 1476w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 880px) 100vw, 880px" />
My Chromosome Painting shows genetic ancestry from several different fine-resolution populations like British &amp; Irish, French &amp; German, and Ashkenazi Jewish. But these are all sub-categories of European. When I click “European” on the right hand sidebar, my whole genome is colored in “European blue”:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24852 size-larger" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/3_european-880x663.png" alt="" width="880" height="663" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/3_european-880x663.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/3_european-300x226.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/3_european-768x579.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/3_european-1024x771.png 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/3_european-1180x889.png 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/3_european.png 1476w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 880px) 100vw, 880px" />
What can you do with your own high-resolution picture of the Ancestry Composition on each of your chromosomes? You can click on the different populations to understand how they relate to each other and where they’re found in your genome. You also can talk to family members (or connect with them on 23andMe) to learn which branches of your family contributed which parts of your genetic ancestry.
<h6>One segment, two segment, red segment, blue segment</h6>
The colors in your Chromosome Painting tell you about your Ancestry Composition, but you can learn even more by looking at the number and length of the DNA segments assigned to each ancestry. Everyone inherits half of their DNA from their mother and half from their father. When DNA is passed from parents to their children, the two chromosomes in each pair are randomly shuffled together in a process called recombination.
This process breaks up long segments of a single ancestry into shorter segments. Sometimes very short segments of ancestry are lost during recombination and don’t get passed to the next generation. This is why ancestry from your distant ancestors only shows up in a few short segments of your genome, if at all.
The technical term for the genetic mixing of previously separate populations is admixture. If you have different DNA segments painted with different colors in your Chromosome Painting, those are evidence of admixture in your genetic history. Take a look at these two Chromosome Paintings side by side:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24853 size-larger" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/4_sarah-antonio-white-880x498.png" alt="" width="880" height="498" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/4_sarah-antonio-white-880x498.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/4_sarah-antonio-white-300x170.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/4_sarah-antonio-white-768x435.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/4_sarah-antonio-white-1024x579.png 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/4_sarah-antonio-white-1180x668.png 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/4_sarah-antonio-white.png 1944w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 880px) 100vw, 880px" />
<h6>Every Chromosome Painting Tells a Story</h6>
These Chromosome Paintings show very different genetic histories, and not just because of their Ancestry Compositions! Even if we ignore the colors themselves, the two pictures are pretty different. The long, unbroken stretches of color on the left are evidence of recent admixture, while the short segments of different ancestries on the right suggest admixture many generations ago.
My Chromosome Painting is the one on the left. I have one grandparent whose family came from Germany, one grandparent whose family came from Ireland, and two Ashkenazi Jewish grandparents. In other words, my ancestors from different European populations just started mixing together in the past two or three generations. The Chromosome painting on the right shows someone who identifies as Latino (Antonio, an Engineer at 23andMe), whose Native American (yellow), African (pink) and European (blue) ancestors probably started mixing with each other many generations ago.
How can you use this information to understand your own Chromosome Painting? In general, if your most recent ancestor from a population was very recent, you will have segments of that ancestry on more chromosomes, and those segments will be longer, than if your most recent ancestor was many generations ago.
<h6>Thanks, Mom and Dad!</h6>
If you have a biological parent or child who is also a 23andMe user, you can connect with them to improve the resolution of your Ancestry Composition results.
Connecting with a parent will also reorganize your Chromosome Painting so that the top chromosome in each pair is the one you inherited from your mother, and the bottom chromosome is the one you inherited from your father.
<h6>Connecting or not with a Parent</h6>
Even if you are not connected with either of your parents through 23andMe, you may still be able to learn a little bit about their ancestry by looking at your own Chromosome Painting:
<ul>
<li>If you are male, you inherited all of the ancestry painted on your X chromosome from your mother.</li>
<li>If you have the same ancestry painted in the same place on both copies of a chromosome, then you inherited the same ancestry from both of your parents in that region of your genome.</li>
<li>If you share a segment of DNA with a <a href="https://you.23andme.com/tools/relatives/">DNA Relative</a>, and you know whether you are connected to that relative on your maternal or your paternal side, then you inherited that segment of DNA (and its ancestry) from the same side of your family through which you’re connected to that relative.</li>
<li>If your parents come from different genetic backgrounds, then you may be able to guess which chromosomes you inherited from which of your parents. You can do this by by looking at the ancestries painted on each chromosome. For technical reasons, this will work even better if you are connected with a parent. That is because our computational algorithm will be able to phase your raw data with more accuracy.</li>
</ul>
<h6>A deeper dive: Confidence levels</h6>
If you’ve mastered the basic details of your Chromosome Painting and you’d like to explore at an even more advanced level, click on “Change confidence level” and move the slider that appears above your Chromosome Painting. You can explore the different views of your Chromosome Painting at different confidence levels. You can also compare those different views to each other.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24854 size-larger" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/5_confidence_1-880x218.png" alt="" width="880" height="218" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/5_confidence_1-880x218.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/5_confidence_1-300x74.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/5_confidence_1-768x190.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/5_confidence_1.png 964w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 880px) 100vw, 880px" />
The algorithm we use to calculate your Ancestry Composition analyzes one small piece of your DNA at a time. For each piece of your DNA, we calculate the probability of that piece coming from 31 different populations. The confidence slider on the Chromosome Painting allows you to explore our estimates of your genetic ancestry at different probability cutoffs. For example, if a segment of your DNA has a 55 percent chance of being Japanese, then that segment will be painted as Japanese at the 50 percent confidence level. But at the 60 to 90 percent level it will be painted with a more broad ancestry (either Broadly East Asian, Broadly East Asian &amp; Native American, or Unassigned).
<h6>Putting it all together</h6>
Everyone’s genetic history is a little different. Every Chromosome Painting has a different story to tell too. This means that you may learn more about your ancestry from some of the suggestions in this blog post than from others. Just remember – like every true work of art, your Chromosome Painting isn’t something to be understood.  It&#8217;s something to be explored.
For a detailed technical explanation of how we calculate your ancestry and paint your chromosomes, check out the <a href="https://www.23andme.com/ancestry-composition-guide/">Ancestry Composition Guide</a>.

Meet Your Chromosome Painting

DNA extracted from bones at a burial site in a rocky valley on a remote island in the South Atlantic could hold important information for those with ancestral roots in Africa.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-1974" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/oldafricamap1508-300x221.png" alt="oldafricamap1508" width="300" height="221" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/oldafricamap1508-300x221.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/oldafricamap1508.png 350w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
A fascinating article in <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/what-dna-reveals-about-st-helena-s-freed-slaves-1.21096?WT.mc_id=SFB_NNEWS_1508_RHBox">Nature</a>, describes work led by <a href="http://snm.ku.dk/english/staffsnm/staff/?pure=en/persons/368359">Hannes Schroeder</a> to make that connection. Schroeder, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen, and his team have extracted genetic material from skeletal remains of some of the thousands of slaves who were freed by the British Navy between 1840 and 1865.
Taken from slave ships on their way to the New World as many as 20,000 people, many of them children, were saved from enslavement in the Americas, but were then unceremoniously deposited on the island of St. Helena. Sick and emaciated from their brutal ordeal many of them died there. The island’s Rupert Valley is the final resting place of more than 8,000 people.

This little known history would have been forgotten altogether if the graves were not found a few years ago during a construction project. The find, and the promise of sequencing the DNA of some of the bones there, offered Schroeder and his team a tantalizing opportunity – a chance to sequence individuals who’d been destined for slavery in the New World but never got there. Their DNA could reveal what written records have failed to track, the specific regions in Africa from where slaves came.
This is the part of Schroeder’s work that is most interesting for us here at 23andMe, where our own <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/the-african-genetics-project">African Genetics Project</a> is also trying to make that connection, albeit in a different way.
While much has been done to document the history of the enslavement of the more than 12 million Africans who survived the brutal Middle Passage to wind up in bondage in the New World, this effort, and 23andMe’s, offers a chance to look beyond the limitations of the written record. We know that the Africans enslaved in the Americas were not a monolithic group but individuals from different cultures and with different languages who were forced together into slavery.
Schroeder and his team have already sequenced partial genomes of about 20 individuals, and found that they represent a diverse collection of African groups. As the article notes some of the samples indicate shared ancestry with West and Central African ethnic groups, such as the Bamoun and Kongo. But for the others, matches could not be found. This is likely because there are not diverse reference data sets to compare them too. Schroeder is hoping that two medically-related sequencing efforts in Africa will help change that.
In the meantime 23andMe’s African Ancestry Project has begun to recruit people in the United States, who emigrated, or whose parents emigrated, from several specific countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to improve its set of African reference data. This will not just improve the information we can report back to people of African descent, it could also help yield new insights into the TransAtlantic slave trade.
“23andMe researchers hope to identify direct connections between locations in Africa and the Americas, possibly adding important details to the historical record,” said Joanna Mountain, Ph.D., senior director of research at 23andMe.
Like 23andMe Schroeder and his team are looking to make direct connections from specific locations in Africa and the individuals who wound up in St. Helena. In turn this may also help people of African descent living in the Americas a bridge to their own ancestral past.
Fatimah Jackson, a biological anthropologist at Howard University in Washington DC who is sequencing ancient DNA from other slave burial sites, is quoted in the Nature article as saying that his kind of research has the potential of changing people’s perception of the past.
“It&#8217;s a very personal thing for us,” Jackson said. “It&#8217;s not just ancient DNA. It&#8217;s ancient DNA of potential ancestors.”

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