It was a great honor to learn yesterday that the 23andMe Personal Genome Serviceâ„¢ has been named TIME Magazine’s 2008 Invention of the Year. Today the Blog would like to acknowledge several 23andMe partners who contributed to the innovation behind our service.
We’d like to extend our thanks to Illumina, Inc., DNA Genotek, Inc., and LabCorp, and especially to everybody at those companies who shared their ideas, expertise and hard work.
- DNA Genotek produces the collection system our customers use to collect their saliva samples and ship them to our contracted laboratory. The caps, container and funnel are functional and easy to use.
- Illumina is behind the technology we use to generate our customers’ genetic data. The Illumina Human Hap550+ is a customizable DNA array that allows us to determine an individual’s genetic signature at nearly 600,000 locations on all 23 pairs of chromosomes, plus the mitochondrial DNA. Because Illumina’s technology lets our scientists select thousands of specific locations in the genome that they want to probe, we think it is the best genotyping platform for personalized genetics.
- Labcorp is the company that brings the Spit Kit and the Human Hap550+ together. Their laboratory technicians extract DNA from our customers’ saliva, then run it through Illumina arrays to produce the basic genetic data we use as the starting point for our Personal Genome Service. As a CLIA-certified laboratory with extensive experience in all types of medical diagnostic testing, Labcorp assures our customers genetic data of the utmost accuracy and quality.
A big thanks to all who help make our Personal Genome Service possible – including our partners, scientific advisors, investors, team members and customers. We hope everyone is as excited as we are to see not just our service recognized, but also our shared vision of personal genomics for all.