If you are a scientist studying populations that are not well represented in current genomics research, the 23andMe Research Team would like to work with you.
<h2>Collaborate</h2>
We are searching for qualified researchers interested in the full spectrum of human genetic diversity to collaborate with us.
Researchers will work with 23andMe scientists to study our database, including 23andMe’s large African American and Latino cohorts who have consented to participate in research. This effort will be through 23andMe’s <a href="https://research.23andme.com/research-innovation-collaborations/">Research Innovation Collaborations Program</a>, which we have previously used to partner with dozens of academic and non-profit institutions to advance genetics research.
Most of 23andMe’s <a href="https://research.23andme.com/publications/">120 peer-reviewed publications</a> have come through this program.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-26387" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/iStock-664962264-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1854" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/iStock-664962264-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/iStock-664962264-1024x741.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/iStock-664962264-1180x854.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/iStock-664962264-300x217.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/iStock-664962264-768x556.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/iStock-664962264-880x637.jpg 880w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />
<h2>Improve Representation</h2>
With this initiative, 23andMe hopes to improve the representation of understudied populations. Our mission has always been to help people access, understand, and benefit from the human genome. But people can only benefit if scientific advances are relevant to them.
Unfortunately, that is <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/diversity-matters-in-research/">not currently the case in the field of genomics. </a> More than 88 percent of research participants in genome-wide association studies are in groups of European ancestry only. To make precision medicine a reality for everyone, we must conduct research on a diverse range of populations.
“Collaborating with 23andMe allowed our team to conduct the first genome-wide association study of uterine fibroids among African American women,” said Digna Velez Edwards, Ph.D., M.S, a division director of Quantitative Sciences.
Edwards, the director of Women’s Health Research, and an associate professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said improving diversity in research is vital.
“The lack of diversity in research is widely acknowledged,&#8221; she said. &#8220;For scientists like me, collaborating with 23andMe and leveraging its large and rich database of African American customers who have consented to participate in research offers an opportunity to make new genetic findings that benefit those underrepresented populations.”
<h2>More Work Needed</h2>
Some of the studies 23andMe has worked on have focused on non-European populations, such as our previously mentioned research on uterine fibroids in African American women. But we recognize that more work needs to be done. For example, we are currently working with researchers on the genetics of height and weight. That study leverages 23andMe’s large African American cohort.
&#8220;If the underlying diversity of a dataset is limited, then scientific findings are less meaningful across populations,&#8221; said Joel Hirschhorn, an institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the Concordia Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Genetics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Hirschorn is collaborating with 23andMe on the <a href="https://www.broadinstitute.org/blog/high-hopes-understanding-height-and-obesity">project</a> to better understand the connections between genetics, height, and obesity.
&#8220;Only by connecting with people across many different backgrounds and experiences and participating together in research can our genetic studies into human biology yield insights that apply across the diversity present within our shared humanity,&#8221; he said.
<h2>Unique Opportunity</h2>
Now, 23andMe has one of the largest groups of genotyped and phenotyped Latinos and African Americans who consented to participate in research worldwide. This presents a unique opportunity for researchers interested in leveraging this data for equitable genetic research.
So for this summer’s Research Innovation Collaborations Program cycle, we are especially interested in applications that focus on the population, molecular, and medical genetics of understudied populations. These include groups with African, Latino, East Asian, South Asian, and Middle Eastern ancestry within 23andMe&#8217;s database. Collaborators are expected to contribute to a project either with their unique expertise, novel methods, or comparable datasets for meta-analysis. Or they could contribute with validation in other cohorts. 23andMe does not grant access to our consented customers’ data. However,  our researchers will analyze these cohorts statistically for accepted collaborators.
Topics of interest for diversity-related collaborations include:
<ul>
<li>Phasing and IBD estimation</li>
<li>Population substructure</li>
<li>Population history</li>
<li>PheWAS of suspected functional variants common in understudied populations</li>
<li>Gene-by-environment interactions (GxE) replication or development focused on suspected functional variants</li>
<li>Studies of conditions or traits that are relevant to understudied populations</li>
</ul>
Please read more about the application process and <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdIe1Q_84kQODJeenkDfhvlT8HDzbifi0DrhusKPl-dMjMunA/viewform">submit an application here</a> by June 12, 2019.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

23andMe’s Call for Collaborations to Study Underrepresented Populations

By Elizabeth Owuor
To honor Black History Month, 23andMe is sharing the untold stories of a few of the African-American scientists and figures who contributed to science each of whom made their mark despite great societal and institutional obstacles.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-26905" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BHM-Microscope-300x165.png" alt="" width="300" height="165" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BHM-Microscope-300x165.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BHM-Microscope-271x149.png 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BHM-Microscope-372x204.png 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BHM-Microscope-574x315.png 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BHM-Microscope.png 702w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Overlooked, intentionally erased from the history books, or simply discredited. <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/health-traits/honoring-henrietta-lacks/">Henrietta Lacks</a>, a young African American mother from Baltimore, made her contribution to scientific advancement without ever knowing it. Cells from the tumor that killed her were taken and regrown in labs around the world without her or her family’s permission and became one of the most important cancer cell lines in medical history.
After visiting Dr. Howard Jones at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center in 1947, Lacks underwent a gynecological tumor biopsy and her cells were sent to a neighboring lab &#8211; without her knowledge or consent — where they were later harvested to create HeLa Cells, the first  infinitely reproducing cell line in medicine.
In fact, no one knew of Lack’s essential <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/henriettalacks/index.html">contribution to science</a> and the world-at-large until it was finally acknowledged nearly 40 years after her first visit to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. But Lacks isn’t the only African-American to aide scientific advancement without being fully acknowledged or credited. Throughout the ages, other Black figures have helped advance chemistry, genetics, pathology, and other essential scientific fields without getting due credit. In an effort to honor these hidden figures, we’ve collected a short roundup of a few of the overlooked sheroes and heroes whose contributions, even in the face of racial persecution and institutional disenfranchisement, left an important mark on the world of science and beyond.

<h6>Alice Ball: The Collector of Many Firsts</h6>
1892-1916
Chemist Alice Ball didn’t shy away from being a pioneer: the first African American and the first woman to graduate with a Master’s in chemistry from the College of Hawaii (now the University of Hawaii), Ball later went on to be the first female chemistry professor at her alma mater.
But Ball was already accomplishing firsts long before graduating. A native of Seattle, she was born in 1892, at a time when women — particularly women of color — were denied access to education and employment. Ball earned her undergraduate degrees in pharmaceutical chemistry and pharmacy from the University of Washington, before pursuing her graduate work in Hawaii. During the course of her career, she pioneered a treatment for leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, that was eventually coined the “Ball Method” due to its highly effective treatment of the symptoms of this vexing disease. The first injectable treatment of its kind, Ball’s treatment used oil from the chaulmoogra tree, which had previously only been used topically with mixed results. Medical professionals relied on Ball’s invention for 20 years before a new treatment was introduced.
Sadly, Ball wasn’t given full credit for her groundbreaking invention until decades after it was made available to the public. Her untimely death at 24 due to chlorine poisoning in her lab contributed to this, but so did the fact that the president of her university initially took credit for work. Although long overdue, Alice Ball was finally remembered by history in 2010 when the University of Hawaii declared February 29th “Alice Ball Day,” erecting a statue in her honor.
<h6>Dr. James Bowman: The Science Renaissance Man</h6>
1923-2011
Segregation may have hindered James Bowman from pursuing his dream of becoming an Army medical officer, but it didn’t stop the trailblazer from forging his own path in medicine and genetics despite the many obstacles erected by a racist society.
A 1943 biology graduate of Howard University, Bowman stayed remained at the university to secure his medical degree as part of the of the U.S. Army Medical Corps. He later interned at the Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. and completed his residency in pathology at Chicago’s St. Luke’s Hospital from 1947 to 1952.
Always one to continually expand his knowledge base through research, Bowman moved to Iran in 1955 to study G6PD deficiency, a rare genetic disorder also known as  favism, that is linked to episodes of anemia and affects one in ten African American men. After successfully diagnosing an Iranian patient with the condition, he took his penchant for research and scientific rigor around the world. From 1961 to 1962, Bowman studied genetics at the Galton Laboratory at University College London and then later settled at the University of Chicago, where his scientific work took him to Uganda, Mexico, Ghana and other nations.
Eventually publishing more than 90 scholarly papers on human genetics, Bowman was also a fierce advocate for African-Americans. He was instrumental in ensuring that governmental and medical institutions considered bioethics and consent when testing on historically marginalized populations.
<h6>Marie M. Daly: The Chemistry Pioneer</h6>
1921-2003
The first black woman to receive a doctorate in chemistry in the United States, Marie M. Daly dedicated to spreading knowledge and conducting research. Daly pioneered innovative work on the relationship between chemistry and the human body. Inspired by her father who was hindered from completing his chemistry degree at Cornell University due to poverty, Daly received her bachelor’s degree with honors from Queens College in New York. She went on to receive a graduate degree at New York University, supporting her studies via work as a lab assistant.
After completing her master’s degree on an accelerated timeline, Daly began her doctoral studies in chemistry at Columbia University. She studied under the tutelage of Dr. Mary L. Caldwell, a celebrated female scientist who was dedicated to supporting other women in the field.
Ever the curious mind, Daly studied how the body digests food while at Columbia. Ultimately, she completed her doctorate in 1947 and became the first black woman in that nation to procure a chemistry Ph.D. But Daly didn’t stop her groundbreaking research there. After completing a seven-year research program at the Rockefeller Institute of Medicine, the scientist returned to her alma mater to investigate the relationship between clogged arteries and high cholesterol. In partnership with her colleague, Dr. Quentin B. Deming, Daly was responsible for revealing that dietary choices affect heart health and the circulatory system.
<h6>The Importance of Diversity in Genetic Research</h6>
Did you know that Africans and African Americans make up less than 4 percent of individuals included in genetic studies, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0261-x#Sec1">according to a recent study</a>? The fact that these individuals face <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/black-health.htm">many serious</a> health outcomes and could benefit from the insights gained from genetic inquiry makes the present situation even more untenable. What’s more is that Africans and people of African ancestry are more genetically diverse than all the world’s populations combined. That’s why diversity in genetic research is so crucial. Insights for one group benefit all of us. And that’s not all, the need for diversity also extends to the scientists who conduct research. Ensuring that the scientific community looks more like the world around us will enable us to account for a wide-variety of perspectives. More diverse perspectives in the science community means better scientific research, and potentially more precise scientific advancements.
Know of any other hidden figures in the realm of scientific advancement? Join the conversation by commenting below.

Elizabeth Owuor

African Americans Who Contributed to Science

In honor of Black History Month, several 23andMe researchers participated in a two-day event in honor of <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/health-traits/honoring-henrietta-lacks/">Henrietta Lacks</a> and her contribution to science.
On top of<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/health-traits/honoring-henrietta-lacks/"> honoring Henrietta’s life</a>, the event was also intended to draw attention to the need for more diversity in medical research. Estimates are that people of color make up only five percent of participants in medical research. That has a very real impact on healthcare because a person’s ancestry plays a role in how they<a href="https://brightthemag.com/health-medical-research-pharmaceutical-minorities-eugenics-5c5284a8cd7f"> respond to different drugs</a> or their risk for certain conditions.
On the second day of the event, this disparity was brought into focus by a scientist from the University of California San Francisco and her research regarding childhood asthma.
<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00251-016-0914-1">Marquitta White</a>, PhD, a researcher in<a href="https://pharm.ucsf.edu/burchard/people"> Prof. Esteban Burchard’s lab</a>, noted that socioeconomic and environmental differences do not fully explain why African American and Puerto Rican children are more likely to die from asthma. Part of the difference in outcomes may be because children of color respond differently to albuterol, the most commonly prescribed medication for asthma. Currently, there are few studies that look at how people of non-European ancestry respond to the drug or their specific risks for asthma. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/diversityiStockBlog.jpg" alt="" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-9756" width="1" height="1" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/diversityiStockBlog.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/diversityiStockBlog-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/diversityiStockBlog-271x149.jpg 271w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1px) 100vw, 1px" /><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AGP-Image-1024x496.png" alt="" class="alignright size-large wp-image-26030" width="1024" height="496">
The need to change that is a message that resonates with us here at 23andMe, where it has always been our mission to help people — all people — access, understand, and benefit from the human genome. Everyone should benefit from the scientific insights we learn through research. That means people of all ethnicities. But that hasn’t happened because research — not just 23andMe research, but all biomedical and genetic research — has been hampered by a lack of diversity.
Over the years, 23andMe has had several initiatives to improve the representation of people of color in genetic research. Programs such as 23andMe’s <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/news/announcements/roots-into-the-future/">Roots Into the Future</a> project that was designed to study the genetics of diseases impacting African Americans have helped so that we now have tens of thousands of people of color who have consented to participate in research. We’ve also worked on an <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/news/announcements/23andme-scientists-improving-diversity-in-genetic-research/">NIH-funded project</a> to develop a new way to detect disease-causing genetic variants among ethnically mixed populations, an<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/the-african-genetics-project/"> African Genetics Project</a>, and more recently 23andMe began an<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/african-american-sequencing-project/"> African-American Sequencing Project</a>. The data from this project will be made available for qualified researchers conducting important health studies through an NIH database.
Finally, our most recent effort is a <a href="https://www.23andme.com/global-genetics/">Global Genetics Project</a>, which aims to enroll at least 5,000 participants from populations around the world within two years. The data will be mainly used to trace global ancestry and human-migration history, but it could also guide health research in under-represented groups.
We still have a lot of work to do, but we hope that these initiatives will help 23andMe expand its own reference data sets, improve the ability of our scientists to study groups who are currently underrepresented in genetic research, and reveal new insights. Beyond what this can do for our own research, this will also help qualified researchers with whom we collaborate to conduct studies within some of these communities. &nbsp;
You can learn more about what we’re doing to improve diversity in research<a href="https://www.23andme.com/roots/#commitment"> here</a>.

A Need for Diversity in Research

A generation ago it was a felony to marry across racial lines in Virginia and 15 other states in the south, and the repercussions of those laws are still felt today.
<div id="attachment_25461" style="width: 396px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25461" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Mildred_Jeter_and_Richard_Loving.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-25461 size-full" height="258" width="386" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Mildred_Jeter_and_Richard_Loving.jpeg 386w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Mildred_Jeter_and_Richard_Loving-300x201.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 386px) 100vw, 386px" />Mildred Jeter and Ricahrd Loving, the couple who were at the center of the US Supreme Court Case Loving v. Virginia that struck down laws against interracial marriage.</div>
The movie “<a href="http://focusfeatures.com/loving">Loving</a>” tells one side of that story, the moving tale of Mildred and Richard Loving, who defied the law and married. The couple’s almost decade-long legal fight ended in 1967 with the landmark Supreme Court ruling,<a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/388/1/case.html"> Loving v. Virginia</a>, which erased laws in 16 states that prohibited marrying outside your race.
This week marks the<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/12/opinion/loving-virginia-50-year-anniversary.html?_r=0"> anniversary</a> of that case.
For many other couples that crossed racial lines and dared to fall in love in those years, the Loving case came too late. Their stories have yet to be told.
Katrina Callsen, a young mom and law student in Virginia, only recently uncovered her own family’s side of that story using 23andMe.
Her dad, Clarence, a retired Army sergeant first class, was adopted at birth and never knew anything about his biological parents, but with the help of his daughter’s 23andMe results he was able to learn his story for the first time.
<div id="attachment_25451" style="width: 259px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25451" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-249x300.jpeg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-25451" height="300" width="249" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-249x300.jpeg 249w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-768x924.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-851x1024.jpeg 851w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-731x880.jpeg 731w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-980x1180.jpeg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth.jpeg 1204w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 249px) 100vw, 249px" />Clarence as a child.</div>
Clarence’s father was black, and his mother was white. They were young and in love, but they lived at a time and in a place, Virginia, where mixed race couples could not legally get married.
When Clarence’s birth mom became pregnant she and his birth father said they couldn’t get married and she didn’t feel she could keep a black child, Katrina said. 
After giving up Clarence, the couple never saw their son, or each other again.
Fifty years later, as Clarence pieced together the story. With the help of 23andMe and Clarence’s daughter, Katrina, he was first able to find his biological father by first connecting with a cousin, who also happened to live in the same town and only a few blocks away.
“My dad is an adoptee from a completely closed adoption and I did 23andme to gain some ancestry and health related insights,” Katrina said.
By testing she learned that her dad was also mixed race, she said.
“When I got my 23andme results back and found out I had a cousin living down the street from me,” she said
It was through this cousin that Clarence and Katrina were able to find out who his father was.
Now 85, Clarence’s biological father had never told anyone — his wife or stepchildren — that he had had a child.
<div id="attachment_25453" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25453" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-225x300.jpeg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-25453" height="300" width="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-660x880.jpeg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-885x1180.jpeg 885w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-scaled.jpeg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Katrina as a child.</div>
When Clarence was finally able to meet him in person, he told his son that his biological mother was white, and although they had wanted to, at the time it was illegal for them to marry in Virginia.
“My biological grandpa told my father he thought of him many times and … made a plea to meet him before it was too late, and there he was delivered on his doorstep,” Katrina said.
After that initial meeting and using information that Clarence’s father shared, he and Katrina were later able to find his birth mother.
She too had kept his birth secret, and the agony she had at having to give up her son.
Some of the emotion around that history is still raw, and both of Clarence’s birth parents coming to terms with finding their son. For their part, Clarence and Katrina have asked that his birth parents names not be used to respect their privacy, and allow Clarence time to get to know them and their families.
For Katrina the story brings full circle a painful personal and national history. Recently, Katrina and her dad spoke on a panel moderated by lifestyle blogger Serein Wu, at the<a href="http://www.mixedremixed.org/mixed-race-multiracial-americans-celebrate-50th-anniversary-interracial-marriage/"> Mixed Remixed</a> festival in Los Angeles celebrating the anniversary of the Loving case, and shared their story.
“Got us all in tears in here,” Tweeted Katy Monty after listening to Katrina and her dad talk about finding his biological family.
Even after the law changed, biracial couples have struggled. Katrina said her parents also faced some of those same tensions. Clarence is black and Katrina’s mom is white, and initially their parents did not embrace the marriage. But their mixed race children grew up in a different time.
“Thirty years and four kids later they are still together,” said Katrina.
<div id="attachment_25463" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25463" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-300x288.jpg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-25463" height="288" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-300x288.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-768x736.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-1024x981.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-880x843.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-1180x1131.jpg 1180w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Clarence and Katrina at the Mixed Remixed festival in Los Angeles with moderator Serein Wu.</div>
And making this connection and learning of the story of her dad’s birth has been important for Katrina and her father. Finding family roots, history and relatives has connected them to their history. Even Katrina’s move to Charlottesville to attend law school feels to be part of that. Her biological family has deep roots there and she herself feels connected to the place, a connection that — as the daughter of an Army NCO who regularly moved every few years — she’d never had before.
“It is hard, if not impossible, to put in words what it means to suddenly find a biological family, to find roots, to realize that the place you have felt naturally drawn to holds centuries of your family history,” Katrina said. “Genetics can hold stories and answers we didn’t even know we were seeking. It can show you the family you never knew, who lives around the corner, and is overjoyed to welcome you back home.”

The Legacy of Loving

In a move to improve diversity in genetic research, this week 23andMe will start recruiting eligible customers to participate in the creation of an African American sequencing panel for <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/05242016_ig_ad_3-e1497048414624-300x225.png" alt="" class="alignright wp-image-25055 size-medium" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/05242016_ig_ad_3-e1497048414624-300x225.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/05242016_ig_ad_3-e1497048414624-768x575.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/05242016_ig_ad_3-e1497048414624-1024x767.png 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/05242016_ig_ad_3-e1497048414624-880x659.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/05242016_ig_ad_3-e1497048414624.png 1074w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />research.
With the help of a<a href="https://mediacenter.23andme.com/press-releases/23andme-nih-work-to-reduce-health-research-disparities-among-african-americans/"> grant</a> from the<a href="https://www.genome.gov/"> National Human Genome Research Institute</a>, 23andMe scientists will use contributions from customers who’ve consented to participate in this research to create a reference dataset and make the de-identified genetic data available to other qualified and vetted genetic researchers at educational and research institutions around the world.
“We are very excited about this project and its potential to make a difference in people’s lives,” said the project’s Principal Investigator,<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/a-reference-of-human-genetic-variation/"> Adam Auton,</a> a 23andMe senior scientist and statistical geneticist. “This work will help address the genetic  research disparities for African Americans in particular, something that has long needed attention.”
Only a fraction of the genetic research studies done to date include people with African ancestry. <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/genomics-is-failing-on-diversity-1.20759">According to recent data focusing on this disparity, </a> only about 19 percent of all published genetic research includes data from non-Europeans, and only about two percent are conducted on those of African ancestry. While the bias towards European studies reflects many complicated logistic, systemic, and societal issues, it has a huge impact on what scientists can determine about the genetics underlying diseases and other conditions that impact not just non-European populations but everyone. A recent<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12521#abstract"> study</a> by the University of Maryland School deftly explains the implications of these disparities:
“As long as ancestry-related biases are not addressed, and most studies continue to predominantly sample from European populations, the genetics community will face challenges with implementation, interpretation and cost-effectiveness when treating minority populations.” 
To help address these disparities, 23andMe is recruiting African American customers who are are willing to have their genome sequenced. Those who are interested would then be asked to complete an additional level of consent, that would allow 23andMe to add their de-identified genetic data to a library of genetic and phenotypic data. This means the library would not receive any personally identifiable information  connected to the genetic and phenotypic information. This library of data is managed by the NIH and used by qualified scientific researchers. 
As part of this work we will ask a subset of our African American customers, who have consented to participate in research, if they would be willing to participate and have their DNA sequenced to become part of this reference panel. Reference panels are important because they allow scientists to improve the accuracy of genome wide association studies, which drive much of genetic research conducted today. 
When a customer of 23andMe sends in their saliva sample, they are genotyped at hundreds of thousands of sites that are known to vary between individuals. However, there are tens of millions of variable sites in the genome that are not genotyped. By having access to a large number of fully sequenced genomes — a sequence panel — researchers are able to use “genotype imputation” to infer or predict the genotypes at these unobserved positions. Much like a code breaker filling in missing letters in a message, scientists — using algorithms and data from whole genome sequences panels — can predict, or impute, the missing letters of genetic data. Having a sequence panel like this gives researchers a tool to study conditions that are specific to African Americans.
Ultimately, the sequence panel data will be shared with the NIH, who will make it available to other researchers. This in turn will expand scientists’ ability to make genetic discoveries for African Americans and help build a broader understanding of how genetics influence diseases and traits across multiple populations.
This is the latest in a number of efforts by 23andMe to help alleviate some of the existing disparities in genetic research. Last year, 23andMe was awarded another NIH grant to use “admixture mapping” as a means to improve the detection of disease-causing genetic variants among people of African, Latino and Asian ancestry. In 2011, 23andMe launched its Roots into the Future® project to study the genetics of disease specific to African Americans. The African Genetics Project is a part of this growing effort to improve our knowledge of African genetic diversity.
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The African American Sequencing Project

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Maria felt conflicted.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-24234" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-300x300.jpg" alt="Maria quote" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />


Here she was celebrating her parents’ 63rd wedding anniversary, and the last thing she wanted to do was upset her elderly mother. But on the flipside she had to ask her.
Maria now knew her mother’s secret, a secret that brought up many questions, serious questions. Maria wanted to know why her mother hid her true origins. Maria wanted to ask those questions and so many more, and her mother was the only one who could answer them.


“So I said to myself: ‘If she mentions the necklace, I’m going to say something,’” said Maria, a mother of young twins who lives with her husband in New Jersey.

<h6>A Mother&#8217;s Secret</h6>

Her parents had come back to New Jersey for their anniversary celebration. The couple met in New York City at a high school dance. Maria’s mom was 18 when she married her father. The couple raised four kids together, part of a large extended Italian family. But that large family was all on Maria’s dad’s side of the family. She knew nothing about her mom’s family.


“My mom’s story was that she was adopted and her parents died and she had no siblings,” Maria said.
Her mother told her kids very little about her biological family except to say there was a rumor that they were Italians who’d immigrated through Argentina to the United States.
Yet after testing with 23andMe and seeing her results, Maria discovered that her mother’s story just didn’t add up. Maria was only half Italian, and almost 20 percent African.


“When I saw it at first I was like ‘wait a second!’” Maria said.
She thought it was wrong.
When she told her sisters and brother they were in denial.
“Mom can’t be black?” they said.


Or could she?
<h6>Hidden African Ancestry</h6>
Both Maria’s sister and brother tested and they too had close to the same percentage African ancestry. So after that initial shock, Maria started to dig a little deeper, connect with cousins found through 23andMe, and that’s how she pieced together her mother’s family story.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24235 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_4769-e1471282681353-300x213.jpg" alt="IMG_4769" width="300" height="213" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_4769-e1471282681353-300x213.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_4769-e1471282681353.jpg 723w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
The family’s story is surprising, but finding “hidden African ancestry” is much more common than many know. While most African Americans are aware that they have “white” ancestry – a vestige of the ugly history of slavery – fewer “white” Americans know that they may have “hidden African ancestry” in their families. This too is a legacy of slavery and segregation in America. For those families with hidden ancestry, it means that at some point in history someone in their family likely “passed” for white.
Each story is unique but commonly this was to escape the consequences of racism directed at African Americans that limited job and education opportunities.
For Maria learning this about her mother, didn’t so much change her identity as it changed how she looked at her family.
“It’s strange,” Maria said. “I grew up thinking I was one way and actually I’m not who I thought I was.”

<h6>Identity</h6>

Maria wanted to know why had her mother kept this secret for so long, but before she asked her questions she wanted to be sure, so she dug a little deeper. And then that day at church she said a prayer. She told herself that if her mother asked about the necklace she’d take it as a sign that it was OK to ask her mother.
As they left the church her mother noticed the necklace telling her daughter how much she liked it. Maria took it as a sign to start asking questions.
“It’s your sister’s necklace,” Maria told her mom.”


Her mother, who had always told her children that she’d been an only child, was stunned.


“’My sister? What do you mean my sister?’” Maria’s mother said.

<h6>The Great Migration</h6>

Maria told her mom whom it had come from and that she had not just found her mother’s sister but connected with a brother and a few more aunts.
Maria had learned that her mother wasn’t of Italian origin, nor was her biological family originally from Argentina, as she’d once told her kids. Her mother was born in Illinois. Her parents were African Americans from Mississippi, and her mother had had at least 19 siblings. Her mother’s family had moved from the Mississippi to Chicago for job opportunities, part of the wave of African Americans to move north in what is called the “<a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129827444">Great Migration</a>.”


Maria had learned that at some point her mother and three of her siblings, who could pass for white, moved to New York City. Maria’s mom was 15 at the time. The four siblings used a Latino sounding last name. Over the years they either lost ties or cut off contact with the rest of the family back in Illinois and Chicago. Maria’s mom soon met the man, who would be her husband at a school dance. When they got married it caused another rift in the family. After the marriage, Maria’s mother lost contact with her three siblings in New York.
Maria learned about this from relatives she found through 23andMe. One of the connections she made was with cousins in California who were the children of her mother’s brother.
<h6>Siblings Connect After Decades Apart</h6>
After making the connection Maria told her mom and together they traveled together to visit her mother’s 96 year-old brother. The two hadn’t seen each other in 64 years. Maria was also able to find two of her mother’s sisters who were still alive. She talks to them weekly and recently traveled to Chicago to meet one of them and her newly found cousins in person. These connections have given Maria a chance to see family photos of her grandparents, her mother as a young woman, as well as aunts and uncles she never knew she had.


“It’s fascinating and crazy,” Maria said. “I never knew these people existed and now it&#8217;s like I&#8217;ve known them my whole life.&#8221;


As for learning about her and her family’s African American ancestry, Maria said it didn’t really change how she thought about herself. It did change how she thought of her family, and the power of being connected to all these family members she never knew before.


“To me it’s an amazing story of a family’s racial divide, but with a very happy ending,” she said.

Bridging A Family’s Racial Divide

<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" />Esteban G. Burchard, MD, MPH</div>
Asthma can start with simple tightness in the chest, but end in an epic battle to breathe.
So whether you are black or white, Asian or Latino, an asthma attack can be frightening, especially if you are a kid.
But who you are, or more accurately what your ancestry is, does matter in what scientists can say about the triggers, causes and biology of the disease.
There has been a lot of research that’s been done on asthma, and we know a lot about the condition. But the vast majority of that research has been done only on people of European ancestry, and in many cases it offers little insights for people of other ethnicities.
Some estimates show that<a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7355/full/475163a.html"> more than 90 percent</a> of the research into the genetics underlying disease is on individuals of European descent alone.
That’s a problem for everybody, according to the University of California at San Francisco Professor<a href="http://profiles.ucsf.edu/esteban.burchard"> Esteban Burchard</a>, an MD, MPH.


“Almost all the genetic studies of asthma have been done using white patients only, but you can’t assume these results will apply to other ethnic groups,” said Esteban, who directs the Genes-environments &amp; Admixture in Latino Americans Study and the Study of African Americans, Asthma, Genes &amp; Environments at University of California San Francisco.
He also serves as an expert on research disparities for President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative.
<div id="attachment_23960" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23960" class="wp-image-23960 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Asthma-prevalence-300x172.jpg" alt="Asthma prevalence" width="300" height="172" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Asthma-prevalence-300x172.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Asthma-prevalence.jpg 752w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Asthma prevalence among children of different ancestry.</div>
A long-time friend of 23andMe who previously served as an advisor in the company’s effort to recruit more African Americans called “Roots into the Future,” Esteban said that the lack of diversity in research leaves non-Europeans behind in the genetics revolution and it leaves huge gaps in scientists’ understanding of disease.
There are efforts to change that.
Recently 23andMe received<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/news/announcements/23andme-scientists-improving-diversity-in-genetic-research/"> a National Institutes of Health grant</a> for a project that uses admixture mapping as a way to aid gaining better insight into health research for underrepresented communities. While this doesn’t involve recruiting, it could help leverage 23andMe’s diverse collection of customers who have consented to research.
The need for these kinds of approaches to improve diversity in research are very apparent. Asthma is a case in point. It is the most common chronic disease among all children, but it hits African American and Puerto Rican kids at almost twice the rate of all other children. About 18 percent of Puerto Rican children have asthma, while about 15 percent of African American kids do.
Addressing this head on, Esteban recently lead a team that completed the largest single study of the genetic and environmental causes of<a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00251-016-0914-1"> asthma in African American children</a>. The study suggests that only a tiny fraction of known genetic risk factors for the disease that have been discovered in other research actually apply to African Americans.


“This paper is an important first step towards truly understanding the biology of asthma in African Americans,” Esteban said.


The paper also reinforces the importance of gathering more research data on people of all ancestries to improve the insights that can be gained through genetic research.
The study included data from more than 1,200 African Americans, about 800 of whom have asthma, to look for genetic variants associated with the disease. The researchers looked at genetic variants known to be associated with asthma in people of European ancestry. They found that 95 percent of the variants that increase risk for asthma in Europeans didn’t appear to increase risk for African Americans. And for the first time they identified genetic variants associated with higher risk for asthma in African American children. Those variants were in or near genes that are also associated with obesity and inflammation, which could help researchers as they investigate the biology of the disease.
For Esteban this clearly shows the value of the research the team is doing by focusing on people of color.


“We want to understand why some minority communities have higher rates of disease and how they may respond differently to treatment,” he said. “But the risk factors we identify in these understudied populations can also point the way to new biology, which can be important for everyone.”

Asthma in African American Children

Listening to Wendy Spencer’s decades-long search for her biological father, the improbability of finding him, and then her shock after learning about the legacy of hatred he inherited from his own father, one would forgive Wendy if she decided to forget she ever found him.



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright wp-image-23624 size-medium"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="225" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/wendy-spencer-a-1024-300x225.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-23624" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/wendy-spencer-a-1024-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/wendy-spencer-a-1024-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/wendy-spencer-a-1024-880x660.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/wendy-spencer-a-1024.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Wendy, right, her father, Bill, and her daughter Cosette.</figcaption></figure>



But Wendy thought perhaps her love and her family could change that legacy.



“I know people can change,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I have witnessed it before. I see it slowly happening.&#8221;



Wendy’s story of connecting with her biological father, Bill Miller, is a testament to using love to conquer hate, confronting the truth about her biological family’s history, and, even more broadly, coming to terms with America’s own history of racism. People magazine recently featured Wendy&#8217;s story and how she&#8217;s attempting to change that family legacy.



“With all the hate in the world and misunderstandings, I wish people could see each other as human beings with similar hopes and desires,” she said.







Wendy, a 50-year-old hair stylist in Sacramento, is Jewish. She married an African American man, and they have four children. One of their sons is married to a Latina, and the other is married to a Filipina. After learning from her mother more than two decades ago that she’d been conceived during an affair, she began searching for her biological father.



Last year, she tested with 23andMe. In October, when Wendy logged into her account right after her grandson’s brit milah, the Jewish circumcision ceremony, she had a notice that she had a new DNA relative. Thinking maybe she had found a new cousin, she clicked on the file.



“There was a picture of a man, it said ‘Father 50 percent match 24 segments,’” Wendy said. “Then his name, ‘William Miller.’ Needless to say, I was shocked my family heard me shout from the other room!”



She soon was able to connect with Bill. They exchanged email messages and then talked on the phone.



“We talked for an hour and a half,&#8221; Wendy said. &#8220;He cried off and on and seemed so happy.&#8221;



He’d told her that he had seen her twice after she was born but that when her parents moved and then later divorced, he’d lost track of her, although he never stopped looking. Wendy found out that he was in a cancer ward in San Antonio, recovering from surgery. She arranged to go and visit him and then flew to Texas.



He picked her up at the airport after being discharged from the hospital, and took her meet her great aunt, and a cousin.



“After a few family stories and my aunt pulling out pictures, the beginning of a nice connection was being made,” Wendy said.



The next day she went and stayed at her biological father’s house. He lived alone and had never married. The house was a wreck, but the visit allowed for Wendy to learn more about him and his family. It was almost too much for her to bear.



“He told me the reason he had the DNA test was because he was always concerned that he had a little African American in his DNA and he wanted to find out once and for all, (he does not),” she said. “It was very obvious that my dad is a racist!”



The more he talked, the more uncomfortable Wendy became as he put everyone in racial categories or sprinkled his conversation with racist terms.



“It was like a minor stab in the heart every time,” she said.



But she wanted to know “the good, the bad, and the ugly” about her biological family. Her father obliged, telling her about his father, Wendy&#8217;s grandfather, Emmett Elliot Miller.



“He told me his dad had done evil things,” she said.



Emmett Miller had been an organizer in the KKK.



He’d been involved in trying to bomb an all-black college and helped to organize the picket to stop the integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.



“I felt sick to my stomach; the thought of getting up and leaving occurred to me,” she said. “At the same time, I felt God&#8217;s presence with me. It was a very gut-wrenching conversation.”



She told him how hurtful his racism was to her and asked that he stop using some of the racist words that were part of his vocabulary.



“I could tell his honesty was mixed with all the emotions he had been feeling,” she said. “This lonely older man was genuinely happy to have a daughter, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, but his emotions were all mixed up, and he needed to share the conflict that was going on in his soul.”



His daughter is Jewish, married to a black man, and his grandchildren were all mixed, his great-grandchildren even more mixed.



Hearing her father&#8217;s stories about his family was almost too much for Wendy to process. She thought that even in her own lifetime as she was growing up in California surrounded by a family known for tolerance, her grandfather had been working so hard to prevent desegregation and the rights of black people to vote. When she eventually came home from Texas, Wendy said she was “an emotional wreck.”



She talked to her husband and her mother-in-law, who’d always had such sage advice about other matters. But on this, her mother-in-law had nothing to offer. Both of her mother-in-law&#8217;s parents had been murdered during the pre-civil rights era in Mississippi because of the color of their skin. Wendy&#8217;s mother in-law just didn&#8217;t have it in her to forgive.



“I’ve never seen my mother-in-law speechless, with no words of comfort or wisdom,” Wendy said. “She tried, but I could tell how shocking my news was to her.”



Still struggling with what she learned, Wendy continued to talk regularly with her biological father, and then he came to California to visit, arriving for Hanukkah. Wendy’s family welcomed him into their home. He stayed for five days, and became the center of attention. He connected particularly with Wendy’s son Michael and her youngest daughter Cosette. But on the fifth day of his visit, he stayed alone at home with Wendy’s husband. It did not go well.



But even after that, Wendy is trying to maintain the connection. Her father has sent Cosette gifts. He regularly emails, sends cards and calls.



From his point of view Bill said in a comment he made to People that although his language is sometime coarse he is not a racist or a bigot. At one point in the early 1960s, he and a friend were considering moving to Mississippi to help register voters, he has close friends who are Jewish and he regrets that there is tension between him and Wendy&#8217;s husband. <img decoding="async" class="ajT" src="https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gif" alt="">



“He says he loves me and does not deserve me,” Wendy said. “I am glad we have found each other.”



But she doesn&#8217;t know how it all will end up.



“I do not regret finding him and learning about the other half of me,” she said. “It has not been easy, but all of the story has been told.”

Ending a Legacy of Hate

It’s been a perennial problem –biomedical research that largely leaves behind<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-9756" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/diversityiStockBlog.jpg" alt="diversity(iStockBlog)" width="300" height="199" /> women and people with non-European ancestry.


A newly <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001918">published study</a> by researchers at the University of California San Francisco found that despite efforts to recruit in under represented communities in the United States there continues to be huge disparity in research among African Americans, Latinos and Asians. (In a separate but related issue there is also <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/racial-bias-continues-to-haunt-nih-grants-1.18807">a huge disparity</a> in research grants awarded to minority scientists.)


There are many reasons for the lack of diversity – historical, cultural, economic and social – but whatever the reason the dearth in research among non-European populations undercuts the effectiveness of the science and the effectiveness of certain treatments.


We know that a person’s gender and ancestry plays a role in their risks for certain conditions. For instance the risk for type-2 diabetes and prostate cancer is much <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032840">higher in African American men</a>, but there is not yet enough research that includes African Americans in enough numbers to offer to fully understand why that is.
You can see similar problems in research around the risk for breast cancer in women of different ancestry. We know a lot about the risks among women of European ancestry because of research, but less about the risks among African American women.


In the hopes of improving our own research, 23andMe launched <a href="https://www.23andme.com/roots/">“Roots into the Future,”</a> specifically to recruit 10,000 African Americans interested in participating in research.
That effort has helped 23andMe improve the diversity of our own research cohorts. It has also improved the kind of results we can report back to customers.
23andMe has succeeded in attracting a diverse group of customers who want to participate in research, but we could do more.

African American — Page 3