Sep 26, 2014 - Research

Science On the Beach

From studies that explain how 23andMe’s massive database can accelerate the targeting and development of disease-fighting drugs, to DNA research which 23andMe_Logo_bloguncovers the legacy of dynamic mixing in the New World over the last 500 years, 23andMe will again put its best science forward at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG). (If you’re at the conference come by our booth, #1905.)

San Diego Bound

This year’s gathering will be in San Diego, and it’s expected to attract more than 6,500 scientists over four days in October.

The annual event brings together the best and brightest minds in human genetics, and gives them a chance to share the latest research and findings. This year 23andMe will present more than a dozen abstracts on a wide variety of topics and participate in two platform discussions. You can search all abstracts being presented at the meeting by going here.

23andMe Presentations

Along with findings related to drug development and genetic ancestry, 23andMe researchers are also presenting abstracts on wide variety of topics.

Among those are a series of studies that look at different human traits, their possible relation to certain health conditions as well as the dynamics of shared traits between parents and their children.

One of 23andMe’s abstracts looks at the genetics associated with being a ‘morning person’ and how that might be related to depression and weight. Another abstract looks at why some individuals are more prone to cry than others and whether genes that are associated with crying are also likely to be involved in brain development. Our scientists have also found genetic associations for varicose veins, which point to genes that are involved in circulatory development. Beyond how those traits may be related to health conditions, our researchers have also explored traits parents share with their children, finding that while for almost no trait did we see parents and children more likely to be dissimilar than similar, we did find that, mothers’ traits were more strongly correlated to their daughters, than the father’s traits were associated with their daughters.

Research Data

23andMe’s scientists will also be presenting on how researchers are able to use 23andMe’s database to make genetic discoveries. In addition we have another abstract that looks at a way our scientists have improved a long-used method for detecting shared DNA segments that researchers use to study everything from whether two people are related, to human demography – the characteristics of a population that might include its size, composition and distribution – and even the heritability of disease.

The work being presented at ASHG is part of 23andMe’s larger research mission. In the last three years, 23andMe scientists have published papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and dozens of other findings that continue to push our understanding of genetics.

Here is a list of 23andMe abstracts as well as abstract for which we collaborated with others:

– Like Mother, Like Daughter: Analysis of Parent-Child Phenotypic Correlations for Hundreds of Medical and Behavioral Traits
Author(s): E. Pierson, D. Hinds, A. Kleinman, N. Eriksson
– Genes Involved in Brain Development Influence Crying Habits -A Genome Wide Association Study
Author(s): C. Tian, C. Y. McLean, E. Y. Durand, N. Eriksson, J. Y. Tung, D. A. Hinds
– Adopting Genomes – Motivations of Adopted Persons when seeking Personal Genomic Services
Author(s): N. M. Baptista, D. A. Carere, J. R. Duggan, T. A. Moreno, J. L. Mountain, S. A. Broadley, J. S. Roberts, R. C. Green, and the PGen Study Group
– The genetic ancestry of African, Latino, and European Americans across the United States
Author(s): K. Bryc, E. Durand, D. Reich, J. Mountain
– Shared genetic background between chronic gastroesophageal reflux and Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma, consistent with a causal relationship
Author(s): P. Gharahkhani, J. Tung, T. L. Vaughan, D. C. Whiteman, S. MacGregor, Barrett’s and Esophageal Adenocarcinoma Consortium
– A Large Scale Genome Wide Association Study of Varicose Veins in the 23andMe Cohort
Author(s): R. K. Bell, E. Y. Durand, C. Y. McLean, N. Eriksson, J. Y. Tung, D. A. Hinds
– Reducing pervasive false positive identical-by-descent segments detected by large-scale pedigree analysis
Author(s): E. Y. Durand, N. Eriksson, C. Y. McLean
– GWAS of 89,283 individuals identifies genetic variants associated with being a morning person
Author(s): Y. Hu, A. Shmygelska, D. Tran, N. Eriksson, J. Tung, D. Hinds
– Accelerating Drug Development with 23andMe Phenome-Wide Association Studies
Author(s): F. Sathirapongsasuti, B. T. Naughton, J. L. Mountain, D. A. Hinds, J. Y. Tung, C. Y. McLean
– Genetic discovery in the 23andMe participant cohort
Author(s): D. A. Hinds, C. A. M. Northover, M. H. McIntyre, C. Wilson, K. E. Huber, A. Kleinman, F. Sathirapongsasuti, R. K. Bell, E. Pierson, K. Bryc, A. S. Shmygelska, N. A. Furlotte, Y. Hu, C. Tian, E. Y. Durand, C. Y. McLean, B. Naughton, J. L. Mountain, N. Eriksson, J. Y. Tung
– Genome-wide Mega-Analysis on Myopia and Refractive Error in CREAM and 23andMe
Author(s): V. J. M. Verhoeven, R. Wojciechowski, P. G. Hysi, Q. Fan, A. K. Kiefer, N. Eriksson, C. J. Hammond, N. A. Furlotte, C. C. W. Klaver, Consortium for Refractive Error and Myopia (CREAM)
– Risk prediction and Type II Diabetes
Author(s): N. Furlotte, S. Dandekar, R. Smith, N. Eriksson, D. Hinds
– A trans-ethnic genome-wide association study of 21,483 cases and 97,977 controls identifies 27 genetic susceptibility variants for atopic dermatitis
Author(s): L. Paternoster, M. Standl, H. Baurecht, J. Waage, M. Hotze, J. A. Curtin, K. Bønnelykke, D. Glass, D. A. Hinds, E. Melen, P. Sleiman, B. Feenstra, M. Pino-Yanes, H. T. den Dekker, M. Bustamante, I. Marenholz, B. Jacobsson, A. D. Irvine, A. C. Alves, M. M. Groen-Blokhuis, A. Franke, M. Ferreira, M. Tamari, N. Probst-Hensch, K. Williams, D. P. Strachan, S. J. Brown, J. Heinrich, D. M. Evans, S. Weidinger on behalf of the EAGLE Eczema Consortium
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