How genetic testing works
Masha Vorslav
Over the past five years, the cost of genetic testing has dropped exactly 10 times: from the minimum of 999 to 99 dollars. Naturally, this could not but affect their popularity: a rare person does not want to gain access to knowledge that previously seemed inaccessible, especially if this knowledge is about himself. But such tests do not give any guarantees and accurate data, but constitute a certain general characteristic of the organism. Wonderzine figured out how they work, why they are needed, and who benefits from low-cost genetic testing.
If you can put The marker "fashionable" for anything related to genetics, perhaps, yes, genetic testing is fashionable. In many ways, because they have become more accessible than ever: now you can buy a set that will determine personal risks, relationships with medications and help plan the birth of a child, and this is with a minimum of time and money. Loyalty to genetic testing is also blamed on the egocentricity and narcissism of the current generation: a small whale will tell all or almost all about the most interesting thing in the world - the rich (of course) inner world. One of the most popular similar services aimed at clearing up genetic information is California 23andMe.
Lena Bulyginacofounder The Old Reader
I decided to try 23andMe, because it was very curious and they announced a new model of work for Christmas - $ 99 per whale instead of $ 299 and no further paid subscription. We were in New York and ordered a box (but in order to use and send, we had to travel 20 minutes by train to New Jersey, because the laws of the State of New York prohibit the collection of DNA not according to the recommendation of a doctor in government laboratories). On the one hand, I learned a lot about myself from the inside and now I know what to pay attention to, what are my relationships with some medications and that my future children may have lactose deficiency. On the other hand, I received a source of paranoia officially confirmed by numbers, often unreasonable. I really want that in the near future the amount of information obtained from such DNA analysis is greater (now it is still very expensive). In 23andMe, I admire everything: the design and simplicity of recruitment and packaging, the site, the personal account and the fact that it is possible to add close friends who have been analyzed, compare the genes of each other, and then tactfully discuss who has what kind of reaction to asparagus.
"Officially confirmed numbers source of paranoia" and the inaccuracy of the data - or rather, not the accuracy that people expect for various reasons - the two main flaws that read-s-genome-sam kits have. With both, by the way, it’s clear what to do: it’s necessary to understand that research on genetic material at the level at which 23andMe and similar companies conduct them cannot use the principle of their work to paint a person as a book: they do not investigate the genome (the entire set of hereditary information in a cell) of a person, and they check for the presence or absence of mutations in its individual points (SNP, or snaps). And the fact that human health is determined not only by its genes.
Vladimir Naumov
Researcher, Laboratory of Human Molecular Genetics
This is an ancient initiative: as soon as they discovered the genes, everyone immediately wanted to know everything about their own. Six years ago, when 23andMe appeared, they decided to make such a social network out of this and put Direct-to-Consumer genetic testing (DTC) to the masses. But the technology that they and similar companies use (point polymorphisms, or snaps), allows us to determine only the predispositions for widespread diseases: diabetes and some types of oncology, for example. And these are things that really know better about yourself; You can get away from these diseases by changing your lifestyle a little: eat less sweet, exercise more, or vice versa, not engage in some kind of sport so as not to get injured. True, it seems to me that you first need to go to a psychologist to understand what kind of psycho you are, whether you can cope with this information and not drive yourself into some kind of terrible depression, and then calmly get tested.
The 23andMe format itself is slowly becoming a thing of the past, because technologies are becoming cheaper: you can make a complete genome or copy, that is, the part of the genome that encodes proteins that then perform some functions.
It is important to remember that what happens to us is not only genetics. There is no certainty that polymorphism predisposes to a disease and you will definitely get sick of it - it always consists of a heap of factors: environment, behavior, the same psychology - what is called epigenetics, methods of reading the genetic code. It is determined by the environment, behavior, sensation. This is not all fully understood, but here’s an example of what epigenetics actually works: all our cells have the same genomes, but they all read differently, and each cell looks different: the neuron differs from the cells of the immune system those are from liver cells, and so on.
And another thing: our body is such a complex and non-linear system that a breakdown in one place can be leveled out in ten different ways due to detours of metabolism, and everything will be fine.
It turns out this: genetic testing in the box, although not 100% accurate and due to objective reasons can not tell everything about a person, is quite useful. Firstly, they can tell about the predisposition to some serious diseases, and this is already a lot; secondly, they have a great future: it is already known that there are genes responsible for the propensity for a particular profession, and the time is close when the tests will tell not only about individual mutations, but also about which sports section to send the child to so that he succeeds in sports, or what kind of work you can do better because of your genome.
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