Consumer Genetics Takes Off
April 24, 2018 | Terry Sharrer
Surprisingly, the “take off” in genetic testing hasn’t come from disease-related interest, but rather from genealogy. Ten consumer genetics companies have now served some 12 million people. Most, if not all, of the companies used Illumina’s bead microarray chips and cross check results with an NIH database, but at most, this kind of testing is mainly useful in connecting to other living relatives who also have had the test done. In time, at the current growth rate, this kind of DNA analysis can tie into biobanks where real medically useful information might be retrieved. Coincidentally, Ancestry.com and Cancer Treatment Centers of America both spend more the $100 million on advertising. MORE
Image Credit: AncestryDNA andTechnologyReview.com