Some interesting news in the field of personal genomics:
- A terrific article by David Hamilton at VentureBeat Life Sciences about Navigenetics, a new competitor for personal genomics business. However, Navigenetics has stated that rather than being a direct competitor to 23andMe, the companies can compliement each other. According to the article:
“Navigenics essentially intends to get people to have their genomes scanned in a rough-and-ready fashion — in other words, they’ll scan your genes with chips that look for single-letter variations in the genetic code, instead of laboriously reading it out letter by letter — and then to match up what they find with the latest information on the diseases to which your genes might predispose you.”
- Â Misha Angrist, the 4th member of the “First 10“, has started his own blog at genomeboy.com.
- Esther Dyson was interviewed on the Charlie Rose Show last week, talking primarily about the Personal Genome Project and her membership in the “First 10.” Find out more at The Personal Genome.
Nice find for the Navigenics quote! While it is clear that Navigenics is going to use Affymetric SNP chips (to find where people differ from each other in their genomes, as people are 99% the same as each other in their sequences) rather than full genome sequencing (reading each letter of the genome), what is not clear is exactly what 23andme is going to do. Illumina stated the collaboration, but perhaps 23andme will use all existing technology for more information (and this technology changes rapidly so not committing to a single product is a good idea)!
Great post. Thank you.