In the autumn of 2007, Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki launched the era of pop genetics by going live with 23andme, their DNA testing startup.
Now the 49-year-old Avey is stepping down from co-managing the Mountain View, Calif., company to launch a new venture that she says will connect the DNA-analysis platform developed by 23andme with the disease her father-in-law died from last year: Alzheimer's.
The idea for 23andme -- which refers to the 23 paired chromosomes in a human -- was vintage Silicon Valley: to create a new market for existing information that could be digitally organized and powered up by designing user-friendly software that delivers the data directly to you, for a fee.
In this case, the company would mine the thousands of genetic traits discovered by scientists and available on public-access databases -- DNA markers for everything from lung cancer and diabetes to lactose intolerance and a propensity to freckle -- and find those they considered most useful, compelling, and, in some cases, cool.
Two years ago, the commercialization of DNA by 23andme and others seemed to stun geneticists and the medical research community, despite years of scientists downloading genetic discoveries on public databases.
Leading geneticists called the information too preliminary to be relevant to individuals, while some worried that it might frighten patients who tested positive for a given disease and didn't understand that these tests provided risk factors, not a definitive yes or no. Ethicists and the American Civil Liberties Union fretted about the privacy questions inherent in companies holding this data.
One example of where direct-to-consumer genetics may be headed is Avey's new Alzheimer's venture.
"We want to leverage the research platform we built at 23andme to study families with a history of Alzheimer's," Avey says. "We want to use the web to create a research community."
Automated summary from: CNN
