[Closed] DNA testing as a gift

Be sure be very sure....

I was asked to do this by a relative and thought nothing of it. Then I looked into it a wee bit more and have been prevaricating since.

I wouldn't, her close relatives may get a nasty surprise.

scotroutes - can you expand please?

her parents are gone, so no way to know?

but that is a fair point...

The results that they give you are interesting/fun, but it's mostly bollox.

First of all they can only match you to as much data as they have in their databases.

So there's always going to be a huge amount of interpretation in the results.

The bigger companies have some fun tools to play with, but once they start telling you that youre descended from anyone specific then they are taking liberties, go back <40 generations and everyone is related.

Even broader assumptions like assigning ancestry to specific locations are open to interpretation & bias. We only sequenced the first genome in 2001 & that was a shoddy job (I can say that as I was there) <span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">I bang my head against how little we understand about human genetics every day and there's so much we don't know.</span>

It's very easy to read into them what you want, but as long as you don't take it too seriously then fill her boots

From what I've read, ancestry DNA testing is  inaccurate and different companies can give very different results. It seems like it's ok for identifying close relatives and immediate ancestry but not a lot else.

Hmmm, maybe not what i@m looking for - i was thinking it was a poor mans version who do you think you are!

kimbers - where you really there?  thats quite some story if you really where!

I used to have an old boss, who's father was on the team that invented the semiconductor transistor...

I’d want to read the T&Cs very carefully (which is shit for a present as the recipient has no choice on supplier).  What if your life insurer could get access to the DNA?  What if your life insurer could get anonymised access to DNA from everyone her age range in her rough postcode? What if your DNA profile was supplied to law enforcement agencies (AFAIK much of this is done in the US where DNA database rules are rather different) and then an error in sampling, data integrity, or the fundamental science sees you being hauled before the courts for a crime you had absolutely no involvement with.

I don’t believe businesses are that interested in the geanology - they want the data.  If they want the data it’s because it is incredibly valuable - that means you are giving something away.  Ultimately it might be for the greater good of society by helping develop new or better drugs.  Ultimately if you end up with the rare form of the condition the drug company learned to ignore it might not be so good for you.

kimbers – where you really there?  thats quite some story if you really where!

Sanger was my first job out of uni, salary was terrible 10.5k wasn't really enough to live on in Cambridge in 2000, I was actually on the less glamorous mouse genome project, but the campus was a great place to work. It was really just a DNA production line, 1000+ staff here & more in the USA, sequencing machines were run overnight.

It laid the foundation for modern drug development and bioinformatics that drives medicine today.it cost about £3bn took 10 years and was a brilliant bit of global scientific collaboration.

Today a genome to a much higher accuracy & coverage takes 1 person about a week & costs less than a grand. (Worth pointing out that the DNA services in the OP just look at a tiny % of the genome, focusing on common mutated regions that are linked to diseases, traits & regional populations)

And I'm not against dna sequencing companies, it's a lot of fun go with a big company like 23&me or ancestry & read the small print.

It's the perfect gift for someone who has  everything (and maybe a little bit more they didn't know about)

😋

There's a lot of ways that can go wrong and some people seem to have very strong feelings so though I wouldn't mind myself I'd steer clear of it as a gift.

Hello Kimbers - wondering who you might be - was there at about the same time.  The beginning of big things.

Today though - the first question to ask these services is 'who owns your data?'  It probably won't be you!  The 23&me case is very interesting.  Took all the data they had generated and sold it, as it was a very valuable population sequencing database.

There was a programme about this subject recently. Quick Google reveals this

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05z4m57

Pretty sure that wasn't the one I was thinking of - it had something about viking traces being found in African people or something.

I'd still buy one as a gift if I'd run out of ideas - mainly due to the piss taking possibilities.

Rich- I think you're referring to the Rutherford &a Fry podcast that recently covered DNA testing and basically they are only comparing your data to current data they hold hence why different companies give different results.

There seem to be a lot of cases in the USA where data from cold cases has been compared to data on these sites to find either a match or a close relative to then narrow down the search for a culprit,

Thanks for all the feedback guys. Think I will keep looking for a gift...

Rutherford &a Fry

That's the badger! Thanks FB-ATB

I think I heard the same one Rich - although I think the point was that practically everyone that has European ancestry at all has some Viking element to them, and that includes most black people in Europe (except very recent immigrants to Europe directly from Africa). They were too delicate to explain how many black people came to have white genetic elements in their genetic make ups...

Even for people who don't wear tin foil hats, there are real privacy questions around giving this info to some here today gone American company

I wouldn't do it. Some of the companies tell you if you're suspectiable to various diseases - at some point an insurance company is bound to ask.

Seems like a risky present to get anybody...

1) you'd better be very confident everyone's apparent parents are their actual parents...

2) don't forget you're also sharing a big chunk of your kids/parents/siblings DNA too...

@fangin I was in the HGMP - the MRC funded bit from 1999- 2003

Did u play footy or volleyball ?