Google Wife Targets World Genealogy DNA Domination

Anne Wojcicki is the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, one of the world's richest men. She is also co-founder of a biotech company called 23andme. She was recently quoted as saying, "If genealogy continues at its current rate, what we're offering will soon become a standard part of people's lives."

Wojcicki and her business partner Linda Avey reckon their service represents the future of social networking. In the same way that MySpace, Facebook, You Tube and Flickr allow users to share information - in the shape of videos, photos or instant messaging - Wojcicki and Avey can see a time where people worldwide will share and compare their genetic details.

"Amazing things are going to happen in the next five years or so," assures Wojcicki. "There will be an extraordinary evolution in our product and in genetics on the whole. After the success we've had in the US, Europe and Canada is the obvious next stage.

"But genealogy is a global phenomenon and ultimately we're looking at the worldwide stage."

You can read more in an article by Felix Lowe in the Telegraph at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/money/2008/01/25/bcn23andme.xml.

Comments

[Infinite Ancestors]

I certainly hope that they take privacy very seriously. In addition to fundamental protections for the sake of individual privacy, there is a huge potential for abuse of genetic information that must be considered.

[Neal Carrier]

Let me see, if the worlds population now is 6,646,779,410 (US census bureau) times 98 percent times $999 a test will make her how rich?

Bill Gates will be borrowing money from her.

Sure sounds like an Al Gore scam to me.

[Patsy]

Any why do we need another DNA company?

[Gerald Lalonde]

I have spent over $500 on DNA genealogy and it has told me nothing of my ancestry. My ancestry is overwhelmingly French=-Canadian and Amerindian. None of this shows up in my results from eithe r the NGS Genomics Project nor in the Family Tree DNA project. Results returned to me show my ancestry to be mostly Ehglish. How preposterous. I have only 3 English lines asd opposed to hundreds of French-Canadian and 5 Amerindian lines. None of the Amerindian lines show in the results received.
This whole field is open to question.

[Jason K]

"Any why do we need another DNA company?"

I thought this was pretty innovative stuff, nobody else has managed to 'mainstream' genetics the way these guys seem to be

[sue carlson]

I have been wondering how to go about having DNA traced and I understand that there are two tests, one through the maternal line and another through the paternal. If I wanted to know my father's great-grandmother's ethnicity on his father's side, which would I choose? I wondered if that might be Gerald LaLondes problem, if he hadn't had both types done.

[Dick Eastman]

---> Any why do we need another DNA company?

And why do we need another automobile manufacturer or another airline or another genealogy newsletter or another Internet provider? More companies creates competition which, in turn, creates better products and lower prices for consumers.

- Dick Eastman

[Dino (All Dino, All The Time)]

Dick,

I agree that more companies doing the same thing fosters competition, but I hardly think that a price of $999 per test is driving the cost down.

[martha beamon]

I am just a babe at searching my history, however I am allready aware parents gr. parents were slaves Brantley and Springfield plantation. Have been so excited about this. Would like to stept into that DNA world, but is their a way for people on fixed income, disability, fixed income like me?

[John Hyder]

Sue Carlson brought up the point about maternal line testing and paternal line testing. There is testing being done through various family associations using these line testing, and it would pay someone to look into that, and at testing in general before paying $999 for a test. Some testing purports to be much cheaper. Know what you are looking for and what you can expect to find and achieve before putting out that kind of money.