{"id":4656,"date":"2017-03-20T16:51:47","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T20:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/23andme-healing-the-world-through-crowdsourcing\/"},"modified":"2017-03-20T16:52:10","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T20:52:10","slug":"23andme-healing-the-world-through-crowdsourcing","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/23andme-healing-the-world-through-crowdsourcing\/","title":{"rendered":"23andMe: Healing the World through Crowdsourcing"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is 23andMe?<\/strong><\/p>\n

23andMe is a California-based biotech company that provides direct-to-consumer genome tests. The company sells those analyses to customers in the form of two products: an ancestry service, and a health service. The ancestry service \u201creports on your ancestry composition, Haplogroups, Neanderthal ancestry, your DNA family and provides a DNA relative finder tool to enable you to connect with people who share DNA with you\u201d (1). The health service tells the customer about their \u201ccarrier status, wellness, and traits\u201d (1).<\/p>\n

The process is very simple. Once you purchase the product online, 23andMe sends a kit through which you provide your saliva sample, and mail it back to their labs. A few weeks later, you\u2019ll have access to your results. 23andMe affirms that they follow high quality standards, and FDA-approved, scientifically- and clinically-valid processes (2).<\/p>\n

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Through August of last year, 23andMe had sold over a million kits (3). As an aside at the time of the purchase, 23andMe seeks permission from all customers to use their DNA (as well as survey questions about their health) in further research. That\u2019s crucial, because more than half of the customers in their database have opted in (3). That\u2019s high-quality data from over half a million people around the world, ready to be analyzed.<\/p>\n

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Linking genetic differences to common diseases:<\/strong><\/p>\n

One way to analyze such data would be through genome-wide association studies\u2014examinations that help identify genetic differences between people with a disease and a control group of healthy people. Such studies have yielded important advances in research of various diseases (e.g. diabetes) (3). However, many of those studies fall short for one simple reason: lack of a large-enough sample size, or in other words, lack of data.<\/p>\n

Enter 23andMe.<\/p>\n

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Crowdsourcing data leading to scientific breakthroughs:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last summer, Pfizer, in partnership with 23andMe, conducted the largest ever genome-wide association study into the genetic causes of depression. For the first time, the study successfully detected \u201c15 regions of human genome linked to a higher risk of struggling with serious depression\u201d (3).<\/p>\n

23andMe was able to provide a sample of 141,000 people diagnosed with depression, and another 337,000 to be used as a control group (3). For context, the next-largest depression study ever included only a tenth of those figures! (3).<\/p>\n

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Reasons for success, and potential pitfalls of similar crowdsourcing efforts:<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are a couple factors working in 23andMe\u2019s favor, allowing the company to collect such a vast body of data:<\/p>\n