Posted on 07/31/2017 10:26:53 PM PDT by nickcarraway
At-home DNA-testing company 23andMe is recruiting 25,000 people for a study to determine how genes influence brain functions in people diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorders.
The Google-backed company's latest project is a collaboration with the Milken Institute, a medical research nonprofit, and Lundbeck, a drug developer, to study the genetics -- and also symptoms, behavior and other environmental factors --- associated with bipolar and major depressive disorders.
In interviews with CNBC, the company describes its goal as finding out how genes influence brain processes, like attention and visual perception, for those with these conditions.
23andMe is currently recruiting 15,000 people with major depressive disorder and 10,000 people with bipolar disorder to participate in the study. Those who apply must have received a diagnosis from a physician, currently have a prescribed medication and live in the United States. The company is soliciting participants both from its own database of customers who have consented to participate in research, and from other sources such as online forums where people discuss their symptoms.
The study will last for 9 months, and involves both monthly assessments and surveys. 23andMe research manager Anna Faaborg describes it as the "most intensive yet."
23andMe caused a big splash in 2016 when its study of more than 450,000 customers found a number of genetic clues linked to depression. For a long time, it wasn't clear that it had a genetic component, said the company's vice president of business development Emily Drabant Conley.
But 23andMe proved otherwise: "It turned out that we just needed a really big data-set to see them," she said.
23andMe can more easily recruit participants for its studies than researchers at academic institutions as it can email information out to its huge database of consumers, and it offers its surveys via a smartphone. Traditional research often requires participants to travel to research sites.
This new research is intended to build on 23andMe's findings about the genetic links to depression by looking at other variables, including environmental ones.
23andMe's Drabant Conley said the results might ultimately influence how pharmaceutical companies develop drugs to treat these conditions. "It might change the way that symptoms are treated," she said.
A guy goes to a doctor and starts screaming: Doc I think I'm a Wigwam,or a teepee,a wigwam,or a teepee......
The doc says: "calm down you're two tents."
“Mandatory? Never...partly because of cost ($150 or more).”
Haha...one word for you...Obamacare.
who are willing to enter a DNA database
which will soon be entered into a database operated by the government and insurance industry.
There are no identity safeguards, and the FED govt. database has already obtained DNA information submitted willingly by genealogical researchers.
Great movie BTW.
They can resell it (think insurance companies, employment recruiters, etc) as they damned well please.
Look at the small print in that little piece of paper you sign when you submit your sample.
To hell with these people.
I'm alive, I'm happy, I know most of who came before me...I don't need the rest of their crap.
Tell 23andme to piss off...otherwise, you may find a huge discrimination against you later in life if anything adverse exists in your DNA.
And it DOES...for everyone, in one way or another.
“Oh no, I’m not sick, well I’m not physically sick anyway. Mentally I’m sick beyond any doctor’s ability to measure it, but otherwise I’m great!”
Bob, this article made me angry.
Then I was sad.
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