Aggregated News

An illustrated graphic of a side-view of a human head. Their brain appears with six small double helix icons on the side.

DNA is what makes us who we are. In humans, our genetic makeup is 99.9 percent similar to the person next to us, but that tiny 0.1 percent difference is what makes each of us unique — providing us with traits such as eye and hair color, height, and even disease.

Genetic testing is now available for over 2,000 conditions from over 500 different laboratories, according to the National Institutes of Health. As genomic technology grows at a rapid pace, testing that was once reserved for newborn screening exams and a handful of genetic disorders is now commercialized.

It's simple: order, spit, ship, and wait.

Prior to April 2017, genetic testing was limited to medical professionals who were testing their patients for certain inherited traits and disorders. With the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the first ever direct-to-consumer test, the company 23andMe can not only sell commercial DNA kits to determine ancestry, but they can test for 500,000 genetic variants to assess for risk of developing any one of 10 diseases. You can do this in the privacy...