Genetic Testing For Color Vision Makes Commercial Debut for Military Applications
By Dan Buckland,
medGadget
| 06. 12. 2012
Possibly heralding a new era in the use of genetic testing for hiring decisions,
Genevolve (Albuquerque, NM) announced at the recent Aerospace Medicine Association conference in Atlanta, GA a new “military grade” test for inherited color blindness. A few years ago we
posted on research done at the Neitz lab at the University of Washington that used gene therapy to cure color blindness in monkeys. Aspects of that research were used to produce the technology Genevolve uses for its test, called Eyedox. Eyedox uses a buccal swab that is sent to the company, which analyzes the sample for color genes (likely the ones detailed in this review
paper by Neitz) and returns the type of deficiency and severity on a scale of 1-100, 100 being normal.
A press release from the company details what they envision the test could be used for:
“This prevents a qualified applicant from being denied entry into a field they can adequately perform and eliminates cheating or administrator bias that may allow some severely colorblinds to slip through the system,” says [President of Genevolve]...
Related Articles
By Riley Beggin and Jeff Stein, The Washington Post | 08.03.2025
The White House does not plan to require health insurers to provide coverage for in vitro fertilization services, two people with knowledge of internal discussions said, even though the idea was one of President Donald Trump’s key campaign pledges.
Last...
By Sayantani DasGupta, MedPage Today | 08.05.2025
It's just a jeans ad.
It's not that deep.
It's just social media outrage.
Should physicians care about the recent American Eagle "Sydney Sweeney Has Good Genes Jeans" controversy? What, if anything, does the provocative campaign have to...
By Editors, Nature | 08.15.2025
A technology that played a key part in saving millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic1 should be feted to the skies. Instead, US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr announced last week that the US federal government is...
By Staff, National Women's Law Center | 08.13.2025
INTRODUCTION
Baby bonuses. Motherhood medals. Fertility tracking. You may have heard of these policy proposals as solutions from the Trump administration to help encourage women to have more children.
Besides falling short of ensuring that people have what they need...