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gattaca- waiting for my test results
2009-Feb-01, Sunday 01:09 pmSaturday morning, I mailed off a tube of my spit. It will take about 8 weeks to get back my results. When the results are posted online, I will be able to view a vast number of specific points of my DNA to see how they compare against known differences in the human genome. I'll be using the tag "gattaca" here on LiveJournal to follow my results of this personal journey. I suspect that I will be learning a great deal about the human genome starting about 8 weeks from now. *laugh*
"Gattaca", for those who don't know, was a great movie about the dangers of predicting human life outcomes based on the results of genetic testing. The name of the movie is built using the same letters as the 4 chemical parts used to build a dna molecule: guanine, adenine, thymine, cytosine.
I first learned about 23andme.com a few months ago. (Hello,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lordalfredhenry .) I did not feel any overwhelming urge to run my own DNA through their system, but I confess that pure unadulterated curiosity finally got the better of me. I added $400 to my credit card debt, and now here I am waiting for results. I've already created my community profile there, although I think you have to have paid your money and claimed your special test kit code in order to participate.
https://www.23andme.com/user/?community_profile=92caa46f527ff773
Using their sample result data set as an example, I will get about 633,000 data points from my DNA. These data points are called SNPs ("snips"), Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms. These are places in the long strand of DNA code that a single difference is found. So instead of getting my complete genetic code back, I'll be getting the "deltas", the differences. They are using as a reference template, the published "human genome, build 36".
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/mapview/map_search.cgi?taxid=9606&build=36
8 weeks until I see results. That's 56 days. Or 1,344 hours. Or even 80,640 minutes.
*twiddle*
"Gattaca", for those who don't know, was a great movie about the dangers of predicting human life outcomes based on the results of genetic testing. The name of the movie is built using the same letters as the 4 chemical parts used to build a dna molecule: guanine, adenine, thymine, cytosine.
I first learned about 23andme.com a few months ago. (Hello,
lordalfredhenry .) I did not feel any overwhelming urge to run my own DNA through their system, but I confess that pure unadulterated curiosity finally got the better of me. I added $400 to my credit card debt, and now here I am waiting for results. I've already created my community profile there, although I think you have to have paid your money and claimed your special test kit code in order to participate.https://www.23andme.com/user/?community_profile=92caa46f527ff773
Using their sample result data set as an example, I will get about 633,000 data points from my DNA. These data points are called SNPs ("snips"), Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms. These are places in the long strand of DNA code that a single difference is found. So instead of getting my complete genetic code back, I'll be getting the "deltas", the differences. They are using as a reference template, the published "human genome, build 36".
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/mapview/map_search.cgi?taxid=9606&build=36
8 weeks until I see results. That's 56 days. Or 1,344 hours. Or even 80,640 minutes.
*twiddle*