Jul
04
2008
The question: What does DNA look like?
While many of the 23andMe scientists have purified DNA more times than we’d like to remember, there are a fair number of people here (on the science team and on the engineering and business teams) who’ve never spent any time at the lab bench. We love all things DNA [...]
Tags: 23andMe, DNA extraction, dorky fun, stawberries
Jul
02
2008
You may have already read about 23andWe and the ”Power of We” in earlier blog posts. As the research arm of 23andMe, we’re hoping 23andWe can produce valuable discoveries about the genetic roots of diseases, conditions and traits that are little-studied due to funding limitations, logistical obstacles or simple lack of interest among scientists. 23andMe’s [...]
Tags: 23andWe, research, tongue curling
Jun
24
2008
This morning 23andMe bravely went were no other personal genome service has gone before – Second Life!
Bertalan Mesko of scienceroll.com kindly arranged for us (ErinC and joyce) to give a presentation about our company on Second Nature, an island operated in Second Life by the Nature Publishing Group. We talked about the basics [...]
Tags: 23andMe, 23andWe, Second Life
Jun
13
2008
Roy King is a clinical psychiatrist at Stanford University. He’s also a scholar who uses genetics and archaeology to figure out how agriculture spread through Anatolia and the Mediterranean region of Europe more than 10,000 years ago.
Now Roy has another genetic puzzle to consider – himself. With the help of 23andMe, he can now see [...]
Tags: 23andMe, ancestry, ancestry painting
Jun
06
2008
If you could only do one thing to this sentence, what would it be?
Can you explain why there’s no gene for Crohn’s disease?
If you know the answers to these questions, we want you to know this: 23andMe is looking to hire an editor who is adept with scientific copy and concepts. The Science Editor will [...]
Tags: editor, help wanted, jobs, Science
May
15
2008
Last weekend 23andMe participated in the Girl Scouts’ Golden Gate Bridging at Crissy Field in San Francisco.
This annual event celebrates middle school girls who are graduating from Junior Girl Scouts to Cadette Girl Scouts. To symbolize this transition, the girls walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. More than 7,000 girls from eight states were [...]
Tags: DNA, DNA alias, Girl Scouts
Apr
29
2008
This woman shares 99.5% of her DNA with Lilly Mendel.
Team 23andMe likes games – Wii tennis and Segway polo are big here. So are friendly wagers over a new employee’s ACTN3 genotype, or whether a given Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation will converge during our lifetimes.
So in the spirit of friendly competition, we’re starting the [...]
Tags: 23andMe, contest, genome, win
Apr
15
2008
Last week 23andMe participated in the Stanford Cool Product Expo, sponsored by Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. We were pleased to meet a steady stream of curious visitors to our corner booth, which was situated between the manufacturer of a bike you pedal like an elliptical trainer and a toolmaker with an innovative solution [...]
Mar
19
2008
Part of my role as the ‘People Manager’ here at 23andMe is leading recruiting efforts. I take a lot of calls from people who are interested in science careers. While many of those calls are about specific positions, an equal number are from people who just want to know what it’s like to work here.
Most [...]
Tags: 23andMe, academia, careers, jobs, start-ups
Feb
06
2008
Rate cuts, market meltdowns and global warming may have ruled the day at this year’s World Economic Forum – but spitting ruled the night.
Every evening in Davos scholars, celebs and politicos swarmed around our booth in a hallway of the main conference hotel, where 23andMe offered WEF attendees a free look at their DNA. All [...]
Tags: 23andMe, Davos, Naomi Campbell, Thomas Friedman, WEF, World Economic Forum