In 2009, we added six tools to 23andMe Labs, our technology sandbox where we showcase experimental features. In case you haven’t played around with them yet, here’s a brief review:

Health Labs

Reynolds Risk Score
This tool calculates a 10-year risk for heart-attack using information including cholesterol and blood pressure.

ABO Blood Type
There actually are more than 25 different blood groups that go into determining your particular “type,” but you’re probably most familiar with the blood group determined by the ABO gene. This is the gene that determines whether you will be type O, A, B, or AB.

Genetic Weight Calculator
See how much of your weight you can blame on your genes (not your jeans)!

Ancestry Labs

Haplogroup Tree Mutation MapperThis feature shows you which particular mutations in a person’s mitochondrial DNA (maternal ancestry) or Y chromosome (paternal ancestry) were used to determine their haplogroup assignment.

Family Inheritance: Advanced
Compare your DNA, bit by bit, to see what segments you share with close and distant family.

Native American Ancestry Finder
Search for evidence of Native American ancestry in a person’s genome.

Customers who have purchased the Complete Edition of our service have access to both Health and Ancestry Labs. Customers with either the Health or Ancestry Editions of 23andMe have access only to the Labs relevant to the data they have received.

The point of Labs is to let you, our customers, play around with cutting-edge tools while our scientists are still developing them.  What can we say?  We’re super excited about genetics and we love to share!  Each Lab has its own community so you can compare notes, ask questions and share ideas.  We love to hear your ideas and comments!

But please remember, Labs are a free feature that is not part of our regular service.  Some labs require specialized knowledge or may be of interest only to a subset of our customers. Because they’re still in development, you can expect labs to be a little less refined than our regular product, and somewhat fluid as well. All of them are still in beta.  A feature could be discontinued at any time, or it might be elevated to full integration with our Personal Genome Service.

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The importance of ABO blood types in transfusions is unquestioned. And the associations between blood type and certain diseases are pretty convincing. But some “scientists” have linked blood type to some pretty wacky stuff.

In the first part of the 20th century it seems that there was nothing some researchers didn’t think was connected to blood type. Type A people were said to have the worst hangovers.  People with type B blood were supposed to defecate more than other types.  Some thought type Os had the best teeth.  Among military personnel, people with type O supposedly had weaker characters and type Bs were more impulsive.

Even in more modern times the less-than solid science surrounding blood types continues.  Case in point: Eat Right 4 Your Type.  This diet advice book suggests that certain ailments are caused by negative reactions between blood cells and sugar-binding proteins found in food.  The book recommends specific foods for each blood type to counteract these effects.  Critics argue, however, that there is no evidence supporting these ideas (although they admit the diet advice itself is not too bad.)

In Japan, asking “What’s your blood type?” is like asking someone “What’s your sign?” Popular books, magazines and TV programs discuss how blood type contributes to a person’s personality. Write-ups of celebrities, video game characters and even political candidates include blood type so as to help people form their impressions. Matchmaking services and employers even use blood type to help determine compatibility with mates and job assignments.

People with type A blood are supposed to be sensitive perfectionists who can veer towards anxiousness. Type Bs are happy folks who can have eccentric and selfish streaks.  Type O people are said to be curious and generous on the positive side, but also sometimes stubborn. People with type AB are thought to be artsy and mysterious, ideas that probably reflect the rareness of this blood type.

The problem is, just as there’s no plausible link between the motions of the stars and a person’s fate, the idea that blood type is linked to a person’s personality, dietary needs or dental fitness is pure fantasy.  Our blood types may be different, but there’s no reason to think that explains all of our differences.

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When it comes to blood transfusions, what’s good for one person might be deadly for another.

This might seem obvious today, but until 1900 the idea of “blood types” wasn’t understood. A person in need of a transfusion could find himself getting a donation from just about anyone, and sometimes even an animal!

But in 1900 Austrian scientist Karl Landsteiner noticed that when the blood of different people was mixed together the cells would often clump up, a process he correctly attributed to an immune reaction between the two blood samples. By the next year he had used this clumping reaction to define three main types of blood, which he named A, B and O. (The fourth blood type, AB, was identified in 1902 by two other scientists, Decastello and Struli.)

After hundreds of years of performing blood transfusions unguided, scientists finally had what they needed to safely transfer blood between people. In 1907, the first blood transfusion utilizing the new typing techniques was successfully carried out, and by World War I transfusions were being performed safely on a large scale.

But knowing what blood to give someone and having it on hand are two different things.

Blood banks are faced with the daunting task of making sure there is enough blood of the right type for everyone who needs it at all times. Blood type O, the “universal donor,” tends to be overused. This presents a problem for the approximately 40% of Americans are type O and thus can receive only this type in a transfusion. If supplies run low, their lives could be in danger. At the same time, donated blood with the rare B and AB types can sit unused for so long that it becomes outdated and must be discarded.

One solution to managing the blood supply would be to transform all blood into type O, thus making it suitable for everyone. In the early 1980’s scientists found a way to do this using an enzyme from coffee beans that could strip certain sugars off of type B blood cells. Clinical trials showed that this method was safe and effective, but the method itself was too time consuming and costly to ever be of clinical use. New research, however, has identified bacterial enzymes that can carry out this same process more efficiently. Research with this new method is still in progress.

(23andMe customers can get a prediction of their ABO blood type based on their DNA data through the new ABO Lab feature.)

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23andMe customers who are curious about the genetic basis of their ABO blood type, or don’t already know which one they have, can now find out using our newest Labs feature.

The ABO blood group is just one of more than 25 that go into giving a person their particular “type,” but it is probably the most familiar. The consequences of a mismatch during a transfusion also make it one of the most critical to know: receiving blood with the wrong ABO type causes a person’s immune system to attack the donated cells, which can lead to uncontrolled blood clotting, shock, acute kidney failure and even death.  Fortunately, these types of mix-ups rarely happen.

The different versions of the ABO gene that give people their type A, B, AB or O blood arise from SNPs that are included on the custom v2 version of the 23andMe SNP chip.  We’re now able to use this information to give customers a prediction of their blood type in our ABO lab, our third offering in 23andMe Labs.  Like other labs, the new ABO offering has its own community so customers can compare notes, ask questions and share ideas.

In honor of this latest addition, the Spittoon will be taking a look at the some of the science surrounding ABO blood types over the next week. Stay tuned!

(To whet your appetite, check out the SNPwatch posted just yesterday about the relationship between blood type and the risk for pancreatic cancer.)

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