• DNA testing can teach you everything from your ethnic background and disease pre-disposition to food preferences and exercise habits.
• A DNA testing company called Vitagene approached me to take a DNA test for $100, so I swabbed the inside of my cheek and mailed the sample to their lab.
• I wasn't expecting anything significant, yet the results of my DNA test were a complete shock.
• A caveat: DNA testing is an imperfect science, and the FDA is only beginning to investigate the claims made by companies like Vitagene.

When I was approached to take a DNA test by a company called Vitagene, I was intrigued. I'd always wanted to know my ethnic breakdown (spoiler alert: mostly European). But what really fascinated me was the prospect of demystifying my genetic code — sort of.

Vitagene promised to dig into my one-of-a-kind DNA to determine my sensitivities and predisposed ailments. Plus, they'd give me a custom diet and exercise regimen and handpick the exact supplements I should be taking based not only on my genetics, but also on my family medical history, lifestyle habits, and health goals.

Of course, DNA testing is still an imperfect science, and there are currently no universal standards for accuracy. The FDA is only just starting to regulate the health claims made by DNA testing services. I never expected my test results to hold the same kind of weight as real diagnostic testing or be a substitute for real health professionals (and neither should you).

I swabbed the inside of my cheek, mailed the sample to their lab, and completed a quick questionnaire on their site. Easy peasy — and the whole thing costs a cool $100, cheaper than some other brands.

A month later, Vitagene emailed me a link to retrieve my password-protected results online. Some of the findings didn't surprise me: I have a high alcohol tolerance but I'm lactose intolerant. Carbs make me pack on the pounds, but fatty foods do not.

What did surprise me? Everything else.

Here are the most eye-opening things I learned from my DNA test.

SEE ALSO: DNA testing is growing, but 2 states are concerned with its claims

1. I shouldn't rely on multivitamins

According to Dr. Julie Chen, an integrative medicine physician on Vitagene's advisory board, I should get all of my essential nutrients from the foods I eat. In other words, my diet should be my multivitamin. I should only take supplements to address my deficiencies (hence the word "supplements"). Excess vitamins can potentially be harmful — and the New York Times agrees.

My personal list of supplements is pretty short — and surprisingly bizarre. In addition to the usual suspects, like vitamin D and probiotics, Vitagene suggests I stock up on obscurities like chromium, glucosamine chondroitin complex, and — brace yourself — bromelain quercetin complex. Apparently, these pills will help regulate my blood sugar and protect me from joint pain and inflammation, respectively.

But do I need them? I'll let my (actual) doctor decide.

2. I may be predisposed to overindulging in food

The cat's out of the bag. I only exercise because I have to, and I keep my cupboards pretty bare because I have no self-control. The craziest part? I'm allegedly genetically predisposed to be this way!

In addition to my DNA being ravenous and sedentary, it is also stubborn about weight loss and muscle gain. Small portions that total 1,400 calories a day and extra reps at the gym are the only way my body weight will budge, thanks to my genes.

3. I should drop the yoga mat and pick up a barbell

Namaste? Not if I want to tone up, says Vitagene. I'm built to see more results from short, intense exercises, like sprinting and bench pressing, than from aerobic workouts like jogging, swimming, and yoga, which I love.

That said, I still need aerobic exercise to keep my heart healthy; I just have to work a lot harder. In short, I'm built to be the tortoise, not the hare.

The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase.

Today, April 25, is National DNA Day. As another "holiday" that you may not have heard about until now, you're probably wondering what it means and how to celebrate it.

National DNA celebrates the completion of the Human Genome Project, a 13-year long publicly funded research project on discovering the specifics of human DNA sequences.

Since the inception of the holiday in 2003, the goal has been to be give back to the public with knowledge on genetics — and there's no better way to do that than with at-home DNA kits.

If you've ever been interested in learning more about your ancestry or family history, right now is the best time to do so. Many of the best at-home DNA kits are discounted on Amazon today.

Shop all DNA Day deals on Amazon now.

While many tests unveil similar data, there are key differences between the each one. Check them out below.

AncestryDNA

$68.95 (Originally $99) [You save $30.05]

With over 1 billion family connections, AncestryDNA is the best-selling DNA test you can buy. The service helps you discover the people and places that made you who you are by tapping into 350 regions across the world — two times more than the next leading competitor.

23andMe

$139 (Originally $199) [You save $60]

The 23andMe kit is one of the most in-depth at-home DNA tests you can take. Not only will it break down your ancestry, it will also discover your genetic health risks for diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, carrier traits for diseases like Cystic Fibrosis and Sickle Cell, report on your wellness with details like sleep patterns and lactose intolerance, and other genetic traits. If you're only interested in learning your ancestry you can buy the genetics kit for $69 — a $30 savings.

National Geographic Geno 2.0

$70 (Originally $99.94) [You save 29.95]

The National Geographic Geno 2.0 Next Generation provides a breakdown of your regional ancestry by percentage, going back as 500,000 years. Once your DNA sample is submitted and processed, you can access the data via the Geno 2.0 smartphone app, where an easy-to-understand video walks you through your ancestry. You'll learn about which historical relatives you could be related to.

• If you look at your friends, you may find that they are similar in a lot of ways.
• Research suggests this could be for a number of reasons.
• Friends tend to share similar brain waves, and react to situations in the same way.
• Also, you might share some genetic similarities with your friends.
• But other things are important too, and some research suggests we change our friends in line with our evolving hobbies, beliefs, and interests.

Some scientific research has shown how you're likely to be attracted to people who share similar facial characteristics as you. One theory for this is that we associate people who look like us with our parents, and thus have more positive feelings towards their features.

Similarities are also important for friendships. You may look around your friendship group and wonder how it is you all share the same sense of humour, or you all agree about certain things.

This mayl be because we gravitate towards people with similar interests and opinions, but science could also have something to do with it.

Friends share similar brainwaves

A recent study, published in the journal Nature Communications, found how neural responses could factor into our friendships.

Researchers from the University of California and Dartmouth College recruited 279 students to take a survey about who they were friends with in their classes. A smaller group of 42 students were then asked to watch video clips while the researchers used function magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to see what was happening in their brains at the time.

Results showed the friends who watched the clips reacted in strikingly similar ways. Areas of their brains associated with learning, motivation, memory, and affective processing lit up. In fact, the brain patterns were so similar, the researchers said they could predict who out of the group had called each other friends in the survey without looking at their answers.

"Neural responses to dynamic, naturalistic stimuli, like videos, can give us a window into people's unconstrained, spontaneous thought processes as they unfold," said Carolyn Parkinson, the lead author of the study. "Our results suggest that friends process the world around them in exceptionally similar ways."

They are also likely to be genetically similar

The sign of a strong friendship could also lie in your DNA. According to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, friends tend to be more genetically similar than strangers.

Researchers from Stanford, Duke, and the University of Wisconsin carried out a series of genetic comparisons between pairs of friends using a dataset of 5,500 American adolescents.

They found many more genetic similarities between the friends than between pairs who didn't know each other. Also, friends were about two thirds as similar as married couples, who have been found to share similar DNA.

One reason for this happening could be because people are drawn to others who come from a similar background, had the same level of education, or are of a similar height and weight — a phenomenon known as social homophily.

Another reason could be social structuring, which is when we forge friendships within shared social environments, such as schools or the place you live.

Friends share personality traits

A study that looked at behavioural data from social media, published in the journal Psychological Science, found that people are more like their friends than research previously thought.

Decades of research suggested there was no evidence that friends and romantic partners had similar personalities, according to Youyou Wu from the University of Cambridge, the lead author of the study.

However, the researchers suggested this could be because people tend to compare themselves to people around them when answering questions like "are you well organised?" So, they decided to observe people's behavior via their social media accounts, rather than relying on questionnaires.

They collected Facebook data from 295,320 participants, and gathered information about their personality traits from people's "likes" and status updates.

"People who like 'Salvador Dali' or 'meditation,' for example, tend to score high on openness to new experiences; those who write about 'partying' or 'weekends' a lot tend to be extroverted," said Wu, according to The Association for Psychological Science. "The advantage of this approach is that everyone is being judged against a universal standard, leaving less room for subjective judgment."

Overall, the results showed there was a substantial similarity in personality traits between both friends and romantic partners.

Similar interests are more important than how much you like each other

It may sound obvious, but sharing interests is very important for solid friendships. Back in 2010, researchers looked into people's Facebook habits to try and work out why this is.

The study, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, concluded that we change friends throughout our lives because we form friendships through similarities in our professions, interests, hobbies, religion, or political affiliation. However, our interests are always in flux, and our personalities change throughout life.

"It was fascinating to see how the cliques could form without any one person organising everything," said Seth Bullock, a researcher at School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, and one of the authors of the study. "We saw individuals moving from one clique to another. Over time some cliques disappeared while new ones were established."

In other words, as we grow up and our interests change, our friends are likely to be in keeping with that.

SEE ALSO: It takes roughly 200 hours to become best friends with someone, according to science

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why humans enjoy pain so much

• Genetics testing company 23andMe recently launched a feature that allows customers to share information about what treatments for 18 conditions — including depression and ADHD — do and don't work for them.
• Outside experts call the feature "concerning" and say it could mislead people or discourage them from getting the proper treatment.
• The feature currently has more than 5,000 users, 23andMe says.

In a move that psychologists and psychiatrists are calling "concerning," popular genetics company 23andMe launched an initiative earlier this month allowing customers to share tips about which treatments for conditions including ADHD and depression do or don't work for them.

Since rolling out the feature, called "Condition Pages," last week, 23andMe says it has attracted more than 5,000 customers who've contributed over 30,000 submissions on the conditions.

But experts warn that some aspects of the crowdsourcing initiative could be dangerously misleading and even discourage people from getting treatments that are recommended to them by physicians.

Although the pages are similar to what someone might find on Google or Reddit (in the sense that anyone can comment on them and share information), experts warn that they might carry a feeling of authority that could encourage some customers to believe that the content has been vetted by a scientist, physician, or researcher.

"There’s a worry with having that authority label,"Nancy Liu, an assistant clinical professor of clinical psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, told Business Insider.

Say a customer named Susie read on 23andMe's condition pages that another customer named Brian tried cognitive behavioral therapy for his depression, and it didn't work for him. Then say Susie stopped going to therapy.

That would be deeply concerning, Liu said.

"Disorders aren’t like that. What works for one person doesn’t always work for another."

Cristina Cusin, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard University, agreed. She is worried that customers may treat the condition pages similar to the way they'd treat a medical consultation with a physician, despite a disclaimer at the bottom which reads, "Keep in mind that this content is preliminary and meant for informational purposes only."

There are other problems with the new feature as well, experts say.

One of them is what Liu calls selection bias. Essentially, "you self-select individuals who are engaging in this dialogue, which skews the type of information you receive, but it's somehow viewed to represent all of individuals with a particular condition."

Customers might assume that 23andMe's pages provide provide a comprehensive look at everyone with depression or ADHD, when in reality, they only represent people with the condition who also had the time and interest to get online and discuss their condition with others.

Another issue is that the feature bundles all people with a condition like depression under the same label. The true nature of depression is much more complex than that, Liu said.

That recognition is vital to ensuring that people with a wide range of iterations of the disorder get the individualized treatment that works for them — whether it's antidepressants, individual therapy, group therapy, or a combination of all three.

"One of the things we know about antidepressants is that how well they work depends on the type of depression someone has and on the severity of that depression. With something like this, that kind of fine-grained detail gets lost," Liu said.

The "treatments" currently shown on the conditions pages are nowhere near exhaustive. Not all of them are necessarily considered treatments in and of themselves. While exercising and having a pet, for example, are near the top of 23andMe's list of beneficial treatments, a tool like cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the best studied and most helpful treatments for depression, is not on the list at all.

Jesse Inchauspe, the product lead for 23andMe's condition pages, told Business Insider that the thinking behind the project was that the company had useful information besides just genetics information to share with customers.

She said the company chose the 18 conditions that are currently listed, which include depression, ADHD, asthma, and high blood pressure, based on their commonality among 23andMe customers. The company did not consult with medical experts prior to rolling out the platform, Inchauspe said.

While the feature is currently only available to 50% of customers, the other half will have access to it this week, she said. Based on customer enthusiasm, she said that 23andMe plans to add more conditions in the near future.

"It’s always been our mission to give people access to as much information as possible," Inchauspe said.

SEE ALSO: Popular genetics testing company 23andMe has a new cancer test — and scientists say it's dangerous

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: You're probably bending over all wrong — here's the right way to do it

• Investigators say they cracked the cold case of the Golden State Killer with help from data on a genetics website.
  
• The investigators revealed that they uploaded a suspect's raw DNA signature — sourced from an old crime scene sample — to a site called GEDmatch.
  
• The case has raised privacy concerns among people who have submitted their DNA data to similar genetics sites.
• Here's how to delete your DNA and data from 23andMe, Ancestry, and Helix.
  

The recent arrest in one of California's most infamous serial-killer cases was based in large part on a DNA sample submitted to a genetics website by a distant relative of the suspect.

If that news has you concerned about the security of your own genetic material, you may be wondering how to delete it from genetic databases kept by popular genetics testing companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.

Those two databases were not used by investigators to track down Golden State Killer suspect Joseph James DeAngelo. Instead, investigators used a service called GEDmatch, which lets customers upload a raw DNA signature. Investigators created a profile for the suspect using DNA sourced from a long-stored crime scene sample, and found matches between DeAngelo's crime scene DNA and the DNA of a distant family member.

23andMe, Ancestry, and Helix (National Geographic's genetics service) only accept saliva samples for genetics testing — an easy way of obtaining DNA. But a similar company called Family Tree DNA could likely accept hair or blood, according to Joe Fox, an administrator for one of the company's surname projects.

Whichever way a company gets your DNA, privacy advocates say there's cause for concern. Although genetic data is ostensibly anonymized, companies can and do sell your data to third parties like pharmaceutical companies. From there, it could find its way elsewhere, advocates say.

Here's how to delete your data from a few of these services.

23andMe could keep your spit and data for up to 10 years

The core service provided by most commercial genetic tests is built on the extraction of your DNA from your spit — that's how you get the results about your health and ancestry information.

After registering your spit sample online with 23andMe, the company will ask if you'd like your saliva to be stored or discarded. But you are not asked the same question about your raw genetic data — the DNA extracted from your spit.

Based on the wording of a document called the "Biobanking Consent Document," it's a bit unclear what happens to that raw DNA once you decide to have the company either store or toss your spit. 

Here's the statement's exact language:

"By choosing to have 23andMe store either your saliva sample or DNA extracted from your saliva, you are consenting to having 23andMe and its contractors access and analyze your stored sample, using the same or more advanced technologies."

That leaves a bit of a grey area as far as what 23andMe has the ability to keep, and how they can use your DNA information. If your spit or DNA sample is stored, the company can hold onto it for between one and 10 years, "unless we notify you otherwise," the Biobanking Consent Document states.

Still, you can request that the company discard your spit. To do so, go to its Customer Care page, navigate to "Accounts and Registration," scroll to the bottom of the bulleted list of options, and select the last bullet titled "Requesting Account Closure."

Once there, you must submit a request to have your spit sample destroyed and/or have your account closed.

Ancestry won't toss your spit unless you call, but you can delete your DNA results

If you want to delete your DNA test results with Ancestry, use the navigation bar at the top of the homepage to select "DNA."

On the page with your name at the top, scroll to the upper right corner, select "Settings," then go to "Delete Test Results" on the right side column.

According to the company's latest privacy statement, doing this will result in the company deleting the following within 30 days: "All genetic information, including any derivative genetic information (ethnicity estimates, genetic relative matches, etc.) from our production, development, analytics, and research systems."

But if you opted into Ancestry's informed "Consent to Research" when you signed up, the company says it can't wipe your genetic information from any "active or completed research projects." It will, however, prevent your DNA from being used for new research.

To have the company discard your spit sample, you must call Member Services and request that it be thrown out.

Helix will discard your spit upon request, but may keep data 'indefinitely'

In its most recently updated Privacy Policy, Helix states that it may "store your DNA indefinitely."

It also keeps your saliva sample, but you can request that it be destroyed by contacting Helix's Customer Care via a request form that looks similar to 23andMe's.

SEE ALSO: What to keep in mind about your privacy when taking genetics tests like 23andMe or AncestryDNA

DON'T MISS: Genetics company 23andMe is rolling out a huge initiative for people with ADHD and depression — but psychologists are worried

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why you should never release your pet goldfish into the wild

• Consumer genetics company Color Genomics is rolling out services to test for genes linked to cancer and high cholesterol.
• Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures announced the new feature at global health conference HLTH in Las Vegas on Sunday evening.
• The announcement comes roughly a month after Color competitor 23andMe released breast cancer genetics results to consumers.
• Color and 23andMe are taking different approaches, however. While 23andMe provides results directly to consumers, something experts have called "dangerous," Color is partnering with universities who will make the tests available to patients alongside a counselor.

The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but spit is increasingly the portal to your health. 

In an effort to give people information about everything from their ancestry to their genetic risk of developing diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer, consumer genetics testing companies like 23andMe have been rapidly expanding their services.

On Sunday, another consumer genetics company called Color Genomics launched a plan to give people a peek at their genetic risk for two major conditions: hereditary cancer and high cholesterol.

The announcement was delivered by high-profile Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures, who was speaking at global healthcare conference HLTH in Las Vegas and is one of Color's investors.

Color's move into cancer and high cholesterol comes on the heels of a recent decision by 23andMe to give customers information about some of their genetic risk for breast cancer.

But Color's approach differs from 23andMe's in at least one key way: rather than simply making the information available directly to the customer, Color is partnering with several universities so that patients of existing healthcare systems would be able to get their results only with the guidance of a physician or trained genetics counselor.

That last part is something outside experts say is key to avoiding endangering the health of consumers who could easily misinterpret their results.

The delicate business of disease genetics

Disease genetics are highly complex. Having a genetic variant, or a mutation on a chunk of DNA, that amplifies your risk of a disease like cancer doesn't necessarily mean you'll develop it; similarly, not having the variant doesn't necessarily mean you won't. 

But knowing whether or not you have a genetic tweak that's linked with a disease like cancer can be powerful medicine — when that knowledge is delivered in the right way.

Catching a disease early or preventing it in the first place curbs deaths and medical costs.

But giving people access to this kind of information without doing it alongside guidance from a trained medical professional could have the opposite of the intended effect, John Witte, the program leader for the cancer genetics program at the University of California at San Francisco, told Business Insider last month.

A customer who finds out they have zero of the breast cancer tweaks that 23andMe currently tests for might wrongly assume they're no longer at risk for the disease, Witte said. That could have the unfortunate result of making that person less likely to catch the disease earlier if they go on to develop it.

Color's approach has expert support

Instead of solely releasing hereditary cancer and high cholesterol risk results to its customers, Color is partnering with four large universities — the University of California, San Francisco; the University of Chicago; the University of Washington; and Thomas Jefferson University — to make them available to patients at those institutions for free alongside a genetic counselor from Color or the institution.

That is an approach that outside experts have said they stand behind, as it essentially places the information behind a gatekeeper who can translate the results and advise on any necessary next steps.

The new Color initiative will look at two conditions where genetics play a key role: cancer — breast, ovarian, colorectal, and prostate — and high cholesterol, also known as familial hypercholesterolemia, or FH. Several genes are involved in the development of both conditions, while other factors like diet and exercise can play a key role, too. 

Color is focusing on these two conditions first for several reasons. One is that the genes these conditions involve have been found to be closely linked with the risk of disease. Another is that well-defined preventive measures like dietary changes exist for both conditions, meaning that people who learn they are at higher risk for FH, for example, can take steps now to decrease their chances of developing it.

Color CEO Othman Laraki told Business Insider that the approach is one he stands behind.

"We want to focus on a few things with the highest quality possible and scale them, rather than going a mile wide and an inch deep on several," Laraki said.

SEE ALSO: Popular genetics testing company 23andMe has a new cancer test — and scientists say it's dangerous

DON'T MISS: How to delete your DNA data from genetics companies like 23andMe and Ancestry

Join the conversation about this story »

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ATHENAHEALTH GETS $6.9 BILLION BID IN INCREASINGLY DISRUPTED MARKET: US Hedge Fund Elliott Management is offering $6.9 billion to take electronic health record (EHR)vendor Athenahealth private, Bloomberg reports. Athenahealth has struggled to scale its business in an increasingly disruptive and competitive market, according to a senior analyst at Elliot Management, and the hedge fund believes going private will give Athenahealth “the best chance to thrive as a disruptor in the healthcare technology market.”

This isn’t the first time Elliot has approached Athenahealth. The hedge fund acquired a 9% stake in Athenahealth in 2017 and sought to talk deals, which the EHR company rebuffed. This time around, however, Athenahealth is reviewing the proposal. Here’s why it could make sense for Athenahealth to leverage the opportunity:

• Demand for Athenahealth’s main software products has slowed.Moreover, the company’s struggled to find growth in a market dominated by top EHR vendors like Cerner and Epic, according to Bloomberg. Athenahealth’s year-over-year revenue growth has steadily declined from 48% in Q4 2013 to 15% in Q1 2018.
• EHR market leaders are solidifying their positions with strategic partnerships that will increase the gap between the rest of the market. Epic, which controls 33% of the US EHR market, integrated AI-company Nuance’s virtual assistant into its offering. And Cerner, which accounts for 28% of the US EHR market, partnered with Salesforce to offer cloud solutions for population health. Thesevalue adds make the firms increasingly appealing to customers looking for more than just an EHR vendor.

Athenahealth’s struggles are indicative of a broader shift in the health IT market. As health systems begin to internalize data and analytics, EHR companies specializing in just a few core services will likely be pushed out of the market. Healthcare providers are demanding increasingly complex health IT solutions, and the successful players will be those that invest in ancillary services and partnerships that provide a full suite of solutions.

TELADOC TAPS UNDER-SERVED MENTAL HEALTH PATIENTS WITH NEW TELEHEALTH SERVICE: Teladoc announced the US implementation of its virtual care platform geared toward patients in under-resourced areas who suffer with mental health issues. The Behavioral Health Navigator pairs patients with mental health specialists and a personalized care team. The platform yielded a 32% reduction in depression symptoms in patients during its Canadian launch last year. Mental health affects 1 in 5 US adults, and Teladoc reports that more than half of Americans with a serious mental health illness haven't received treatment in the last year, often due to lack of access to specialty care. Specialists tend to gravitate to metropolitan areas that offer the largest patient pool, best research opportunities, and largest health systems, reports mHealthIntelligence. But, this leaves behind a vacuum of specialist care in rural areas, and a massive untapped market. By implementing scalable virtual health services in under-served communities, telehealth providers like Teladoc could seize a significant revenue and growth opportunity.

Teladoc isn’t alone in offering remote care for mental health, though. Virtual care vendor Doctor On Demand began providing the service in 2014. US telehealth company American Well added psychiatry to its portfolio in September 2016, and recently acquired Avizia to connect users with more specialty services. Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled a strategy advancing telehealth in rural areas in May.

US HEALTH SYSTEM ADDS DNA TESTING TO LIST OF STANDARD TESTS: Pennsylvania-based Geisinger Health System announced a 1,000 patient pilot program that adds DNA sequencing to its list of standard screening tests. This will enable physicians to detect diseases earlier than traditional tests allow. Geisinger eventually plans to scale the service to all its hospitals in Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey, and anticipates the $300-$500 it pays per test will be offset by improved health outcomes from preventative care, Fierce Healthcare reports. For example, the Alzheimer's Association reports that early detection of Alzheimer’s can reduce the per-person cost of treatment by $64,000 by reducing hospitalizations, giving more accurate diagnoses of existing conditions, and avoiding incorrect prescriptions. Treatment of more advanced diseases also requires longer visits, occupying beds hospitals could use to admit additional patients. Insurers may follow Geisinger’s lead. The average cost to payer per patient the year following diagnoses of breast cancer is about $61,000 for stage 0, and $135,000 for stage IV, a study shows.

Improving early detection could help control the 86% of US healthcare expenditures allocated to chronic health conditions. Moreover, the move could also raise awareness of clinical genomic testing, which has been overshadowed by direct-to-consumer tests from companies like 23andMe. These clinical programs have a greater focus on genetic results than the consumer-based offerings, which often target users’ ancestry over highlighting potential disease risks, and could have a better chance at unleashing the potential of genetic testing to help reveal chronic illnesses before they become larger problems. “Whether it's identifying health risks for individuals, discovering a rare or misunderstood disease, or identifying a disease in a young child ... clinical genomics has literally saved lives,” Amir Trabelsi, CEO of clinical genomics company Genoox, recently told Business Insider Intelligence.

LOOMING ASIA-PACIFIC HEALTH COSTS SPUR NEW TECH FROM GE, A*STAR PARTNERSHIP: GE Healthcare, the health arm of General Electric, and Singapore government tech research firm A*STAR, announced the co-development of several new medical technologies aimed at streamlining clinical operations workflow. The devices, which will be launched in Asia-Pacific (APAC), are the culmination of the partnership formed in 2014. GE Healthcare and A*STAR hope to take advantage of the rapidly growing MedTech market in Asia — P&S Market Research projects the APAC digital health market will be the fastest-growing market in the world by 2022, as an aging population, expanding middle class, and greater prevalence of medical disease creates a need for new digital health solutions. This growth trajectory will position the APAC as the second-largest in the world by 2020. The technologies improving clinical operations workflow will be critical to providers’ ability to satisfy increased demand for care. For example, GE and A*STAR introduced a streamlined digital PET/CT scanner that lowered testing time from 40 minutes to 25 minutes, increasing the scanning rate of patients at a Singapore health system by 20%. Digital health solutions that decrease patient visit time, increase diagnostic accuracy, and improve healthcare delivery will be critical for overburdened health systems.

IN OTHER NEWS:

• Notable’s new smartwatch for physicians uses AI and voice recognition to record information from patient visits and minimize paperwork. Early results show the wearable saves doctors at least an hour of work a day and has 98.5% accuracy rate in transcribing visit information into EHRs.
• The FDA applied for $100 million in funding to buy an EHR system to study cardiovascular issues induced by drug exposure.
• The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) formed an independent council to review how to train its staff to better leverage AI and big data. In early May, the NHS revealed that a “computer algorithm failure” in their breast cancer screening process may have led to the death of up to 270 women.

Join the conversation about this story »

• Beam Therapeutics, a new startup founded by gene-editing pioneers, just raised $87 million to get its technology that changes single letters in DNA into humans.
• The cutting-edge technology, known as base editing, acts like a molecular pencil, the Beam cofounder David Liu told Business Insider. In contrast, Crispr, another new gene-editing technology, acts more like scissors, cutting out larger chunks of DNA on a particular gene.
• The technology is still in early days, though the company said it had 10-15 programs with early data. 

A startup founded by gene-editing pioneers wants to use technology that changes single letters of DNA to treat diseases.

Called Beam Therapeutics, the company just raised $87 million in a series A round from investors including F-Prime Capital Partners and ARCH Venture Partners.

The cutting-edge technology it's putting to work is known as base editing, which acts like a molecular pencil, the Beam cofounder David Liu told Business Insider.

Our bodies are made up of 3 billion base pairs — the A's, C's, T's, and G's that make us who we are as individuals.

Of the roughly 60,000 existing genetic diseases, roughly half can be attributed to point mutations, Liu said. That happens when a single base pair is altered.

What Beam wants to do is use base editing as a pencil to erase one letter and swap in another — a C for a T or a G for an A. Beam's licensed technology explores how that change works in the person's DNA, or in the RNA that then encodes a particular protein.

Liu, who also founded the Crispr gene-editing company Editas and teaches chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, says he sees base editing as complementary to the work being done with Crispr, which he thinks of more as molecular scissors.

"There are thousands of human genetic diseases that society would love to address, and there's no one technology that's going to be able to address them all," Liu said. "I think we all have a responsibility to try to develop as many of them as we can to cover as many conditions that are treatable as possible."

The technology on both the DNA and the RNA base-editing fronts are relatively new. Liu and his lab first published information on DNA base editing in the journal Nature in 2016. The MIT biologist Feng Zhang then debuted his lab's RNA base-editing tool in the journal Science in October.

As the researchers were working in their own labs to better understand base editing, they saw that other labs were also testing and validating the technology. Eventually, Liu said, starting a company emerged as the best option to advance the technology and, ideally, benefit people one day.

The technology is still in early days, though the company said it had 10-15 programs with early data.

Liu said the criteria the company was using to pick where to start included:

• Ensuring that changing a single base pair can reverse a particular disease.
• Determining whether the DNA or RNA sequence is a good fit for a base editor, so it can target and make the right kind of edit.
• Looking at whether the therapy can get to the tissue being treated. For example, some gene-editing companies that use Crispr are starting with treatments for eye or liver conditions or blood disorders.

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• A professor at Harvard Medical School has co-founded a start-up that intends to reverse the effects of aging in dogs. 
• Taking cue from studies of worms and flies, the startup believes the lifespan of a dog could be doubled by amending their DNA.  
• However, the unintended consequences these tests could have are raising ethical concerns amongst some.

The world's most influential synthetic biologist is behind a new company that plans to rejuvenate dogs using gene therapy. If it works, he plans to try the same approach in people, and he might be one of the first volunteers.

The stealth startup Rejuvenate Bio, cofounded by George Church of Harvard Medical School, thinks dogs aren't just man's best friend but also the best way to bring age-defeating treatments to market.

The company, which has carried out preliminary tests on beagles, claims it will make animals "younger" by adding new DNA instructions to their bodies.

Its age-reversal plans build on tantalizing clues seen in simple organisms like worms and flies. Tweaking their genes can increase their life spans by double or better. Other research has shown that giving old mice blood transfusions from young ones can restore some biomarkers to youthful levels.

"We have already done a bunch of trials in mice and we are doing some in dogs, and then we'll move on to humans," Church told the podcaster Rob Reid earlier this year. The company's other founders, CEO Daniel Oliver and science lead Noah Davidsohn, a postdoc in Church's sprawling Boston lab, declined to be interviewed for this article.

The company's efforts to keep its activities out of the press make it unclear how many dogs it has treated so far. In a document provided by a West Coast veterinarian, dated last June, Rejuvenate said its gene therapy had been tested on four beagles with Tufts Veterinary School in Boston. It is unclear whether wider tests are under way.

However, from public documents, a patent application filed by Harvard, interviews with investors and dog breeders, and public comments made by the founders, 'MIT Technology Review' assembled a portrait of a life-extension startup pursuing a longevity long shot through the $72-billion-a-year US pet industry.

"Dogs are a market in and of themselves," Church said during an event in Boston last week. "It's not just a big organism close to humans. It's something people will pay for, and the FDA process is much faster. We'll do dog trials, and that'll be a product, and that'll pay for scaling up in human trials."

It's still unknown if the company's treatments do anything for dogs. If they do work, however, it might not take long for people to clamor for similar nostrums, creating riches for inventors.

The effort draws on ongoing advances in biotechnology, including the ability to edit genes. To some scientists, this progress means that mastery over aging is inevitable, although no one can say exactly how soon it will happen. The prolongation of human lifespan is "the biggest thing that is going to happen in the 21st century," says David Sinclair, a Harvard biologist who collaborates with the Church lab. "It's going to make what Elon Musk is doing look fairly pedestrian."

Dog years

Rejuvenate Bio has met with investors and won a grant from the US Special Operations Command to look into "enhancement" of military dogs while Harvard is seeking a broad patent on genetic means of aging control in species including the "cow, pig, horse, cat, dog, rat, etc."

The team hit on the idea of treating pets because proving that it's possible to increase longevity in humans would take too long. "You don't want to go to the FDA and say we extend life by 20 years. They'd say, ‘Great, come back in 20 years with the data,'" Church said during the event in Boston.

Instead, Rejuvenate will first try to stop fatal heart ailments common in spaniels and Doberman pinschers, amassing evidence that the concepts can work in humans too.

Lab research already provides hints that aging can be reversed. For instance, scientists can "reprogram" any cell to take on the type of youthful state seen in an embryo. But turning back the aging program in animals is not as easy because we're made up of trillions of specialized cells acting in concert, not just one floating in a dish. "I don't think we are even near to being able to reverse the aging process as a whole in mammals," says J. Pedro de Magalhães, whose team at the University of Liverpool maintains a database of longevity-connected genes.

Starting around 2015, Church's large Harvard lab, also known for attempting to genetically resurrect the woolly mammoth, decided to make a run at rejuvenating mice using gene therapy and newer tools like CRISPR.

Gene therapies work by inserting DNA instructions into a virus, which conveys them into an animal's cells. In the Harvard lab, the technology has been used to modulate gene activity in old mice — either increasing or lowering it — in an effort to return certain molecules to levels seen in younger, healthy animals.

The lab started working through a pipeline of more than 60 different gene therapies, which it is testing on old mice, alone and in combinations. The Harvard group now plans to publish a scientific report on a technique that extends rodents' lives by modifying two genes to act on four major diseases of aging: heart and kidney failure, obesity, and diabetes. According to Church, the results are "pretty eye-popping."

Any age you want

In a January presentation about his project at Harvard, Davidsohn closed by displaying a picture of a white-bearded Church as he is now and another as he was decades ago, hair still auburn. Yet the second image was labelled 2117 AD — 100 years in the future.

The images reflect Church's aspirations for true age reversal. He says he'd sign up if a treatment proved safe, or even as a guinea pig in a study. Essentially, Church has said, the objective is to "have the body and mind of a 22-year-old but the experience of a 130-year-old."

Such ideas are finding an audience in Silicon Valley, where billionaires like Peter Thiel look upon the defeat of aging as both a personal imperative and, potentially, a huge business that would transform society. Earlier this year, for example, Davidsohn told Thiel's Founders Fund that because scientists can already modify life spans of simpler organisms, it should be possible to do so with humans as well. He told the investors that one day "we'll be able to control the biological clock and keep you whatever age you want."

Old dogs, new tricks

The new company has been contacting dog breeders, ethicists, and veterinarians with its ideas for restoring youth and extending "maximal life span," according to its documents. The strategy is to gain a foothold in the pet market — where Americans already lavish $20 billion a year on vet bills — "before moving on to humans."

Starting last year, Rejuvenate Bio began reaching out to owners of toy dogs called Cavalier King Charles spaniels after saying it planned a gene therapy to treat a heart ailment, mitral valve disease, that kills about half of these tiny dogs by age 10.

Rejuvenate hasn't publicly disclosed what its dog therapy involves, but it may mirror one treatment Davidsohn has given mice to stop heart damage. That involved using gene therapy to block a protein, TGF-beta, termed a "master switch" in the process by which heart valves scar, thicken, and become misshapen, the same process that afflicts the dogs.

This spring, Davidsohn and Oliver traveled to Chicago to the breed's national show, where they were feted at an auction dinner that raised several thousand dollars for the trial. Spaniel breeder Patty Kanan says the research is "seriously meaningful to the American Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club," of which she is president.

In a flyer circulated to spaniel owners last year, Rejuvenate stated, without qualification, that the still untested treatment would make pets "healthier, happier, and younger." But not all dog owners are impressed.

To Rod Russell, editor of the website CavalierHealth.org, the offer is "pure hype." He says there is "absolutely no evidence" for a way to make dogs younger and that even for pets, experimental drugs can't be said to work before a study is complete. "No one would be naïve enough to contribute money on a promise that this treatment will make their Cavaliers younger. Or would they?" he asks on his site.

A further question: even if the treatment stops progressive heart disease, is it "age reversal" or merely a form of disease prevention? To Church, the answer lies in whether an old dog's body can heal like that of a young one. In any case, he predicts, pet owners won't worry about semantics "if the dog is jumping around wagging its tail."

Dog ethics

One doesn't have to wait for aging reversal in humans to see how life extension could create some ethical quandaries. Last September, Rejuvenate Bio's founders traveled to New Haven for a roundtable discussion with philosophers and ethicists organized by Lisa Moses, a veterinarian affiliated with Harvard Medical School.

For instance, if dogs' lives can be extended, more pets would outlive their owners and end up in shelters or euthanized. "I do worry about unintended consequences," says Moses. "I would want to see that investigated before this goes much further."

The pet dogs Rejuvenate wants to test gene therapy on also have fewer special ethical protections than those in research facilities. "Pets fall into a legal gray zone when it comes to experimenting on them," she says. The power of life and death sits in their owner's hands; people can choose to put an ailing animal out of its misery or, just as often, take extraordinary medical steps to save it, which Moses says "don't always benefit the patient."

Life-extension treatments based on genetic modification could also bring unexpected side effects, according to Matt Kaeberlein, a University of Washington researcher involved in a study called the Dog Aging Project, who has been testing whether a drug called rapamycin causes dogs to live longer.

"The idea that we can genetically engineer lab animals to have longer life span has been validated. But there are concerns about bringing it out of the lab," Kaeberlein says. "There are trade-offs." Changing a gene that damages the heart could have other effects on dogs, perhaps making them less healthy in other ways. "And when you do these genetic modifications, there are many cases where it doesn't work as you intend," he adds. "What do you do with the dogs in which the treatment fails?"

Kaeberlein says he'd like to see stronger evidence of rejuvenation in mice before anyone tries it in a dog. Until then, he thinks, claims for youth-restoring medicine should be kept on a leash.

"They can talk about it all they want, but it hasn't been done yet," he says. "I think it's good for getting people's attention. But I am not sure it's the most rigorous language in the world."

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• Scientists will test the lake of the fabled Loch Ness monster using a DNA-capturing robot. 
• Whenever a creature moves through its environment, it leaves behind tiny fragments of DNA from skin, scales, feathers, fur, feces and urine.
• Along with the hope to find evidence of the monster's existence, they will also research new and invasive species that inhabit Loch Ness. 
• Their findings are expected to be presented in January 2019. 

LONDON (Reuters) - A global team of scientists plans to scour the icy depths of Loch Ness next month using environmental DNA (eDNA) in an experiment that may discover whether Scotland's fabled monster really does, or did, exist.

The use of eDNA sampling is already well established as a tool for monitoring marine life like whales and sharks.

Whenever a creature moves through its environment, it leaves behind tiny fragments of DNA from skin, scales, feathers, fur, faeces and urine.

"This DNA can be captured, sequenced and then used to identify that creature by comparing the sequence obtained to large databases of known genetic sequences from hundreds of thousands of different organisms," said team spokesman Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago in New Zealand.

The first written record of a monster relates to the Irish monk St Columba, who is said to have banished a "water beast" to the depths of the River Ness in the 6th century.

The most famous picture of Nessie, known as the "surgeon’s photo", was taken in 1934 and showed a head on a long neck emerging from the water. It was revealed 60 years later to have been a hoax that used a sea monster model attached to a toy submarine.

Countless unsuccessful attempts to track down the monster have been made in the years since, notably in 2003 when the BBC funded an extensive scientific search that used 600 sonar beams and satellite tracking to sweep the full length of the loch.

The most recent attempt was two years ago when a high-tech marine drone found a monster - but not the one it was looking for. The discovery turned out to be replica used in the 1970 film "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes", which sank nearly 50 years ago.

Gemmell's team, which comprises scientists from Britain, Denmark, the United States, Australia and France, is keen to stress the expedition is more than just a monster hunt.

"While the prospect of looking for evidence of the Loch Ness monster is the hook to this project, there is an extraordinary amount of new knowledge that we will gain from the work about organisms that inhabit Loch Ness," Gemmell said on his university website.

He predicts they will document new species of life, particularly bacteria, and will provide important data on the extent of several new invasive species recently seen in the loch, such as Pacific pink salmon.

Their findings are expected to be presented in January 2019. 

(Reporting by Ana de Liz; editing by Stephen Addison)

SEE ALSO: Massive dinosaur footprints found in Scotland could shed light into a little-understood time period

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• The Loch Ness monster debate has conflicted researchers for years.
• A research team plans to use DNA testing that will establish once and for all if the Loch Ness monster exists. 
• Whether the research findings confirm the existence of the Loch Ness monster or not, their results will most likely fail to shift the mindset of the truest Loch Ness believers. 

You may have noticed a curious recent announcement: An international research team plans to use state-of-the-art DNA testing to establish once and for all whether the Loch Ness monster exists.

Regardless of the results, it's unlikely the test will change the mind of anyone who firmly believes in Nessie's existence. As a philosopher working on the notion of evidence and knowledge, I still consider the scientists' efforts to be valuable. Moreover, this episode can illustrate something important about how people think more generally about evidence and science.

Discounting discomfiting evidence

Genomicist Neil Gemmell, who will lead the international research team in Scotland, says he looks forward to "(demonstrating) the scientific process." The team plans to collect and identify free-floating DNA from creatures living in the waters of Loch Ness. But whatever the eDNA sampling finds, Gemmell is well aware the testing results will most likely not convince everyone.

A long-standing theory in social psychology helps explain why. According to cognitive dissonance theory, first developed by Leon Festinger in the 1950s, people seek to avoid the internal discomfort that arises when their beliefs, attitudes or behavior come into conflict with each other or with new information. In other words, it doesn't feel good to do something you don't value or that contradicts your deeply held convictions. To deal with this kind of discomfort, people sometimes attempt to rationalize their beliefs and behavior.

In a classic study, Festinger and colleagues observed a small doomsday cult in Chicago who were waiting for a UFO to save them from impending massive destruction of Earth. When the prophecy didn't come true, instead of rejecting their original belief, members of the sect came to believe that the God of Earth changed plans and no longer wanted to destroy the planet.

Cult members so closely identified with the idea that a UFO was coming to rescue them that they couldn't just let the idea go when it was proven wrong. Rather than give up on the original belief, they preferred to lessen the cognitive dissonance they were experiencing internally.

Loch Ness monster true believers may be just like the doomsday believers. Giving up their favorite theory could be too challenging. And yet, they'll be sensitive to any evidence they hear about that contradicts their conviction, which creates a feeling of cognitive discomfort. To overcome the dissonance, it's human nature to try to explain away the scientific evidence. So rather than accepting that researchers' inability to find Nessie DNA in Loch Ness means the monster doesn't exist, believers may rationalize that the scientists didn't sample from the right area, or didn't know how to identify this unknown DNA, for instance.

Cognitive dissonance may also provide an explanation for other science-related conspiracy theories, such as flat Earth beliefs, climate change denial and so on. It may help account for reckless descriptions of reliable media sources as "fake news." If one's deeply held convictions don't fit well with what media say, it's easier to deal with any inner discomfort by discrediting the source of the new information rather than revising one's own convictions.

Philosophy of knowledge

If psychology may explain why Loch Ness Monster fans believe what they do, philosophy can explain what's wrong with such beliefs.

The error here comes from an implicit assumption that to prove a claim, one has to rule out all of the conceivable alternatives – instead of all the plausible alternatives. Of course scientists haven't and cannot deductively rule out all of the conceivable possibilities here. If to prove something you have to show that there is no conceivable alternative to your theory, then you can't really prove much. Maybe the Loch Ness monster is an alien whose biology doesn't include DNA.

So the problem is not that believers in the existence of the Loch Ness monster or climate change deniers are sloppy thinkers. Rather, they are too demanding thinkers, at least with respect to some selected claims. They adopt too-high standards for what counts as evidence, and for what is needed to prove a claim.

Philosophers have long known that too-high standards for knowledge and rational belief lead to skepticism. Famously, 17th century French philosopher René Descartes suggested that only "clear and distinct perceptions" should function as the required markers for knowledge. So if only some special inner feeling can guarantee knowledge and we can be wrong about that feeling – say, due to some brain damage – then what can be known?

This line of thought has been taken to its extreme in contemporary philosophy by Peter Unger. He asserted that knowledge requires certainty; since we are not really certain of much, if anything at all, we don't know much, if anything at all.

One promising way to resist a skeptic is simply not to engage in trying to prove that the thing whose existence is doubted exists. A better approach might be to start with basic knowledge: assume we know some things and can draw further consequences from them.

A knowledge-first approach that attempts to do exactly this has recently gained popularity in epistemology, the philosophical theory of knowledge. British philosopher Timothy Williamson and others including me have proposed that evidence, rationality, belief, assertion, cognitive aspects of action and so on can be explained in terms of knowledge.

This idea is in contrast to an approach popular in the 20th century, that knowledge is true justified belief. But counterexamples abound that show one can have true justified belief without knowledge.

Say, you check your Swiss watch and it reads 11:40. You believe on this basis that it is 11:40. However, what you haven't noticed is that your typically super reliable watch has stopped exactly 12 hours ago. And by incredible chance it happens that, now, when you check your watch, it is in fact 11:40. In this case you have a true and justified or rational belief but still, it doesn't seem that you know that it is 11:40 – it is just by pure luck that your belief that it's 11:40 happens to be true.

Our newer knowledge-first approach avoids defining knowledge altogether and rather posits knowledge as fundamental. It's its own fundamental entity – which allows it to undercut the skeptical argument. One may not need to feel certain or have a sensation of clarity and distinctness in order to know things. The skeptical argument doesn't get off the ground in the first place.

Knowledge and the skeptic

The eDNA analysis of Loch Ness may not be enough to change the minds of those who are strongly committed to the existence of the lake's monster. Psychology may help explain why. And lessons from philosophy suggest this kind of investigation may not even provide good arguments against conspiracy theorists and skeptics.

A different and, arguably, better argument against skepticism questions the skeptic's own state of knowledge and rationality. Do you really know that we know nothing? If not, then there may be something we know. If yes, then we can know something and, again, you are wrong in claiming that knowledge is not attainable.

A strategy of this kind would challenge the evidential and psychological bases for true believers' positive conviction in the existence of Nessie. That's quite different from attempting to respond with scientific evidence to each possible skeptical challenge.

But the rejection of a few true believers doesn't detract from the value of this kind of scientific research. First and foremost, this research is expected to produce much more precise and fine-grained knowledge of biodiversity in Loch Ness than what we have without it. Science is at its best when it avoids engaging with the skeptic directly and simply provides new knowledge and evidence. Science can be successful without ruling out all of the possibilities and without convincing everyone.

SEE ALSO: Scientists are about to start a hunt for the Loch Ness monster using DNA testing

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• DNA-testing company 23andMe asked 100,000 people if they get "hangry," the phenomenon in which you get irritable or angry when you are feeling hungry. 
• Based on the responses as well as the peoples' genetic data, 23andMe pinpointed two genetic variants associated with "hanger." 
• Genes have more to do with personality than how our body processes food, a result that surprised the researchers.

You know the feeling of crankiness you feel creeping in shortly before mealtimes? 

If so, you've experienced "hanger" and you're not alone. 

DNA-testing company 23andMe surveyed more than 100,000 people and asked them a simple question: "How often do you feel angry or irritable when you are hungry?" It turns out that more than 75% said they felt the sensation, often referred to as getting "hangry," at least some of the time.

Researchers at 23andMe then cross-referenced that data with genetic information the company collects from its tests. A few genetic variants matched up with the survey participants who experienced "hanger," suggesting that some people are disposed based on their genes to feel this sensation. 

This surprised researchers, who initially had expected to see a genetic link to the survey data around the metabolism. Meaning, if you are genetically predisposed to have a tough time regulating your blood sugar level that low blood sugar would affect your mood.

Instead, 23andme scientist Janie Shelton said, the two variants — on the vaccinia-related-kinase 2 and the exoribonuclease 1 genes — were linked with personality and neuropsychiatric conditions, such as depression and schizophrenia.

"The genes involved seem to be more related to pathways with our behavior and personality," Shelton said. 

Based on the survey data, women were more likely to report feeling irritable when hungry, as were people under 50.

Of course, our genes can only inform so much about our life. There seem to be other factors that play a role in feeling "hangry."

A study of more than 200 college students published Monday in the journal Emotion found that feeling "hangry" instead of simply hungry could have a lot to do with a particular environment a person is exposed to, if they’re aware of their emotions, and how hungry they might be.

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• Boldheadlines linking blockbuster gene-editing tool CRISPR to cancer sent stocks in companies trying to bring the technology to medicine tumbling.
• But scientists who study the technique say the concerns are overblown at best and an incorrect interpretation of the science at worst.
• Ultimately, using CRISPR does not appear to present any challenges that scientists familiar with gene editing have not already faced.

Earlier this week, reports linking the blockbuster gene-editing tool CRISPR to cancer in twostudies sent investors scrambling to pull out of companies working on the technology, which is being studied for use in everything from food to medicine. The tool's precise cut-and-paste approach to gene editing allows for a range of promising medical applications, from curing sickle cell anemia to preventing some forms of blindness.

On Monday afternoon, headlinessuggested that cells edited with the tool were more likely to become cancerous. Within hours of the reports being published, shares of Editas Medicine, CRISPR Therapeutics, and Intellia Therapeutics — all of which are trying to bring CRISPR to medicine — took a significant tumble.

But scientists who study CRISPR and other methods of gene editing call the reports "overblown." They say the link to cancer is tenuous at best and an incorrect interpretation of the results at worst.

"This is absurd,"John Doench, the associate director of the genetic perturbation platform at MIT's Broad Institute, told Business Insider. "There was a massive overreaction here."

Like many other researchers involved in the space, Doench read the twostudies highlighted in the recent report and published in the journal Nature Medicine. Instead of concluding that the technique causes cancer, Doench read the papers and thought it highlighted facts about how cells behave in response to perceived threats. Most of these are already fairly well-known to people who study gene editing. Tweaking a cell's DNA is a violent process; when it is done, cells respond by trying to defend or repair themselves. This is one of the biggest hurdles facing most cutting-edge gene editing approaches today. It is not unique to CRISPR.

"I’m honestly trying to figure out why this has generated such a response and I really can’t," Doench said. "Everything I can see is just related to the stocks and finances and not in anyway related to the science."

Cells responding normally to a perceived threat

The problem comes down to the basic biology of what happens in cells that encounter DNA damage.

To make changes to DNA, CRISPR breaks key parts of the strands that make up the genetic material in a cell. This cutting and slicing ability is why it's so powerful; previous tools for gene modification were limited by their inability to precisely target certain parts of a cell's DNA.

When anything — be it CRISPR or a disease or anything else — slices into genetic material, the "broken" cells try to patch themselves up in a process that's governed largely by a gene called p53.

If that fix-it gene starts to malfunction, it means cells can't self-repair. Cancer can occur as a result.

The recentpapers did not reveal that editing the DNA of a cell with CRISPR damaged its fix-it genes. Instead, the process appeared to activate them, which is exactly what scientists would expect to happen with many kinds of gene-editing.

In other words, CRISPR turned on the self-repair process, and "the cell is responding as it should," Doench said."That doesn’t mean p53 has been inactivated and these cells are now cancerous, it means the cell has done its job." 

A tweet that Nature sent out on Tuesday afternoon with a link to one of the papers appeared to back up this interpretation, saying, "p53 defends against CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing."

Gaetan Burgio, a professor of genetics who studies CRISPR at the Australian National University, agreed, tweeting, "Beware exaggeration and overstated headlines. The papers say after CRISPR-Cas9 ... P53 signaling is activated. They don't say CRISPR could cause cancer."

Laboratory cells acquire all kinds of mutations, gene-editing or not

The scientists behind the two recent papers were looking out for another potentially disturbing consequence of using CRISPR on these cells: that their fix-it genes would be shut down after applying the tool — a result that would leave them vulnerable to mutations and cancer.

But that didn’t happen either, according to the two papers. What did happen, however, is that the cells edited with CRISPR were more likely to have mutations on their fix-it genes. But that wasn’t necessarily a result of CRISPR.

In fact, cells in labs have a tendency to acquire all kinds of mutations simply as a result of being in a lab. A 2017 paper published in Nature found, for example, that human embryonic stem cell lines frequently develop mutations without any kind of gene editing being done on them. Many of those mutations also happen to be on the p53, or fix-it, gene.

The last line of one of the most recent papers sums this idea up well, concluding that scientists who are developing techniques using CRISPR should closely monitor the function of the fix-it gene on the cells that they edit using the technique.

This is also something that most biologists — especially those who work in gene editing — already know. Other techniques like zinc finger nucleases, a type of gene editing that can lead to outcomes seen as similar to CRISPR, require keeping a close eye on the fix-it gene, too. That's a risk scientists are actively monitoring, not a unique issue presented by CRISPR.

"To anyone who would actually use gene editing, this was already baked into the cake," Doench said.

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NOW WATCH: Octopuses are officially the weirdest animals on Earth

• Roche on Tuesday bought the rest of Foundation Medicine, a company that collects genetic data from samples of cancer tissue or blood, for $2.4 billion.
• Roche had held a majority stake in the company, and the deal values Foundation at $5.3 billion.
• In February, Roche scooped up Flatiron Health, another company gathering cancer data that often works with Foundation, for $1.9 billion.

Roche just made another big bet on cancer data.

On Tuesday, the Swiss pharma giant acquired the rest of Foundation Medicine, a company that sequences the genetics of a person's tumor, for $2.4 billion.

Roche had held a majority stake in the company, and the deal values Foundation at $5.3 billion, a 29% premium to where Foundation's stock closed on Monday. Foundation was up 28% in pre-market trading Tuesday.  

It's the second cancer-data-related deal Roche has done in 2018. In February, Roche paid $1.9 billion for the New York-based healthcare technology startup Flatiron Health, which collects clinical data from cancer patients — such as what medications patients have taken and how they have responded to them.

In addition to its tumor-sequencing tests for patients, Foundation Medicine has been work with pharmaceutical companies to create tests that could help better predict whether a person responds to a particular cancer treatment know as immunotherapy. As part of the deal, Foundation will continue to operate independently, Roche said.

"Joining forces with Roche as an independent operating company allows Foundation Medicine to continue its collaboration with Roche, as well as our biopharma partners, to drive ubiquitous access to CGP testing and innovative data services,” Foundation CEO Troy Cox said in a news release. 

Flatiron and Foundation, which had both been backed by Roche prior to acquisition, had teamed up most recently in 2016 to launch a health database filled with information from 20,000 people, both clinically and genetically. 

SEE ALSO: Startup cofounders who sold their first startup to Google for $70 million and their second for $1.9 billion reveal how they built wildly successful businesses twice

DON'T MISS: Foundation Medicine wants to find 'software bugs' in your genome to fight cancer

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NOW WATCH: Former Wall Street CEO reveals how most financial products designed for women completely miss the point

• Taking a DNA test to learn about your ancestry or health can be fun, but it requires the transfer of sensitive information: your genetic data. 
• When sending in your DNA sample, it's important to get a clear picture of who owns that information and who will be able to see it. 
• Before taking any test, always read the terms of service. 

DNA tests can tell you where your family is from and what health conditions you might be predisposed to get. 

They've gained significant popularity in recent years — over Thanksgiving weekend last year alone, shoppers bought 1.5 million AncestryDNA kits. 

But the rise of consumer genetics tests has brought up a number of privacy concerns, since they deal with information that's fundamental and unique to every individual. And there have been cases like the arrest of the Golden State Killer that used information from one of these databases to crack the case. It poses the question: When you spit into a tube and submit your sample for one of these reports, who has access to that information and who ultimately owns your DNA?

Two lawmakers — US Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey and Dave Loesback of Iowa — are now pressing DNA testing companies for more information about their security and privacy policies, Stat News reports. The hope is to resolve any issues around security and privacy. 

Late in 2017, Senator Chuck Schumer also raised the issue, calling on the Federal Trade Commission to "take a serious look at this relatively new kind of service and ensure that these companies can have clear, fair privacy policies."

In a blog post published December 12, the FTC recommended reading the fine print. "If you’re thinking about buying an at-home DNA test kit, you owe it to yourself – and to family members who could be affected – to investigate the options thoroughly," it says.

James Hazel, a post-doctoral research fellow at Vanderbilt University's Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society, has been looking into the privacy policies of consumer genetics tests. He said the FTC's suggestion is very important. 

"We are good at clicking 'agree' and not reading the terms of service," he said.

When it comes to DNA tests, a lot of pertinent information hides in that fine print, including language about who owns your DNA, where your genetic information is going, and what the process of deleting your information from a database entails. 

I've tried ancestry tests from from 23andMe, Ancestry, and National Geographic (a test run through the Helix DNA test platform), so I checked in with all of them to see how they stack up in terms of privacy. 

Who owns your DNA?

For starters, there's the question of who "owns" your DNA after you send in a spit sample. The 3 billion genetic building blocks, or base pairs, are what makes us who we are. 

"You’re granting us the rights to share information, but fundamentally you own your data," Elissa Levin, Helix's director of policy, told Business Insider. 

23andMe and Ancestry said the same thing — although the companies need some rights in order to analyze your sample and send results back, they don't have total ownership. They can't, say, bar you from taking another DNA test in the future. 

"We believe that you own your data," 23andMe privacy officer Kate Black told Business Insider. "So whoever's data this is is ultimately the owner of that information. However, we do need certain rights and privileges to process their sample and provide them with our services."

From there, it's a matter of how far those rights go.

Who gets to see your de-identified information? 

When providing a spit sample for a genetics test, your information can either be identified — that is, linked to your name — or de-identified. It's most common for the sample of spit you submit to be processed without your name on it.

While reading through your test's privacy policy, note who has access to both kinds of information. Based on the three companies I spoke with, the de-identified information mainly stays that way (you're assigned an identification number that only the companies can pair with your account).

In many cases, an external lab might be involved in sequencing the genetic data to pass back to the company. For example, 23andMe works with contracted labs in North Carolina and California. 

"The lab has some access but they don’t know who it relates to," Eric Heath, Ancestry's chief privacy officer, told Business Insider. 

Helix does the sequencing in its own lab, then sends some of that information to its test partners, such as National Geographic. Helix is trying to be like the "app store" for genetics, allowing you to submit your spit to them once, then use the sample for multiple tests based on what type of analysis interests you.  

"The information we share with them is only the relevant piece," Levin said. "For some partners it might be a few markers or it could be hundreds of genes." 

But there's a key caveat to keep in mind: Because your DNA is unique to you, it's can't be totally de-identified. 

"DNA is so unique, and there are so many data sources out there, that it is incredibly hard to fully anonymize — and more so to promise and provide any absolute guarantee that the data are anonymized," Laura Lyman Rodriguez, director of policy, communications, and education at the National Human Genome Research Institute, told the magazine Undark in 2016. 

How is the data that’s tied to your identifiable information used?

Your identifiable information includes any self-reported data and your name. 

With 23andMe, Black said, nobody has access to both your email and genetic information — only one or the other. The system that combines the two pieces to give you a report is automated, she said. 

The same goes for Ancestry. Heath said the personal identification and genetic data are "not commingled until we provide you with your results." 

Helix leaves the genetic information de-identified, and it's up to the partners to recombine the analysis with the person who submitted a sample. Because each partner has their own privacy policies, it's important to read those as well. 

The three companies we spoke with all said they've created safeguards so that even if there's a security breach, your genetic information and names aren't connected.

Can you opt out of giving research partners your genetic data? 

Another privacy concern is the possibility that your DNA could get shared with other companies without your consent. 

23andMe and Ancestry both have research partnerships with pharmaceutical companies that explore things like the genetics of aging, psychiatric disorders, or lupus.

Both companies require you to consent to sharing your information if you want to participate in those programs. Unless you agree, your information will remain with just 23andMe or Ancestry (and the contractors they work with to do the test). The same goes for connecting you with potential family members. 

Helix does not currently have research partnerships. Levin said if that changes, there would be a voluntary process users could opt into as well.

How to wipe your information after taking a test

After you've gotten your results back, your genetic data lives on with the company you sent it to, and likely in the tube of spit you submitted. If you're not comfortable with that, the vast majority of your data can be stricken from databases and storage facilities.

Things get a bit trickier if you consented to share your information with third-party researchers. In that case, you can usually stop information from being used in new projects, but anything previously shared will still be out there. 

Before taking any of these tests, it's best to learn about the process of deleting an account, and find out whether your sample will be stored indefinitely. 

23andMe

When you register your test with 23andMe, you can opt to either have your sample stored or discarded after use.

To close your 23andMe account, search through the help center for a page titled "Requesting Account Closure." On that page are links to submit a request or email customer service (customercare@23andme.com). 

If you opt to have your spit sample stored but later change your mind, an option in the settings section of your report allows you to discard the sample.

However, there are a few places your information may continue to live. Under the regulatory standards that apply to clinical labs, Black said, 23andMe has to retain the bare lab test result for 10 years.

Ancestry

Ancestry stores your spit sample so it can be used for quality purposes, such as making sure the lab is running as it's supposed to and the testing is accurate. That also allows the company to update your results if more accurate sequencing technology comes onto the scene. 

To delete your DNA results on Ancestry, go to the DNA section at the top of the page — your test settings include a way to delete your results.  If you want to remove your spit sample completely, you need to call Ancestry's member services. 

Helix

Helix also stores your spit sample. To get rid of that spit sample, you can fill out a request with customer services. Helix alludes to retaining data for regulatory purposes in its privacy section, however.

In the settings of your Helix account, there steps for how to close an account. Doing that would cut off the flow of data to Helix's partners, Levin said. 

"Even if you had previously consented to share info with National Geographic, closing would close out the data-stream," she said.

Read the full privacy documents

For more information, here are the privacy pages and terms of service documents for the three tests described above:

• Helix's privacy center and terms of service.
• 23andMe's privacy center and terms of service.
• Ancestry's privacy center and terms of service. 

This post was originally published in December 2017. 

SEE ALSO: I've taken AncestryDNA, 23andMe, and National Geographic genetics tests — here's how to choose one to try

DON'T MISS: How to delete your DNA data from genetics companies like 23andMe and Ancestry

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• On Thursday, congressional representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) talked to 23andMe about possibility of using genetic testing to help reunite families separated at the border.
• The next day, 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki tweeted that the company had offered to "donate kits and resources to do the genetic testing to help reconnect children with their parents."
• A 23andMe representative told Business Insider on Friday that the company is currently working on a plan, but details have not yet been finalized.
• There are several issues with tracking down family members via DNA testing, most of which involve privacy concerns.

The Trump administration has vowed to reunite the more than 2,300 migrant children and parents who've been forcibly separated as the result of the "zero-tolerance" policy enacted by the US Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice.

But the logistical challenges of bringing families back together are only beginning to emerge. Because the cases of parents and children have been handled by separate agencies — and some parents have already been deported — reuniting kids with their parents is a dauntingly difficult and complex task.

Members of Congress are searching for potential solutions. On Thursday, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) talked to 23andMe about the possibility of using genetic testing to help reunite families, BuzzFeed News reported.

The next day, 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki tweeted that the company had offered to donate some of its spit-in-a-tube DNA-testing kits, along with "resources to do the genetic testing," to help families reconnect.

A 23andMe representative confirmed to Business Insider that the company is working on a plan for this, although "program details haven’t been finalized."

To use DNA testing for this purpose, people would have to carefully collect spit samples, then send them to a certified lab to be tested and submitted to 23andMe's database. It's unclear what would happen after that, or what a system that uses genetic data to match these separated families might look like.

"We are waiting to see the best way to follow up and make it happen," Wojcicki wrote in her tweet.

Some experts have criticized the effort as unnecessary, however, suggesting that spreadsheets and photographs might be easier tools to accomplish the same goal.

"I find it astounding — astounding — that these families would have been separated in such a way that DNA would be required to reunite them," Tom May, a professor of bioethics at the Hudson Alpha Insitute for Biotechnology, told Business Insider.

If genetics tests do wind up being used for this purpose, consumer privacy concerns may arise.

Once genetic data has been submitted to a database like those kept by 23andMe, Ancestry, or one of the other myriad companies providing these services, it is difficult and in some cases virtually impossible to delete. Some experts fear the data can be hacked, used in a discriminatory manner by insurance companies or employers, or used to locate other family members without their consent.

That is one of privacy experts' main concerns about genetic data in general: that people beyond the individuals who choose to do a genetic test could be affected by its results. In the case of the Golden State Killer, for example, the suspect was tracked down using samples that a relative submitted to public genealogy database GEDmatch. 

"You might be informed about the risks of doing a test like this, but other people might not," May said.

Importantly, 23andMe is a private database, not a public one like GEDmatch. But private data was hacked last month at DNA testing and genealogy site MyHeritage, compromising the data of 92 million users.

May said that although he believes 23andMe's offer to help unite families is well-intentioned, he hopes some ground rules will be established before the company gets involved.

"I think it would behoove [them] to supplement their good intentions by taking steps to make sure this travesty is not being used as a surreptitious way for authorities to enter individuals' genetic information into a law-enforcement database," May said. "I hope, therefore, that it is 23andMe's intention to destroy this information after its use for this discrete purpose of reunification, and refuse to enter this into a database."

SEE ALSO: How to delete your DNA data from genetics companies like 23andMe and Ancestry

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Today, April 25, is National DNA Day. As another "holiday" that you may not have heard about until now, you're probably wondering what it means and how to celebrate it.

National DNA celebrates the completion of the Human Genome Project, a 13-year long publicly funded research project on discovering the specifics of human DNA sequences.

Since the inception of the holiday in 2003, the goal has been to be give back to the public with knowledge on genetics — and there's no better way to do that than with at-home DNA kits.

If you've ever been interested in learning more about your ancestry or family history, right now is the best time to do so. Many of the best at-home DNA kits are discounted on Amazon today.

Shop all DNA Day deals on Amazon now.

While many tests unveil similar data, there are key differences between the each one. Check them out below.

AncestryDNA

$68.95 (Originally $99) [You save $30.05]

With over 1 billion family connections, AncestryDNA is the best-selling DNA test you can buy. The service helps you discover the people and places that made you who you are by tapping into 350 regions across the world — two times more than the next leading competitor.

23andMe

$139 (Originally $199) [You save $60]

The 23andMe kit is one of the most in-depth at-home DNA tests you can take. Not only will it break down your ancestry, it will also discover your genetic health risks for diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, carrier traits for diseases like Cystic Fibrosis and Sickle Cell, report on your wellness with details like sleep patterns and lactose intolerance, and other genetic traits. If you're only interested in learning your ancestry you can buy the genetics kit for $69 — a $30 savings.

National Geographic Geno 2.0

$70 (Originally $99.94) [You save 29.95]

The National Geographic Geno 2.0 Next Generation provides a breakdown of your regional ancestry by percentage, going back as 500,000 years. Once your DNA sample is submitted and processed, you can access the data via the Geno 2.0 smartphone app, where an easy-to-understand video walks you through your ancestry. You'll learn about which historical relatives you could be related to.

• If you look at your friends, you may find that they are similar in a lot of ways.
• Research suggests this could be for a number of reasons.
• Friends tend to share similar brain waves, and react to situations in the same way.
• Also, you might share some genetic similarities with your friends.
• But other things are important too, and some research suggests we change our friends in line with our evolving hobbies, beliefs, and interests.

Some scientific research has shown how you're likely to be attracted to people who share similar facial characteristics as you. One theory for this is that we associate people who look like us with our parents, and thus have more positive feelings towards their features.

Similarities are also important for friendships. You may look around your friendship group and wonder how it is you all share the same sense of humour, or you all agree about certain things.

This mayl be because we gravitate towards people with similar interests and opinions, but science could also have something to do with it.

Friends share similar brainwaves

A recent study, published in the journal Nature Communications, found how neural responses could factor into our friendships.

Researchers from the University of California and Dartmouth College recruited 279 students to take a survey about who they were friends with in their classes. A smaller group of 42 students were then asked to watch video clips while the researchers used function magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to see what was happening in their brains at the time.

Results showed the friends who watched the clips reacted in strikingly similar ways. Areas of their brains associated with learning, motivation, memory, and affective processing lit up. In fact, the brain patterns were so similar, the researchers said they could predict who out of the group had called each other friends in the survey without looking at their answers.

"Neural responses to dynamic, naturalistic stimuli, like videos, can give us a window into people's unconstrained, spontaneous thought processes as they unfold," said Carolyn Parkinson, the lead author of the study. "Our results suggest that friends process the world around them in exceptionally similar ways."

They are also likely to be genetically similar

The sign of a strong friendship could also lie in your DNA. According to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, friends tend to be more genetically similar than strangers.

Researchers from Stanford, Duke, and the University of Wisconsin carried out a series of genetic comparisons between pairs of friends using a dataset of 5,500 American adolescents.

They found many more genetic similarities between the friends than between pairs who didn't know each other. Also, friends were about two thirds as similar as married couples, who have been found to share similar DNA.

One reason for this happening could be because people are drawn to others who come from a similar background, had the same level of education, or are of a similar height and weight — a phenomenon known as social homophily.

Another reason could be social structuring, which is when we forge friendships within shared social environments, such as schools or the place you live.

Friends share personality traits

A study that looked at behavioural data from social media, published in the journal Psychological Science, found that people are more like their friends than research previously thought.

Decades of research suggested there was no evidence that friends and romantic partners had similar personalities, according to Youyou Wu from the University of Cambridge, the lead author of the study.

However, the researchers suggested this could be because people tend to compare themselves to people around them when answering questions like "are you well organised?" So, they decided to observe people's behavior via their social media accounts, rather than relying on questionnaires.

They collected Facebook data from 295,320 participants, and gathered information about their personality traits from people's "likes" and status updates.

"People who like 'Salvador Dali' or 'meditation,' for example, tend to score high on openness to new experiences; those who write about 'partying' or 'weekends' a lot tend to be extroverted," said Wu, according to The Association for Psychological Science. "The advantage of this approach is that everyone is being judged against a universal standard, leaving less room for subjective judgment."

Overall, the results showed there was a substantial similarity in personality traits between both friends and romantic partners.

Similar interests are more important than how much you like each other

It may sound obvious, but sharing interests is very important for solid friendships. Back in 2010, researchers looked into people's Facebook habits to try and work out why this is.

The study, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, concluded that we change friends throughout our lives because we form friendships through similarities in our professions, interests, hobbies, religion, or political affiliation. However, our interests are always in flux, and our personalities change throughout life.

"It was fascinating to see how the cliques could form without any one person organising everything," said Seth Bullock, a researcher at School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, and one of the authors of the study. "We saw individuals moving from one clique to another. Over time some cliques disappeared while new ones were established."

In other words, as we grow up and our interests change, our friends are likely to be in keeping with that.

SEE ALSO: It takes roughly 200 hours to become best friends with someone, according to science

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• Genetics testing company 23andMe recently launched a feature that allows customers to share information about what treatments for 18 conditions — including depression and ADHD — do and don't work for them.
• Outside experts call the feature "concerning" and say it could mislead people or discourage them from getting the proper treatment.
• The feature currently has more than 5,000 users, 23andMe says.

In a move that psychologists and psychiatrists are calling "concerning," popular genetics company 23andMe launched an initiative earlier this month allowing customers to share tips about which treatments for conditions including ADHD and depression do or don't work for them.

Since rolling out the feature, called "Condition Pages," last week, 23andMe says it has attracted more than 5,000 customers who've contributed over 30,000 submissions on the conditions.

But experts warn that some aspects of the crowdsourcing initiative could be dangerously misleading and even discourage people from getting treatments that are recommended to them by physicians.

Although the pages are similar to what someone might find on Google or Reddit (in the sense that anyone can comment on them and share information), experts warn that they might carry a feeling of authority that could encourage some customers to believe that the content has been vetted by a scientist, physician, or researcher.

"There’s a worry with having that authority label,"Nancy Liu, an assistant clinical professor of clinical psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, told Business Insider.

Say a customer named Susie read on 23andMe's condition pages that another customer named Brian tried cognitive behavioral therapy for his depression, and it didn't work for him. Then say Susie stopped going to therapy.

That would be deeply concerning, Liu said.

"Disorders aren’t like that. What works for one person doesn’t always work for another."

Cristina Cusin, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard University, agreed. She is worried that customers may treat the condition pages similar to the way they'd treat a medical consultation with a physician, despite a disclaimer at the bottom which reads, "Keep in mind that this content is preliminary and meant for informational purposes only."

There are other problems with the new feature as well, experts say.

One of them is what Liu calls selection bias. Essentially, "you self-select individuals who are engaging in this dialogue, which skews the type of information you receive, but it's somehow viewed to represent all of individuals with a particular condition."

Customers might assume that 23andMe's pages provide provide a comprehensive look at everyone with depression or ADHD, when in reality, they only represent people with the condition who also had the time and interest to get online and discuss their condition with others.

Another issue is that the feature bundles all people with a condition like depression under the same label. The true nature of depression is much more complex than that, Liu said.

That recognition is vital to ensuring that people with a wide range of iterations of the disorder get the individualized treatment that works for them — whether it's antidepressants, individual therapy, group therapy, or a combination of all three.

"One of the things we know about antidepressants is that how well they work depends on the type of depression someone has and on the severity of that depression. With something like this, that kind of fine-grained detail gets lost," Liu said.

The "treatments" currently shown on the conditions pages are nowhere near exhaustive. Not all of them are necessarily considered treatments in and of themselves. While exercising and having a pet, for example, are near the top of 23andMe's list of beneficial treatments, a tool like cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the best studied and most helpful treatments for depression, is not on the list at all.

Jessie Inchauspe, the product lead for 23andMe's condition pages, told Business Insider that the thinking behind the project was that the company had useful information besides just genetics information to share with customers.

She said the company chose the 18 conditions that are currently listed, which include depression, ADHD, asthma, and high blood pressure, based on their commonality among 23andMe customers. The company did not consult with psychologists or psychiatrists prior to rolling out the platform, Inchauspe said.

While the feature is currently only available to 50% of customers, the other half will have access to it this week, she said. Based on customer enthusiasm, she said that 23andMe plans to add more conditions in the near future.

"It’s always been our mission to give people access to as much information as possible," Inchauspe said.

SEE ALSO: Popular genetics testing company 23andMe has a new cancer test — and scientists say it's dangerous

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• Investigators say they cracked the cold case of the Golden State Killer with help from data on a genetics website.
  
• The investigators revealed that they uploaded a suspect's raw DNA signature — sourced from an old crime scene sample — to a site called GEDmatch.
  
• The case has raised privacy concerns among people who have submitted their DNA data to similar genetics sites.
• Here's how to delete your DNA and data from 23andMe, Ancestry, and Helix.
  

The recent arrest in one of California's most infamous serial-killer cases was based in large part on a DNA sample submitted to a genetics website by a distant relative of the suspect.

If that news has you concerned about the security of your own genetic material, you may be wondering how to delete it from genetic databases kept by popular genetics testing companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.

Those two databases were not used by investigators to track down Golden State Killer suspect Joseph James DeAngelo. Instead, investigators used a service called GEDmatch, which lets customers upload a raw DNA signature. Investigators created a profile for the suspect using DNA sourced from a long-stored crime scene sample, and found matches between DeAngelo's crime scene DNA and the DNA of a distant family member.

23andMe, Ancestry, and Helix (National Geographic's genetics service) only accept saliva samples for genetics testing — an easy way of obtaining DNA. But a similar company called Family Tree DNA could likely accept hair or blood, according to Joe Fox, an administrator for one of the company's surname projects.

Whichever way a company gets your DNA, privacy advocates say there's cause for concern. Although genetic data is ostensibly anonymized, companies can and do sell your data to third parties like pharmaceutical companies. From there, it could find its way elsewhere, advocates say.

Here's how to delete your data from a few of these services.

23andMe could keep your spit and data for up to 10 years

The core service provided by most commercial genetic tests is built on the extraction of your DNA from your spit — that's how you get the results about your health and ancestry information.

After registering your spit sample online with 23andMe, the company will ask if you'd like your saliva to be stored or discarded. But you are not asked the same question about your raw genetic data — the DNA extracted from your spit.

Based on the wording of a document called the "Biobanking Consent Document," it's a bit unclear what happens to that raw DNA once you decide to have the company either store or toss your spit. 

Here's the statement's exact language:

"By choosing to have 23andMe store either your saliva sample or DNA extracted from your saliva, you are consenting to having 23andMe and its contractors access and analyze your stored sample, using the same or more advanced technologies."

That leaves a bit of a grey area as far as what 23andMe has the ability to keep, and how they can use your DNA information. If your spit or DNA sample is stored, the company can hold onto it for between one and 10 years, "unless we notify you otherwise," the Biobanking Consent Document states.

Still, you can request that the company discard your spit. To do so, go to its Customer Care page, navigate to "Accounts and Registration," scroll to the bottom of the bulleted list of options, and select the last bullet titled "Requesting Account Closure."

Once there, you must submit a request to have your spit sample destroyed and/or have your account closed.

Ancestry won't toss your spit unless you call, but you can delete your DNA results

If you want to delete your DNA test results with Ancestry, use the navigation bar at the top of the homepage to select "DNA."

On the page with your name at the top, scroll to the upper right corner, select "Settings," then go to "Delete Test Results" on the right side column.

According to the company's latest privacy statement, doing this will result in the company deleting the following within 30 days: "All genetic information, including any derivative genetic information (ethnicity estimates, genetic relative matches, etc.) from our production, development, analytics, and research systems."

But if you opted into Ancestry's informed "Consent to Research" when you signed up, the company says it can't wipe your genetic information from any "active or completed research projects." It will, however, prevent your DNA from being used for new research.

To have the company discard your spit sample, you must call Member Services and request that it be thrown out.

Helix will discard your spit upon request, but may keep data 'indefinitely'

In its most recently updated Privacy Policy, Helix states that it may "store your DNA indefinitely."

It also keeps your saliva sample, but you can request that it be destroyed by contacting Helix's Customer Care via a request form that looks similar to 23andMe's.

SEE ALSO: What to keep in mind about your privacy when taking genetics tests like 23andMe or AncestryDNA

DON'T MISS: Genetics company 23andMe is rolling out a huge initiative for people with ADHD and depression — but psychologists are worried

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