GRcade

Are you saying you could get me a better dna test for free?

False wrote:Are you saying you could get me a better dna test for free?

If you pretend to have severe learning disabilities for long enough then the NHS will legit sequence you and your parents' genes for free! All you've lost is your dignity.

like I had any to begin with

It costs around £500-£1000 to have your exome sequenced properly, just fyi, with the price falling year-on-year. That produces data that would legit be useful to an NHS doctor. I'm going to take the plunge and have it done privately in a few years once the price drops just a little further, I think.

Why does it cost more? More thorough analysis from a lab tech?

So the idea is, 23andme doesn't use (more expensive, more accurate) sequencing to fully label all your genes. Instead, it uses (cheaper, less accurate) tests for specific known mutations - called SNPs ("snips") - on specific genes, and the website even throws away a lot of that data when it produces its report for you (though to be fair I think you can download "Raw Data" as part of your package). Anyway, that's totally cool if you want a broad indication of some known risk factors, but it turns out to be a bit too vague to be helpful if you take it to your doctor. At least, that's what the doctor who gave the talk I went to reckoned!

The future is in getting a complete, high-res picture of your gene sequence. It's available now if you're rich and will be actually pretty affordable in a few years. It's a tonne more data, but it's accurate and complete and your doctor can actually help you interpret it.