Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

23andMe's Fall

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 282 posts

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#201

Post by icegreentea2 »

logifail wrote: post #165
icegreentea2 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think 23andme's strongest asset point would be in direct drug discovery, but rather in helping target sub-populations for clinical trials. The SNP data that 23andme has is relatively low quality compared to proper sequencing, but (combined with their survey data) is probably at least as good, or better information available for typical clinical trial planning or screening.

> I don't think 23andme's strongest asset point would be in direct drug discovery, but rather in helping target sub-populations for clinical trials Was there an issue with targeting sub-populations for clinical trials beforehand? At an ELI5 level, if you're hoping your drug candidate will help cure disease X, you sign up patients with disease X to join your clinical trial. That's not the hard part! (source: family me…

The two (related) cases where you'd perhaps want genetic information is:

a) If you suspect there is a significant pharmacogenetics component to what you are studying (or related to disease progression).

b) You're working on something preventative.

From a previous job I worked at (we made PCR tests), there was interest on screening for APOE genotypes to enrich an Alzheimer's drug trial - drug maker believed that APOE genotype would have a significant impact on drug performance.

But you're absolutely right that you can often (usually?) do 'enough' enriching without genetic information.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#202

Post by astrange »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #189
astrange wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where the link between your genes and the disease(?) are pretty dubious in the literature This is inescapable; genetics usually can't show causation, for instance because you can't do an experiment where you change someone's genes. Geneticists seem to deal with this by using statistics like GWAS that are obviously just correlation, adding a sentence that correlation doesn't show causation, and then just proceeding…

Only showing correlation is one thing, but if the correlations themselves are barely noticable then that's a big problem for making a useful report. Though if you find whatever gene is most correlated with something, what are the options for it not to be causation? If the chance of causation is high enough, it makes sense to proceed as if the risk is real.

When I said correlation isn't causation I meant it. Neither high nor low correlation is evidence for causation.

There's a more advanced form of being bad at this where you think you can show causation by controlling for everything in the environment. This is also wrong; it produces something called collider bias.

> Though if you find whatever gene is most correlated with something, what are the options for it not to be causation?

1. It's a coincidence and it's never causal.

Imagine an OSS project releases a bugfix and you diff the old and new versions. (This is basically GWAS.)

The bugfix part of the diff caused it to be fixed. The updates to the copyright dates or changelogs didn't.

2. It's causal, but the causal chain involves a specific environmental factor, and we should change that instead.

For instance, you can say every human has a genetic disease that prevents them from producing their own vitamin C, which most other mammals can do. But instead of calling scurvy a genetic disease we just eat fruits and vegetables.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#203

Post by FireBeyond »

rchaud wrote: post #53
padjo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Theranos devices had been able to do what they claimed the business model was clear and likely very profitable. I don’t understand how anyone ever thought 23andMe had a viable business model selling a test that only needed to be done once(and apparently selling it at a loss to boot)

The "if" was the entire scam though. They hired many smart people, and every one of them said that the proposed design was physically impossible to build. There's a reason that these complex undertakings are made by boring conglomerate companies that have decades of experience in the industry, produce many different products in that sector, and whose CEOS don't try to get on the covers of magazines.

Precisely. Yes, breakthroughs get made by smaller companies and "outsiders" every so often, but the thing is, to these testing companies - there's billions in profit and improved logistics by figuring out "nano" collection. It wasn't that they weren't interested. They've tried, for decades. But in the end, biology and physics are winning out.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#204

Post by deadbabe »

supahfly_remix wrote: post #121
brycewray wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeating a comment from 2021[0]: “Entrepreneurs are not at all like ordinary businessmen. An entrepreneur who is not in trouble closes no avenues, keeps a lot of balls in the air, and will never tell you the whole truth when a half-truth will do. An entrepreneur who is in trouble will lie, cheat, and steal. He will smuggle cocaine or ship bricks. We should never measure an entrepreneur by the standards of a rock-sol…

All of the rest of the quotation makes sense to me, but I'm wondering about this part: > "We should never measure an entrepreneur by the standards of a rock-solid businessman". Is the author saying that a rock-solid businessman follows a higher code of ethics?

Rock-solid businessmen understand business and how it works. Nothing personal, only business.

Entrepreneurs are strongly driven by ego, their identity is personally tied to the thing they’re doing. There is immense pressure to succeed, not just for the money, but for their personal validation. It’s not enough to succeed, people must see you succeed.

Otherwise, they’d just open some boring small business no one cares about instead of a hot new startup.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#205

Post by redder23 »

Only total morons pay to let a company sell their genes. Happy downvoting, I know this will offend a bunch of people in this crowd.

In a sane world this thing should have never work in the first place but given the world is full of morons who are dumb enough to actually pay for shit like that its quite an accomplishment to run a company like that into the ground.

I read articles of people sending in banana DNA 23AndMe or a similar service and they got a supposedly ancestry tracking back. These services are dubious at best and you literally sign your DNA away to be sold to the highest bidder in their terms. I would not do this FOR FREE, let alone pay a ridiculous $130 for it.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#206

Post by sjducb »

dundarious wrote: post #190

Why do people believe genetic testing offers a pathway to a wide array of beneficial (non-snake oil) tailored drugs and treatments? What is the scientific basis for this belief, other than "seems plausible" reasoning?

20 years ago it was pretty plausible. Most of the genetic effects that we knew about were large. Maybe all of them were large?

Now we know that most effects are small, and there aren’t useful interventions that can treat the effects.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#207

Post by SOVIETIC-BOSS88 »

idatum wrote: post #176
SOVIETIC-BOSS88 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a terrifying cyberpunk novel that I would definitely read. Although I hope the future is not that bleak.

Reminder of the film Gattaca which explored some of the risks of leaking your DNA in a future dystopia.

Excellent movie. Did not see it when it was released orignally, but discovered it by chance going through the tv channels. A real gem.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#208

Post by codeflo »

nradov wrote: post #183
zamadatix wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, nobody is really interested in the test to find out they have G at SNP 12213244243 either. They do it specifically to get the ancestry, health, and potential physical bias type information you mention - that's the only real data anyone is talking about when referencing the test. Plenty of companies would love to have that kind of data to target users with. The real killer would probably be around how useless he…

The health data is pretty underwhelming for most people, outside of a few highly studied genes like BRCA variants. I did a genetic test and it reported that according to one study I had something like a 3% risk of a shoulder injury which is higher than the population average of 2%. So what am I supposed to do with that information, wear shoulder pads or something?

No, but in theory, an insurance company could use this to calculate your risks differently. Even a 1% signal isn't worthless.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#209

Post by SOVIETIC-BOSS88 »

vrc wrote: post #177
jonathankoren wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a damning indictment of Wojcicki's management of the company. I mean she was leader of YouTube. Why wouldn't she be able to develop a drug development strategy based on genomics? But hey, rich people can do anything right?

That’s her sister of famed “owned the garage Google started in” lore. This is the sister that was married to Larry Page.

I believe she was married to Brin.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#210

Post by astura »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #142
BasilPH wrote: post #92

> As an added security measure, we have temporarily disabled the ability to download your raw genetic data. We hope to re-enable this ability soon, and we appreciate your patience. After reading this article I decided to download my data in case they go under. Was greeted with this message on the relevant page. Does anybody have some insight if this is related to the data breach or something else?

I believe under HIPAA, you have the right to access any of your medical data. If you really want your data, I would get a lawyer to write a nasty letter to them demanding it.

As usual when HIPAA is brought up, you're wrong. HIPAA is the most misunderstood law in America.

Hint, the "I" in HIPAA stands for "insurance." A general rule - if an insurance company isn't involved HIPAA doesn't apply. HIPAA is a law that regulates insurance companies and entities that deal directly with insurance companies, not "medical data."

HIPAA doesn't apply to 23andMe. At all. HIPAA only applies to "covered entities" - https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/covered-entities...

Post reply on HN