23andMe

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23andMe is a privately held biotechnology company based in Mountain View, California [1] that is developing new ways to help people make sense of their own genetic information.In December 2007 several companies, including 23andMe and deCODE, announced the availability of $999 tests for select single nucleotide polymorphisms. Google has invested $3.9M in 23andMe, whose co-founder Anne Wojcicki is married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. ^[1] Genentech is also reported to have invested in 23andMe.^[2]

Thomas Söderqvist wrote:

There has not been much news about the company yet (see Blaine Bettinger’s blog The Genetic Genealogist and Attila Csordas’ Pimm), but my guess is that we will hear more about it in the near future. Whatever its future prospects, however, it’s already a good example of how converging technologies ... are emerging at the start-up company level.

The marriage between Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki is thus not just a romantic Silicon Valley story; it’s also today’s counterpart to traditional politically motivated marital alliances and gives a new meaning to the concept of converging technologies.^[3]

Kevin Kelleher in GigaOM writes: " A case could be made that there is a good reason for Google to make this deal. And although I realize I may end up regretting it, I am going to make that case.... an investment in 23andMe lets Google chart yet another collision coarse [sic] with Microsoft’s ambitions. ... If Google wants to really organize the world information, it needs to consider DNA, the most personal of data. And what 23andMe is purporting to sell is the ultimate in navel gazing."^[2]