Are Genetic Tests Useful Part 4

It's happening again: A new technology and breakthrough discoveries are equipping entrepreneurs with the tools to rattle the status quo.

It occurred 10 years ago when the internet introduced radical new ways to communicate, be subversive, and sell things. Now it's the turn of genetic technology companies—the fledgling industry that's setting out to mine the DNA inside us.

Their goal: To help us determine who we are, and maybe to provide clues about everything from our ability to taste bitter foods to our proclivity for depression and our chances of having a heart attack.

EXPERIMENTAL MAN David Ewing Duncan explores advances in personalized medicine and what they can tell us about ourselves.

In just the past year, dozens of genetic markers associated with traits have been coming out of labs at a furious pace as genetic knowledge, technology, and computing power have all reached critical mass one decade after the race to sequence the human genome was raging.

The question is: As new, direct-to-consumer genetic-testing sites begin delivering this fresh, and sometimes incomplete, DNA news to customers online, how will Big Medicine and government regulators react? And how will they shape what DNA-testing sites look like?

Consumer reaction is crucial too. But with testing companies charging $1,000 to $2,500 for genetic information that is often not thorough, I suspect that most people who aren't both well-heeled and DNA-curious will wait until prices drop and physicians and regulators catch up.

"The recent explosion of genetic testing has blown the door off the old model of researchers testing one gene at a time and then taking it to the clinic," says W. Gregory Feero, senior adviser to the director of genomic medicine at the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

"We now have to move much faster to make this information relevant and useful," he continues, adding that more effective oversight is required because the results of genetic tests are being interpreted "all over the map."