Millions of people have used its simple genetic testing service, which involves ordering a saliva test, spitting into a tube, and sending it back to the company for a detailed DNA analysis.

But now the company is on the brink of bankruptcy. This has raised concerns about what will happen to the troves of genetic data it has in its possession.

The company's chief executive, Anne Wojcicki, has said she is committed to customer privacy and will "maintain our current privacy policy".

But what can customers of 23andMe themselves do to make sure their highly personal genetic data is protected? And should we be concerned about other companies that also collect our DNA

What is 23andMe?

23andMe is one of the largest companies in the crowded marketplace for direct-to-consumer genetic testing. It was founded in 2006 in California, launching its spit test and Personal Genome Service the following year, at an initial cost of US$999. This test won Time magazine's Invention of the Year in 2008.

Customers eagerly took up the opportunity to order a saliva collection kit online, spit in the tube and mail it back. In a few weeks when the results were ready they could find out about their health, ancestry, and other things like food preferences, fear of public speaking and cheek dimples.

The price of testing kits dropped rapidly (it's now US$79). The company expanded globally and by 2015 had 1 million customers. The firm went public in 2021 and initially the stock price soared.

As of 2024, the company claims 14 million people have taken a 23andMe DNA test.]

23andMe rode the wave of popular excitement and investor interest in genetics. It wasn't alone. By 2022 the direct-to-consumer genetic testing market was valued at US$3 billion. The three largest players - 23andMe, AncestryDNA and MyHeritage - together hold the genetic data of almost 50 million people globally.

There are dozens of smaller players too, with some focusing on emerging markets such as MapMyGenome in India and 23mofang and WeGene in China.

What happened to 23andMe?

23andMe has had a rapid downfall after the 2021 high of its public listing.

Its value has dropped more than 97%. In 2023 it suffered a major data breach affecting almost seven million users, and settled a class action lawsuit for US$30 million.

Last month its seven independent directors resigned amid news the original founder is planning to take the company private once more. The company has never made a profit and is reportedly on the verge of bankruptcy.

What this might mean for its vast stores of genetic data is unclear.

When people sign up for a 23andMe test the company assures them: "your privacy comes first". It promises it will never share people's DNA data with employers, insurance companies or public databases without consent.

It puts choice in the hands of consumers about whether their spit sample is kept by the company, and whether their de-identified genetic and other data is used in research. Four in five people who bought a 23andMe test have agreed to their data being used in research.

However, if you dig a bit deeper, it's clear that 23andMe uses people's data in many different ways, such as sharing it with service providers. Perhaps most importantly, if the company goes bankrupt or is sold, people's information might be "accessed, sold or transferred" as well.

In a statement to The Conversation, a 23andMe spokesperson said Wojcicki is "not open to considering third-party takeover proposals".

She also said that in the event of any future ownership change, the company's existing data privacy agreements with customers "would remain in place unless and until customers are presented with, and agree to, new terms and statements - and only after receiving appropriate notice of any new terms, under applicable data protection laws".

Tips for people to protect their genetic data

With 23andMe in the spotlight, people might want to take steps to protect their genetic data (although experts say there's not really any more risk now than there has always been).

The simplest thing is to delete your account, which opts you out of any future research and discards your saliva sample. But if your data has already been de-identified and used in research, it can't be retrieved.

And even if you delete your account, 23andMe says it will keep hold of information including your genetic data, date of birth and sex, to comply with its own legal obligations.

Buying a DNA test online might feel fun and rewarding and it's certainly been marketed that way. There are plenty of good news stories about how getting those test results has helped people to connect with lost family or understand more about their health risks.

People just need to buy tests with their eyes open about what this might mean.

First, the results might not be all positive. Finding out about health risks without guidance from a health professional can be scary. Learning that the person you thought was your mum or dad actually isn't, is an outcome for as many as 1 in 20 people who've bought a DNA test online.

Second, every company selling DNA tests does so with lots of legal conditions attached. People click through these without a second thought but researchers have shown it is worth taking a closer look.

Consider what the company says about what it will do with your data and your sample, how long they will keep it, who else can access it, and how easy it will be to delete later.

There are guidelines from organisations like Australian Genomics that can help. And bear in mind that if a company holding your DNA profile is sold, it might be hard to make sure that data is protected.

So maybe reconsider giving a DNA test as a Christmas gift.

• First published in The Conversation
• Finlay Macdonald is the New Zealand editor of The Conversation

Such embryos cannot (yet) develop into full-grown human beings. Even if transplanted into a uterus, the specimen could never attach to the uterine wall.

Yet, what we have here is still a (disabled) human embryo. Without parents.

Are you disgusted? We believe that if you have a well-formed conscience, this is a good and proper reaction to this development.

We cannot always and everywhere trust a reaction of repugnance; at times, such a reaction is simply the result of ingrained biases and stereotypes.

But there is often a certain wisdom in our repulsion. Repugnance can assert itself as a moral alarm and response to real moral distress.

This is such a time.

The creation of a human embryo without sperm and egg shares some important similarities with other artificial reproductive technologies, such as in vitro fertilisation and certain surrogacy practices that involve the creation of human embryos outside the human body.

Perhaps most strikingly, the procedure overlaps the process of modifying genes using novel techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9. In both cases, a manufactured human embryo is the result of direct human intervention.

Tellingly, CRISPR-Cas9 has been known to be used only once on human embryos.

The scientist who performed the procedure, He Jiankui, was roundly and firmly criticised by the medical and ethics community and served a prison sentence for his work.

Meanwhile, leading scientists — including Emmanuelle Charpentier, one of the creators of the technique — have called for a moratorium on its use on human embryos.

The creation of a human embryo without sperm or egg also goes beyond what we have seen in previous artificial reproductive technology and genetic engineering techniques.

In vitro fertilisation and even CRISPR-Cas9 involve direct human intervention in the reproductive process. Yet, all of them work by modifying or intervening with existing human embryos or gametes.

The manufacture of a human embryo without sperm or egg, by contrast, aims to build a human embryo from scratch.

The process is less a tweak to human reproduction or bending it to our own will than replacing it with something different altogether.

Heretofore we have aimed to eliminate variability, inconvenience or inefficiency from human reproduction. With this new development, the aim is different: to swap human reproduction for a different process entirely.

The charge of playing God comes to mind.

The charge is over-attributed and sometimes reveals more about our biases than something morally real, but in this case it is apt.

There are at least two kinds of playing God: An overstepping by humans into spheres of action that should be reserved for the divine, and a hubristic attempt to meddle with the world in ways that our all-too-human intellects simply do not understand.

In creating human embryos from scratch, we risk playing God in both senses.

One of us is a philosopher and the other a theologian.

We are both convinced that a Catholic understanding of reproduction could be a cultural antidote to the toxic understanding of reproduction that has led to the development of an eggless, spermless embryo.

Our position is not aligned with some kind of revisionist attempt to "take us back to the 1950s" (or some such dismissive phrase), but is rather at the heart of the perspective that Pope Francis and the Vatican reaffirmed just a few months ago.

As Christianity yields to a consumerist reproductive throwaway culture, the logic of the marketplace takes over.

Instead of seeing the creation of new human beings as pro-creation with God (our ultimate creator), who offers them as an unmerited gift, we now think of it as yet another transaction between individuals.

I have resources (money, insurance) and you have skills and facilities (medical training and fertility labs)? Well, then who is anyone to come between autonomous actors pursuing their self-interests?

Our post-Christian culture is already well advanced down this pathway, as couples, individuals and even "throuples" demand control over the embryos and future children they purchase in the marketplace.

We've had decades, actually, of privileged people demanding the ability to purchase ova and sperm based on the donor's IQ, attractiveness, participation in varsity athletics, and more.

Sex selection is par for the course in many contexts.

And of course our throwaway culture simply discards the prenatal human beings who don't fit the market-based criteria.

But here again we have something that is genuinely new.

Instead of modifying or intervening (albeit dramatically!) into the process God created for procreation, this new technology has the potential to obliterate it.

Catholics, other Christians and all people of good will must make our voices heard on this and work to make creation of such embryos illegal.

It may seem, and we may be told, that we can trust the process to stay where it is — that no actual reproduction would ever take place using this new technology.

But the history outlined above shows that is a very, very bad bet.

In a culture that becomes more and more dominated by the logic of the marketplace and by a commitment to a kind of relativism that welcomes virtually any vision of the good, who are we to impose our view onto others who think differently?

They should be able to make their transaction and we should butt out.

It will do us no good to pretend that this is a retreat to a kind of moral neutrality. The marketplace has its own logic and its own goods. It rewards the privileged while exploiting the marginalised.

There is no view from nowhere on this question. No neutral place to hide.

We can and must explicitly and firmly take a stand with a particular vision of the good. And the Catholic vision stands ready to provide precisely what is necessary in this context.

Unfortunately, there are forces even within the Church itself that are apparently trying to undermine the Church's teaching in this regard — precisely where it is so obviously and importantly true and needed the most.

Those of us who agree with Francis's vision of resisting a consumerist, throwaway culture with the logic of gift and openness to life must redouble our efforts to make our voices heard on this new and repugnant biotechnological development.

• Joe Vukov is an associate professor of philosophy and associate director of the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola University Chicago. He is also the author, most recently, of The Perils of Perfection.
• First published in Religion News Service. Republished with permission.

Their work has been widely condemned by other scientists and watchdog groups, who argue the research is unsafe, premature and raises disturbing ethical concerns.

Changes in gene editions have reached a point that challenges existing legal, regulatory and risk assessment systems, with some applications raising ethical concerns around the world.

Should New Zealand's 16-year-old laws governing biotechnology be overhauled?

The Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor Dr Juliet Gerrard says our current law is no longer fit for purpose.

She's backed by the Royal Society, which in August issued a discussion document calling for urgent discussion and debate.

The Royal Society Genetic noted that technologies such as gene editing are developing quickly, and their cost is rapidly falling.

They say this is creating new approaches in health care, environmental management and food production.

Aotearoa New Zealand needs to ensure that its regulatory framework can accommodate these technological developments while protecting our unique environment and indigenous and cultural heritage.

The status of Maori as tangata whenua of Aotearoa, the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi/ the Treaty of Waitangi, and kaitiakitanga create a unique context in which New Zealand's regulatory framework needs to sit.

Other places such as USA, Europe, Australia and Japan, are currently reviewing their regulatory systems.

The Royal Society Te Aparangi Gene Editing Panel recognises that its competence does not extend to every aspect of regulation design and writing.

However, the Panel's mandate does include examining and deliberating on the research evidence, the implications of gene-editing technologies, and identifying the issues which might need a policy response.

Click here to listen to Discussion on RNZ

Source

• rnz.co.nz
• wamc.org
• royalsociety.org.nz
• Image: wamc.org

The purpose of the lab - a $10 million joint venture between the University and government - is to get New Zealand industry using 3D printing in a better way.

In the course of his career, Diegel has developed over 100 new products for companies in New Zealand and worldwide.

Several home health monitoring products, security and marine products, and lighting products are among the items he has produced.

3D printing body parts
Researchers have already made a start on "bioprinting" - printing organs such as bladders and tracheas Diegel says.

He predicts the ability to print more complex organs such as livers and kidneys could come in the next decade.

Ethical questions

Diegel says this development would create some ethical and social questions:

• People could live to 150
• Would 3D printed organs would be available only to the rich?
• Should you be able to print yourself a spare body to keep in the refrigerator at home just in case?
• Should you be able to print better organs than your original ones?
• What happens if you hack a 3D printer while it's printing and it creates a bad part - but you wouldn't know about it until it potentially causes some harm?
• If people could print 3D food, what would they do with all the time they would have spent cooking?
• The advent of 3D printing could also make spare parts obsolete. If manufacturers no longer needed warehouses of spare parts, global business models would need to change.

Source

• auckland.ac.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

At least, that is the claim of scientists at Oxford University who have been exploring controversial technologies that could extend human life.

They say billions are being invested in techniques that could mean the cruellest criminals will be kept alive indefinitely in condition befitting their crime.

According to their research, prison firms could also develop drugs that make time pass slowly, making an inmate's sentence feel like an eternity.

Last year, a team of scientists led by Rebecca Roache began exploring technologies that could keep prisoners in an artificial hell.

‘Some crimes are so bad they require a really long period of punishment, and a lot of people seem to get out of that punishment by dying,' Dr Roache told Ross Andersen in Aeon magazine.

Dr Roache highlights what she describes as the ‘laughably inadequate' sentence of 30 years in prison for Magdelena Luczak and Mariusz Krezolek.

The pair were convicted of murdering Luczak's four year-old son, Daniel, who was beaten, starved and tortured before his death.

On her Practical Ethics blog, Dr Roache notes that Luczak and Krezolek will receive the humane treatment that Daniel never did.

‘They will, for example, be fed and watered, housed in clean cells, allowed access to a toilet and washing facilities, allowed out of their cells for exercise and recreation,' she writes.

Turning to human engineering as a possible solution, Dr Roache looks at the idea of life span enhancements so that a life sentence in prison could last hundreds of years.

‘Dr Aubrey de Grey, co-founder of the anti-ageing Sens research foundation, believes that the first person to live to 1,000 years has already been born,' she said.

‘The benefits of such radical lifespan enhancement are obvious - but it could also be harnessed to increase the severity of punishments'. Continue reading