App store nowadays sounds familiar to everyone. Most of the people use app every day ranging from games, news, communication, dating tools, shopping and etc. Recently, an American entrepreneur named Justin Kao developed an app store for DNA. (DNA App Store, 2017) He believed that people are willing to pay a few dollars to see insights of its DNA. There are many interesting findings, for example, the risk of certain disease. Justin founded Helix and was given 100 million dollar to make DNA App Store real. (DNA App Store, 2017)
How is this working exactly? Helix created an online shop for data of individual’s genetic information. People, who want to know about their physical features, risk for diseases or to whom they are related to, are required to provide a spit sample. (DNA App Store, 2017) After paying certain fees, Helix will analyze DNA sequence and generate finding digitally in order for customers to access easily. All those DNA are analyzed by sequencing machines in San Diego. They are capable to analyze more than 1 million samples. Helix could become the biggest DNA sequencing center around the world. (DNA App Store, 2017)
Helix will not only analyze data but also store individual’s data. The large dataset provides huge opportunity from business perspective and also medical perspective. (DNA App Store, 2017) From business side, it enables outside company to utilize genetic information to create additional services, for instance, what will your son or daughter look like in the future. Moreover, there are many other business opportunities waiting for companies to discover. Helix created a platform for the whole industry. From the medical point of view, large DNA data enable government agencies to have a deeper understanding of citizens’ current health conditions and further disease risks. It helps to predict disease accurately, observe disease earlier and cure the patient with more targeted treatment.
However, regulatory limitations do exist. How much information can Helix provide to its customers? All or partially? Furthermore, the accuracy of its prediction of disease is being questioned. The chance of having disease should be decided based on both doctor and the DNA sequence. In sum, DNA App Store provides us insight about our gene information. It is a trend as the medical technology keeps evolving. It is also the base of further medical development, for instance, gene editing.
DNA App Store. (2017). MIT Technology Review, pp.26-27
Hi Y Chen,
Very interesting article. I think mankind is very curious by nature. With that being said, it would be very tempting to get to know more about yourself with scientific proof. However, I do believe that Helix should not provide all its information to customers as it can result in negative consequences such as people being offended or not liking what they see. The more information you provide, the higher the chance that 1) people will not agree and 2) the information is inaccurate. The most ideal scenario for Helix is to provide only the information that it is 100% sure of being correct and perhaps signing a contract with customers beforehand to agree on what information the customer can expect.
About the medical aspect, I think this enables a huge opportunity in this field. By having a larger dataset combined with the fact that the technology enabled us to analyze information more accurate, this could potentially have a large positive impact on the current knowledgebase of doctors and other professionals in the medic field. Eventually benefitting the patients and general population. However, this also increases the risk for its security. A data breach could be disastrous in the sense that an individual’s private information is now fully exposed to the hacker. With that being said, I think the most ideal scenario is that the customer is in charge of deciding whether Helix is allowed to store the information or not.