should not have permitted this out-of-date approach to be used for medical purposes,” Dr. King said. Specifically, it looks for three notorious genetic variants, known as founder mutations. Dr. Susan Klugman, vice president for clinical genetics at the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, likened it to a broader spell-check. Whereas 23andMe looks for errors in a few paragraphs, the Invitae analysts used more advanced genetic technology to search through 25 chapters. In about 5,000 subjects, analysts identified at least one variant known to significantly increase an individual’s risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

Source: New York Times April 16, 2019 14:27 UTC