23 and You #481
July 06, 2018
These days, all you need to do is fill a tube with spit and mail it off to find out all about your ancestors, and even about your risks for certain diseases. Loads of DNA sequencing and typing companies exist to tell you all about yourself. But how accurate are they? And how safe is that information? We'll speak with science writer Tina Hesman Saey about her big project sending off her spit to more companies than she can count. For science, of course. Then, we'll take out ethical concerns to bioethicist Kelly Hills, to talk about the potential pitfalls of the DNA revolution.
Related links:
- Special report: Genetic testing goes mainstream
- What genetic tests from 23andMe, Veritas and Genos really told me about my health by Tina Hesman Saey
- The history of heredity makes for a fascinating, and chilling, read by Cori Vanchieri
- Guidelines call for limits to whole genome testing for fetuses by Laura Sanders
- What consumer DNA data can and can’t tell you about your risk for certain diseases by Tina Hesman Saey
- Privacy and consumer genetic testing don’t always mix by Cassie Martin
- At-home telomere testing is not a reliable marker of aging, researcher says by Cori Vanchieri
- DNA testing can bring families together, but gives mixed answers on ethnicity by Tina Hesman Saey
- What I actually learned about my family after trying 5 DNA ancestry tests by Tina Hesman Saey
- What is DNA recombination?
- Q&A with Daniel Solove on How Bad Security Arguments Are Undermining Our Privacy Rights by Jay Stanley
- Facebook’s Psych Experiment: Consent, Privacy, and Manipulation by Daniel Solove
- A taxonomy of privacy
Guests:
- Tina Saey
- Kelly Hills
Guest Bios
Tina Saey
Molecular biology writer Tina Hesman Saey is a geneticist-turned-science writer who covers all things microscopic and a few too big to be viewed under a microscope. She is an honors graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she did research on tobacco plants and ethanol-producing bacteria. She spent a year as a Fulbright scholar at the Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, studying microbiology and traveling. Her work on how yeast turn on and off one gene earned her a Ph.D. in molecular genetics at Washington University in St. Louis. Tina then rounded out her degree collection with a master’s in science journalism from Boston University. She interned at the Dallas Morning News and Science News before returning to St. Louis to cover biotechnology, genetics and medical science for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. After a seven year stint as a newspaper reporter, she returned to Science News. Her work has been honored by the Endocrine Society and the Genetics Society of America.
Kelly Hills
Kelly Hills is a founding bioethicist of the consulting firm Rogue Bioethics, where she consults on ethical issues concerning novel technologies, such as synthetic biology and genome editing. Her current research projects include ethical responses to emerging infectious diseases, international bioethics, biosecurity, and science communication norms.
