via The New York Times
By ANDREW POLLACK
Sergey Brin , the billionaire co-founder of Google , says he plans to contribute money and his DNA to a large study intended to reveal the genetic underpinnings of Parkinson's disease.
The study, ... announced Thursday [March 12, 2009], will be conducted by 23andMe, a company co-founded and co-managed by Mr. Brin's wife, Anne Wojcicki. The company offers a personal genomics service, in which it scans the DNA submitted by its customers and provides information on their health risks, ancestry and other traits.
Now it hopes to use its service and its growing database of consumer DNA to conduct medical research. The company hopes to recruit 10,000 people with Parkinson's disease for the study.
Mr. Brin, 35, revealed last September that he had a genetic mutation that sharply raised his risk for developing Parkinson's. His mother, Eugenia Brin, already has the disease.
"I kind of give myself 50-50 odds of getting Parkinson's in 20 or so years, 25 years," Mr. Brin said in an interview. "But I also give it a 50-50 shot of medicine catching up to be able to deal with it."
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Posted
Mar 16 2009, 11:58 AM
by
BusyBee
Filed under: patients “self-organize” into an online community, Parkinson's Disease, other traits, health risks, large study, Parkinson’s Institute and Clinical Center, personal genomics service, DNA, ancestry, Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, Google co-founder, 23andMe, genome-wide association studies, make research more efficient