定制化餐饮，你值得拥有！
YOUR DNA-BASED DIET PLAN? HE’S GOT AN APP FOR THAT
不要再问今天吃啥了，看看手机就知道。
大家都知道现在有很多基因检测的公司，可以对你的身体情况做出一个解读报告。比如美国的23andMe，还有国内的wegene(只要999! 就能解读基因的秘密)等。但这些检测都会给你一个看不太懂的报告，然后就没有然后了。
那你想过利用DNA测序结果来规划自己的生活吗？
现在，一个手机app也许就能回答你的所有问题，告诉你每天该吃些什么，做什么样的运动。
位于美国硅谷的一家叫Helix的遗传测序公司从大量的人类DNA与表型数据中看到了商机，推出了“DNA应用商店“。同样，公司通过给客户寄出唾液收集试剂盒来进行DNA采集，并将所有数据放到云端。不同的是，后续的各项评估是通过app的方式购买。就如同一个DNA应用商店，检测的内容可以说是包罗万象，从心脏病风险到营养餐定制。
值得一提的是，公司的创始人之一，Justin Kao（典型的nerd），跟我们很多人一样也是纠结在要不要读PhD的问题上。硕士生物工程毕业后，他选择了更接近现实生活的工作，转去读商学和法律，也算是为开公司打下基础。他注意到大部分研究都投入到已发生的疾病上，对于普通人的疾病预防的关注却寥寥无几。所以公司主要的目标就是给DNA检测应用开发者建立一个平台，如同苹果商店的存在。
请点击“阅读原文”查看官方网站
申请一次测序的费用为80美元，然后其他检测app从10美元到超过100元不等，而且公司还在不停的和其他领域的企业合作，开发出新的检测项目。以后可能看什么电影喝什么红酒，和谁谈恋爱都可以帮你决定了，有一种电影《gattaca》的感觉啊！
我比较关心吃什么，不过它告诉我吃啥之前，我是不是也要告诉它食堂今天有啥呢。
你们呢？对与什么检测项目感兴趣呢？
以下是原文：
magine using your DNA sequence to plan your life. Before you hit the gym, your phone buzzes with a personalized workout routine based on an analysis of genes linked to your risk of heart disease. Stopping at the grocery store, your phone buzzes again, this time offering wine recommendations drawn from genes that shape your perception of taste and smell.
That’s the world Justin Kao imagines. In 2015, the 33-year-old entrepreneur co-founded Helix, a Silicon Valley company he compares to an app store — only for genetic tests. Helix mails customers a spit-sample-collection kit, reads the genome sequence contained in the sample and stores it in the cloud. Customers can then order various assessments based on analyses of their genome from partnering companies through a DNA app store. These assessments would list everything from predictions of heart disease risk to tailor-made nutrition plans. It’s an intriguing idea, although some experts question how well genetics can predict disease risk, much less nonclinical traits, which draw on a host of social and other environmental factors.
Unlike the more established 23andMe and Ancestry.com, which offer one-time reports, Helix can be used repeatedly, and customers can request different reports each time. Plus, Helix analyzes all 22,000 genes, rather than just single points in the DNA code, joining the swelling ranks of companies harnessing next-generation sequencing — from Human Longevity, which offers “data-driven health intelligence,” to WuXi NextCODE, provider of whole-genome wellness scans. DNA sequencing has become cheaper and easier over the past decade, and in April, the FDA allowed 23andMe to sell 10 tests for disease risk, which “could give the green light to other companies,” says Scott Roberts, director of the University of Michigan’s Genomics, Health and Society Program.
THERE’S BEEN AN UNDERINVESTMENT IN HELPING PEOPLE TAILOR THEIR LIVES BEFORE THEY BECOME PATIENTS.
—HELIX CO-FOUNDER JUSTIN KAO
Kao Skypes from Helix’s headquarters in San Carlos, California, where he lives with his wife and two Shiba Inus. He has a nerdy college bro look, with a baby face and a black T-shirt bearing Helix’s logo. But Kao’s laid-back demeanor belies an analytic nature and penchant for strategy. A native of SoCal suburb Rancho Palos Verdes, he enjoys tactical board games and the military sci-fi novel Ender’s Game. At Stanford, he studied chemical engineering and completed the bioengineering master’s program. He considered a Ph.D. but felt his research would be too far removed from real-world application. Instead, he picked up Stanford business and law degrees and spent five years at private equity firm Warburg Pincus. As VP of the health-care technology team, he was known for grilling CEOs in a manner Tony Chou, Kao’s former colleague, likens to mental tap dancing. “I always found Justin really good at that,” Chou says.
Meanwhile, Kao’s gears had started to churn. While the NIH and others pour resources into understanding disease (partly because it’s easier to target and enroll sick patients for clinical trials), “there’s been an underinvestment in helping people tailor their lives before they become patients,” he says. He wondered whether DNA could provide that lifetime road map.
In 2013, Kao decided to have his genome sequenced, planning to use the data “to make smarter decisions.” But manually combing through his genome was “painful.” Kao and Helix co-founders James Lu and Scott Burke teamed up with biotech behemoth Illumina, using its sequencing technology for Helix. Their goal is to build the infrastructure that enables other companies to develop DNA testing apps, taking care of the “hard parts,” like e-commerce, saliva collection and sequencing. As unsexy as it sounds, this way, he says, “our partners could immediately begin building products.”
Customers will pay $80 for a saliva-collection kit, using it just once, and then buy apps to assess various aspects of their genome, sequenced from that single saliva sample. And, just like Apple’s app store, partners will set the price of their apps (starting around $10 and climbing to $100 or more for those that assess disease risk). Helix already offers a $149.95 National Geographic ancient ancestry test, and when the store opens this summer, it will offer apps that evaluate cardiovascular risk, as well as some that provide wine recommendations and personalized fitness and nutrition plans.
Michigan’s Roberts thinks the field of gene sequencing “is poised to expand dramatically,” noting, “There’s such a vast amount of information from whole genome sequencing that I do think people are going to be interested.” And customers’ knowledge of their disease risk could empower them to take steps to lower that risk, he adds.
Dna infographic
But risk information may not be enough to change complex behaviors, such as diet and exercise, Roberts says. Likewise, although Helix “may actually be a successful venture,” genetics aren’t dispositive on most health conditions, which are influenced by a host of environmental factors, says Wylie Burke, professor at the University of Washington’s Department of Bioethics and Humanities. Genomics will be most helpful in pinpointing rare genetic mutations — like those affecting the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which elevate breast and ovarian cancer risk.
“We have very good evidence that genomics correlates with certain traits,” Kao maintains, and he emphasizes every app launched with Helix will undergo a rigorous scientific evidence evaluation process before it debuts on the app store. Whether Helix lives up to its promise remains to be seen, but chances are Kao is already strategizing how to invest in the genome’s vast wealth of data.
* Correction: The original version of this feature had the incorrect price for the saliva-collection kit and the wrong date for when Helix was founded.