Dash Genomics, a San Francisco-based company, today announced the public launch of its platform for offering a personalized, genetic-based analysis for Alzheimer’s disease risk that is based on cutting edge research. Dash Genomics has partnered with HealthLytix (www.healthlytix.com), a precision health company located in San Diego, CA. HealthLytix has developed a proprietary, age-dependent model for assessing an individual’s risk profile for developing Alzheimer’s disease over their lifespan using their genetic information.
Dash Genomics now enables anyone who has had their genetic information provided by either 23andMe or Ancestry.com to take advantage of this unique and more comprehensive method of characterizing their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Dash Genomics provides information to visually track risk profiles over an individual’s lifespan based on their current age and submitted genetic data file. The analysis is generated in seconds after a person uploads their 23andMe or Ancestry data.
Rooted in published scientific research from University of California San Diego and University of California San Francisco, the HealthLytix model, known formally as a Polygenic Hazard Score (PHS), quantifies the personalized risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease as a function of age based on one’s genetic information. To develop the model, genomic data from more than 70,000 Alzheimer’s patients and healthy elderly controls were analyzed to look at incidence rates and isolate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The team studied genes beyond the APOE gene, which has historically been the most common indicator for Alzheimer’s disease risk. The resulting model provides a more comprehensive view of genetic impact on the likelihood for older and cognitively normal people to develop symptoms associated with Alzheimer’s disease by certain ages, based on their genetic similarity to the research cohort.
“The original PHS has already demonstrated great utility for understanding risk of Alzheimer’s disease beyond APOE genes. At HealthLytix, we further improved PHS with our proprietary algorithm. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Dash Genomics to make our research available more broadly,” said Dr. Chun Chieh Fan, Chief Data Scientist at HealthLytix and the principal developer of the PHS method with Dr. Anders M. Dale at UC San Diego and Dr. Rahul Desikan at UC San Francisco.
“There’s been an increasing interest in personal genomics in recent years. Partnering with HealthLytix allows us to bring state-of-the-art scientific findings to the growing community of people with their genetic data,” Dash Genomics shared in a public statement. “We’re committed to bringing information grounded in research to this community in a clear, visual and easy-to-understand way.”
Visit Dash Genomics at www.dashgenomics.com to get started with your genetic data. The analysis is regularly available for $149, and is currently being offered at $99 as an introductory special. Dash Genomics is for informational purposes only, has not been validated for clinical use, and is not meant to be used for diagnostic or medical purposes.
SOURCE Dash Genomics
