A Fascinating Read: The Rise and Fall of BritainsDNA

Question

If you have an interest in the story of genetic testing for genealogy (and/or the confluence--or conflict therefrom--of science and business), this new, open-access paper by Debbie A. Kennett, Adrian Timpson, David J. Balding, and Mark G. Thomas will definitely engage you:

https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/2/4/47/htm

Far from diving into the nerdy stuff (which I admit I do enjoy) like gel electrophoresis, synonymous versus non-synonymous polymorphisms, or regions of heterochromatin, this does not require a genetics glossary or a mathematics degree to read. On the contrary, it's a look at an important piece of genetic genealogical history and how one testing company sought to rapidly capture a large market, got substantial press and spawned several subsidiary companies...and then shuttered its doors forever.

There were several compounding reasons for the failure of BritainsDNA, but if I were to sum it up in just two words, it would be: "bad science." Or, since we all know I always strive to get my message across in as few words as possible: "pseudoscience."

Worth the read!

Answer 1

Thank you for the link, a very interesting article indeed.  Similar situation that we see on television here in the US every day.  I found the discussion about the transformation process of scienfic research into pseudoscience by business and the media to be the most interesting and familiar.  Happens to a number of scientific fields, including mine.  Thanks for the good read.

Answer 2

A most fascinating article. I’ve read a couple of Moffit’s books and thought them rather well done, good reads both. I was surprised to find him connected with BritansDNA.

Edison, you never get your point across “in as few words as possible.” (But I always read your posts through. I might not “get it,” yet I do learn much by doing so!) 

Answer 3

The People of the British Isles (PoBI) project was initiated by Sir Walter Bodmer in 2004, in an effort to create the first ever detailed genetic map of a country. The United Kingdom’s history bristles with immigrations, wars and invasions, so the PoBI researchers faced a tremendous task in investigating how past events impacted the genetic makeup of modern British people.

We recruited volunteers whose four grandparents were born in rural areas of Britain, within 50 miles from one another. We collected blood samples as a source of DNA for our genetic studies. Since our DNA is really a mixture of our ancestors’ DNA we could use it to look back in time and study the ancestry over centuries past. A subset of our samples (2039) was extensively analysed, and the groundbreaking results were published in Nature on the 19^th of March 2015 (see Population Genetics). Results included a map (image below) showing a remarkable concordance between genetic and geographical clustering of our samples across the United Kingdom. The analyses were developed even further and showed relationships of the UK genetic clusters to the genetics of surrounding European groups (see Population Genetics for detailed information).

https://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/home