Friday, March 13, 2009

23andMe Targets Parkinson's

Mountain View-based 23andMe, the DNA testing startup co-founded by Anne Wojcicki and backed by Google, said Thursday that the firm is launching an effort to help advance research into Parkinson's disease. The firm said that it is in a collaboration with The Parkinson's Institute and Clinical Center and the Michael J. Fox Foundation in the effort, which looks to sign up 10,000 individuals with Parkinson's disease in its service. As part of that effort, Google's Sergey Brin is underwriting an effort to pay most of the cost of enrolling those individuals in the service. 23andMe said that Parkinson's disease sufferers will be able to be genotyped for $25, instead of the usual $399, through its service, through a personal donation by Brin. Apparently, the underwriting of the effort by Brin comes because Sergey Brin's mother has Parkinson's, and because Brin has a genetic predisposition to the disease. 23andMe has received backing from Genentech, Google, MDV Mohr Davidow Ventures, and New Enterprise Associates; co-founder Wojcicki is married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.