1. 6 PATHS TO CULTIVATING A GENETICALLY INFORMED MARKETPLACE
GENE TRADES
6 PATHS TO CULTIVATING A GENETICALLY INFORMED MARKETPLACE
Kathi Vian
Ben Oppenheim
2016 Ten-Year Forecast

2. …for building personal genetic literacy
1 Develop platforms…
…for building personal genetic literacy
Whether genetic testing is done in the doctor’s office or by direct-to-consumer companies, more and more people will need help interpreting the results of the tests. Platforms for providing that help will emerge both from within and outside the medical establishment.
Livewello: Personal health data management platform interprets results of direct-to-consumer genetic tests
Source: Pinterest

3. 2 Design products and services…
…for distinctive genomic clusters
As medical science moves beyond analyses of SNPs—the single nucleotide polymorphisms that represent individual building blocks of genetic variation—they will begin to identify clusters of variations that cross subsets of people who may need custom therapies and custom lifestyle interventions.
FoundationOne Genomic profiling company develops cancer therapy strategies based on complex DNA alterations and interactions
Source: FoundationOne

4. …to analyze genetic material in real time
3 Empower people…
…to analyze genetic material in real time
As gene sequencing devices become smaller, faster, and cheaper, real-time genetic testing of everything from farm produce to pharmaceuticals will empower people to investigate the purity and potential contaminants of the products they consume.
Oxford Nanopore’s MinION: With a $1000 price tag, the thumb-sized device does real-time sequencing of samples
Source: Next Big Future

5. …to build a science of environmental genetics
4 Tap the crowd…
…to build a science of environmental genetics
Scientists have begun to map the interactions of genomes, exposomes (environmental exposure) and behavomes (behavioral patterns) in large populations and in real time to create an epidemiological approach to genomics. Research at this scale will advance on the back of new ways to crowdsource data and process it.
Metrichor: Platform supports a community of Nanopore users for real-time analysis and visualization of genetic data
Source: Metrichor

6. 5 Target large-scale health and wellness…
… with micro-scale solutions
More and more large-scale health problems—from obesity to asthma to schizophrenia—are being linked to genetically measurable perturbations in the microbiome, especially the gut microbiome. As solutions emerge from large-scale population studies of genomes at these micro-scales, microbiome management will be a rich marketplace for innovation.
Ubiome + Apple: Microbial genetic testing company uses Apple’s Research kit to find solutions for weight management
Source: Buzzfeed

7. 6 Create genetic social graphs…
… to understand social systems
Just as social networks have given rise to a science of social graphing that reveals insights about everything from health and happiness to political movements and viral advertising, social genetic graphs, in which people share the results of the genetic tests will drive new insights about the relationship between genetics and social systems.
OpenSNP.org: Social network lets users publish their genetic test results to find new genetic associations
Source: openSNP

8. What’s driving the gene trade?
The story of the growing marketplace for genome-based innovation starts with the continuing precipitous fall in the cost to sequence an entire individual genome—starting at $100,000,000 in 2002 and approaching $1000 today. While the FDA has reined in direct-to-consumer genetic testing by companies like 23andme, it hasn’t blocked it, and it will slowly rebuild, even as more conventional medical purveyors enter the market. At the same time, DIY genetics is opening the way for true do-it-yourself testing, outside the constraints of FDA approval.
All these factors, combined with the ongoing quantified self movement, are likely to lead to a growing genetic literacy and a swelling demand for products and services that build—and build on—that literacy. Over the next decade, services and science will repeatedly leapfrog each other, with genetic sharing creating new insights about genetic science and those new insights, in turn, driving new kinds of sharing.
What kinds of sharing? Already, sites like openSNP and Ubiome are using the fundamental affordances of social networks to discover how combinations of genetic profiles, environmental exposure, and behavioral patterns can give a more complete interpretation of individual profiles. Crowds will share their experiences, not only with medical interventions, but also with wellness and lifestyle practices, developing a new vocabulary of conditions, profiles, and solutions to complex health and wellness challenges. As this vocabulary spreads into the public sphere, a new narrative of social, political, and economic well-being is likely to follow, provoking changes in everything from the way we produce food to the way we govern.
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9. What’s driving the gene trade? ...continued
A body of rapidly developing research into microbiomes, for example, is already creating “insurrectionist” strategies for both agriculture and the health and wellness industries. Chefs like Maxime Bilet of Imagine Food fame are developing recipes that take into account the characteristics of the soil where food was grown. Startups like Aobiome are producing “microbe-balancing” skin mists using natural microbes in their formulations. And as already mentioned, social networks like Ubiome are engaging thousands of people in mapping their personal microbiomes and tracking patterns of weight gain and loss that might ultimately change the strategies for weight management. As genetic testing reveals growing problems with the food system and growing limitations of traditional health systems, public trust in these industries is likely to erode.
In a shadow scenario, the established actors in food production and health and wellness, who account for about 50% of the global economy, might not be able to adapt quickly enough to the new science to avert a collapse of the entire systems they represent, leading rapidly to a collapse in the stock market, severe food shortages, and falling health outcomes. The more hopeful scenario is that the next decade brings a rapid increase, both in genetic literacy and genetic innovation in the marketplace, creating the foundation for a new genetically informed economy.