Is being gay in people's DNA? A new study was launched earlier this year to try and find the elusive answer to that question.
Linda Avery and Anne Wojcicki founded personal-genetics company 23andMe in 2006. The company's purpose is to enable individuals to explore their own DNA. According to Catherine Afarian, public relations manager for 23andMe, the human genome was first mapped 10 years ago after almost 13 years of work and $3 billion. Since then science has advanced rapidly, significantly reducing the cost and time involved.
"There is still a lot we don't know or understand about our genetics, but there's been a lot of discoveries and associations that have been identified," Afarian said.
In addition to offering customers the opportunity to receive hundreds of reports interpreting their DNA, 23andMe also has been involved in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) examining Parkinson's disease for genetic associations.
The company began its research in 2008, conducting a proof of concept study. The study examined a small number of traits already known to have existing genetic associations to determine whether or not they could replicate or repeat the known findings. Researchers looked at regular traits such as hair and eye color, but also examined unusual characteristics—for example, seeing if a person can smell asparagus in his or her own urine.
Since that time the company has been involved in several studies involving Parkinson's disease and has been successful in identifying new genetic associations.
"Essentially, we've had two novel genetic associations that we've identified," Afarian said. "So basically we've found two new genes that are associated with the risk for Parkinson's disease, and what is most exciting for us, we've identified a gene SGK1 that appears like it may have some potentially protective factor against Parkinson's."
With 150,000 customers in its database, 23andMe has a substantial opportunity for conducting research. Customers have the option of participating in any research projects the company is conducting.
"What that allows us to do is to look at their DNA anonymously," said Amy Kiefer, manager of survey research for 23andMe. "Our research environment decouples any personal identifying information from their genetic data, and we look at genetic data in aggregate. Then we combine that data with responses to online surveys so we can start to identify new genetic associations or better understand how certain known genetic associations may inform the development of certain traits, conditions or diseases."
Customers are also invited to suggest studies that they would like to see 23andMe conduct and by and large Kiefer said that sexual orientation studies are requested on a weekly basis by its customers, heads above any other research area suggested.
"In this study we are asking people about their sexual orientation and we also ask them about a few factors hypothesized to affect sexual orientation," Kiefer said. "We take those responses and we run them against about a million points in your genome to see if anything correlates significantly with sexual orientation. It is essentially finding genetic correlates.
"The other thing we are planning to do is a heritability analysis. This involves looking at groups of related individuals. Our customers are distantly related to each other. We can actually take advantage of that fact to try and figure out how heritable different traits are."
To create the survey participants will fill out online, the company utilized already existing tools, the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid and the Attitudes Towards Lesbians and Gay Men scale. They also reached out to LGBT organizations to make sure they were conducting the research in an informative and sensitive manner.
"We based the survey off of existing instruments that assess people's sexual orientation and preferences," Kiefer said.
Several teams of scientists and researchers with experience conducting GWAS studies will review and analyze aspects of the data to determine if any genetic associations can be determined. These professionals include geneticists, computational biologists, biostatisticians and neuroscientists.
In the company's previous work with Parkinson's disease the goal has been to eventually create new treatments, but what happens if the sexual orientation study does find genetic correlations?
"I think we are really just looking to contribute to our understanding of biological function," Afarian said. "We may not find a genetic association but if we do I think anything that helps us better understand how our bodies work and how genes inform our preferences is helpful."
There are laws that address some aspects of genetic discrimination, particularly the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act, which Afarian said specifically says that health insurers and employers cannot discriminate based on genetics or DNA. However, the laws are still evolving in this very new area.
If genetic correlations do exist, could someone take that information and try to manipulate the DNA to prevent a child from being gay or to create a treatment to block a person's natural sexual orientation?
Kiefer and Afarian both say that they cannot speculate on what could be done with any findings, but they agree that those suggested scenarios are quite far out there and nearly impossible.
"In general, what we are hoping is that as we better understand human biology and what the genome means we contribute to understanding in a broad sense," Afarian said. "To the extent that we better understand how our bodies work hopefully we also then better understand what makes us different as individuals and what makes us the same. That's the beauty of DNA, its kind of what makes us human and we are all human in different ways. Our hope with our research is that the more we understand about our own biology, hopefully, the better we understand one another."
In order to participate in the research study, individuals have to become a customer of 23andMe. Rates start at $99, plus a $9 monthly subscription.
