Wouldn’t it be grand to have a test that could predict our risk of dreaded diseases like cancer? Signs of such a future exist, but it’s not here yet, as senior writer Tina Hesman Saey explains in the second of our three-part series on direct-to-consumer genetic testing. The tests available today fall short in delivering what we would actually want to know. The raw data are gibberish to the average person, Saey reports, and often include errors or omit crucial information. What’s more, we don’t have enough science to interpret the findings. For now, it’s very much a case of buyer beware.
I like to think that Warren Kornberg, who edited Science News in the late 1960s, would be happy with this series. I recently learned of Kornberg’s death at age 90 from former Editor in Chief Tom Siegfried, whose writing continues to grace the Science News website. (More on that in a moment.)