Frog makes some good points here.
What can DNAP do at this point?
I'm not going to comment on the pharm. side, as I do not know enough about it.
As regards ancestry and forensics, they have some options.
They need to
a) reorient their public pronouncements about interpretation of the data, and what the test means. Reading online comments on the ABD and Witness science, I see the two extremes:
1) that the tests are perfect and that a 2% minority MLE yes indeed means that 2% of your ancestors are from that group, OR
2) the tests are completely worthless and inaccurate
both views are wrong, and both I think come from DNAP's inability to explain to the public what the tests do, what they measure, and how they can be interpreted
b) release more data.
Yeah, I know, we have debated it here, and yeah, it's all "proprietary."
But why show two women from their photo database (the Gaskin pdf), and then refuse to make the whole database public? Those 2 subjects are not "proprietary" and the other data are?
By showing the correlations between ABD 2.5 values and physical appearance, through the data base, they can convince both the general public as well as potential forensic customers that the test is viable (within the confines of what it actually measures).
Yeah..the parental populations are "proprietary." Why then do they show a map on their website ("ethnicities section"), with the approximate geographical areas of the parentals? I can see with my own eyes that the IE parental circle is stationed around France, Germany, and maybe England as well.
They should just get someone to work on the website and put the information up, in written, objective form.
c) better marketing. As both I and W2P have stated here, the whole eye/hair/skin/facial features genetic testing being developed may be of interest to the public as well as forensics.
There is a "personal anthropology" market out there.
People want to know their genetic anthropology, that includes not only their ancestry markers and distance to parentals, but also what genes they carry for phenotype as well.
The "you can look in the mirror" comments do not apply: some traits are recessive, and a person can carry the genes that can be passed on to offspring, and yet not exhibit the traits themselves. Some traits are complex, etc.
People may want to know what genes they carry for these traits, and how it correlates to ancestry.
See the synergy?
Offer ancestry testing, make the pictorial data base public, and then later offer genetic phenotype testing to the public.
At the same time, vigorously offer these to police as well, for forensic use.
They need to be more assertive in debunking the O'Brien/Kidd crowd who denounce the whole science of personal genetic testing.
People are not clones of one another, differences exist, we have to deal with it. The LA case shows what can be accomplished with a realistic view of human genetic differences.
O'Brien and Kidd should be refuted.
d) better customer/investor relations
I noticed someone here mentioned that ABC15 news report, the newslady mentioned that an ABD update will be released soon.
IF (if!) true..why didn't DNAP mention it on July 29 or online at their site?
Yeah..yeah.."SEC" rules. Don't those same rules apply to ABC15 reporters? Why should ABC15 reporters and viewers be told about a possible new ABD release and not the rest of us?
Or did the ABD15 reporter misunderstand what DNAP told her...and there will be no release of a new ABD?
Which is it?
Or do only folks in Arizona have the privelage of that information?
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