Regeneron is to pay $256 million in cash to acquire “substantially all” of 23andMe’s assets, including its massive biobank of around 15 million customer genetic samples and data.
Regeneron is to pay $256 million in cash to acquire “substantially all” of 23andMe’s assets, including its massive biobank of around 15 million customer genetic samples and data.
The 99.9% similarity refers to humans having nearly identical DNA sequences, but that doesn’t mean we express our genes the same way. Gene expression varies widely due to regulatory sequences, environmental factors, epigenetics, methylation, and more.
23andMe only analyzes a small, curated set of common SNPs, covering maybe 5 - 10 percent of the known functional and trait-associated genome. It doesn’t sequence most rare variants, the full exome, or structural elements.
Recent research is also starting to highlight the growing importance of the dark genome, revealing that non-coding regions we’ve dismissed as junk DNA play significant roles in regulation and disease.