The Future of DNA Testing
What will DNA testing look like in 10 years? This question was posed to a panel of experts including Blaine Bettinger, Roberta Estes, and Prof. Yaniv Erlich during the 2019 MyHeritage Live conference.
Automated analysis of DNA results
Artificial intelligence (automation) will be used extensively to organize DNA results and will produce new information, such as:
- Automatic construction of family trees.
- Automatic identification of unknown parentage, including birth parents for adoptees.
- Production of DNA profiles for older generations. Libraries of ancestors.
Genealogy will shift to verifying information and building stories since the tree will be provided.
Full Genome Testing
An eventual move will be made from the current array testing to full genome testing. This would increase the number of locations tested from the current 700,000 locations to 3 billion locations.
Full genome testing already exists but is not widely used because the tests are expensive, there are no current tools to analyze the data, and the file is so large that it would need to be shipped to the user on a disk. There would also be a problem with lack of compatibility with current tests.
Artifact testing
There is a great deal of interest in being able produce a DNA profile from an artifact that belonged to an ancestor. This might be an envelope, stamp, or hair sample. To date there has not been great success, but the process is expected to improve. The test is expensive because each sample is unique. The sample is destroyed in the process, but it is expected that the size of the sample needed to test will continue to decrease.
DNA sequencing at home
Small devices are already being used to produce DNA profiles in educational settings
