Significant advancements to the production, speed and affordability of genomic sequencing technologies over the past two decades have engendered a booming industry of direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC-GT). Originating with mail-order testing services in the late 1990s, this industry has evolved into an expansive digital enterprise valued at more than US$1 billion.1¹ Customers can purchase DTC-GT kits online or in-store from US$69, enabling them to collect a saliva sample that is then mailed to a laboratory for processing. Results are typically returned in three to eight weeks, accessed through an online portal and visualized in an array of brightly coloured bubble graphs, pie charts and maps. The DTC-GT industry’s core proposition is ancestry, using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping to map the ancestral histories of genetic data across continents and centuries. Globally, AncestryDNA (a subsidiary of Ancestry.com) leads the DTC-GT market with more than 18 million customers, while its closest rival, biometrics company 23andMe, boasts upwards of 12 million, acquiring nearly five million in 2018 alone.2²

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在过去的二十年中，基因组测序技术的生产、速度和可负担性的重大进步催生了一个蓬勃发展的直接面向消费者的基因检测 (DTC-GT) 行业。该行业起源于 1990 年代后期的邮购测试服务，现已发展成为价值超过 10 亿美元的庞大数字企业。1 ¹客户可以在线或在店内以 69 美元的价格购买 DTC-GT 套件，使他们能够收集唾液样本，然后将其邮寄到实验室进行处理。结果通常会在三到八周内返回，可通过在线门户访问并在一系列色彩鲜艳的气泡图、饼图和地图中进行可视化。DTC-GT 行业的核心主张是祖先，使用单核苷酸多态性 (SNP) 基因分型来绘制跨越大陆和世纪的遗传数据的祖先历史。在全球范围内，AncestryDNA（Ancestry.com 的子公司）以超过 1800 万客户引领 DTC-GT 市场，而其最接近的竞争对手生物识别公司 23andMe 拥有超过 1200 万客户，仅在 2018 年就收购了近 500 万客户^{。2 2}