MyHeritage Announces Yaniv Erlich As New Chief Science Officer

By Bio-IT World Staff 

February 9, 2017 | Yaniv Erlich is joining Israeli online genealogy platform company, MyHeritage, as Chief Science Officer. Erlich will lead scientific development and strategy for MyHeritage DNA, the company's DNA service for family history and ethnicity that the company launched last November, and ensure that its products are built on a solid scientific foundation.

Erlich brings to MyHeritage broad experience in the field of genomics, and interest in many facets of computational human genetics, including population studies, DNA storage, and genetic research in crowd-sourced family trees. He launched DNA.LAND last year, and is the principal investigator of the Erlich DNA lab at the New York Genome Center and Columbia University.

“I’m excited to join the talented team at MyHeritage and put my scientific experience to use by the millions of users on the MyHeritage platform,” Erlich wrote in a statement. “I've collaborated with MyHeritage since 2012 and have known them to be forward thinkers about building tools and platforms that enable massive scale scientific studies. I look forward to opening new horizons in consumer genetics in my new role, and further empowering our users with useful and creative tools that harness the latest scientific discoveries.”

MyHeritage DNA was launched in November 2016, offering DNA home-testing kits for determining users' ethnic origins and discovering new relatives. The service is offered in more than 190 countries worldwide, in 42 languages.