AncestryDNA, Calico Investigate Human Heredity of Lifespan

July 21, 2015

By Bio-IT World Staff 

July 21, 2015 | AncestryDNA and Google’s Calico today announced an effort to investigate human heredity of lifespan. Together, they will evaluate anonymized data from millions of Ancestry’s public family trees and AncestryDNA’s growing database of over one million genetic samples. Financial terms have not been disclosed.

AncestryDNA and Calico will work together to analyze and investigate the role of genetics and its influences in families experiencing unusual longevity using Ancestry’s proprietary databases, tools and algorithms. Calico will then focus its efforts to develop and commercialize any potential therapeutics that emerge from the analysis.

AncestryDNA announced last week that its DNA database has topped 1 million members, and that AncestryHealth’s new Chief Health Officer will work to connect Ancestry’s hereditary data with genomics data.

“On the heels of our AncestryHealth launch and our one million genotyped customers milestone for AncestryDNA, we’re excited to announce this collaboration with Calico to research and develop life changing solutions,” said Ken Chahine, Executive Vice President and Head of DNA and Health at Ancestry. “We have laid the groundwork for this effort through the combination of an unmatched family history database, one of the fastest growing genetic databases, and a strong and talented team of computer scientists and professional genealogists.”

AncestryDNA believes it can provide access to a unique combination of resources that will enable Calico to develop potentially groundbreaking therapeutic solutions. The companies hope the extensive research period will identify common patterns in longevity and human heredity through pedigree data.

“Our common experience suggests that there may be hereditary factors underlying longevity, but finding the genes responsible using standard techniques has proven elusive,” commented David Botstein, Calico’s Chief Scientific Officer and member of the US National Academy of Sciences in a statement.  “This is an extraordinary opportunity to address a fundamental unanswered question in longevity research using high quality human pedigrees.”