DNA Testing for Preventative Health: Do Outcomes Justify Continued Investment?

In The U.K., a heated debate is raging in the genetics community about a not-so-new technology and its role in public health. Cheap genetic tests to discover our ancestry have become familiar consumer products, and our genes can tell us a lot about our ancestry, so it is an appealing idea that they can tell us about our susceptibility to serious diseases. Polygenic risk scores (PRS)—generated by sequencing multiple parts of a person’s DNA—are said by some to hold the key to helping people avoid everything from type 1 diabetes to cardiovascular disease and cancer. This could herald a new era of preventive medicine, and the U.K. is investing heavily, but ultimately, whether or not this a good investment is still being determined.