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SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Google co-founder Sergey Brin has started a blog,
candidly telling of being at risk for Parkinson's Disease and plugging his
wife's genetic testing start-up firm.
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Google co-founder Sergey Brin has started a blog,
candidly telling of being at risk for Parkinson's Disease and plugging his
wife's genetic testing start-up firm.
While Brin is no stranger to news-making webcasts and online press
announcements, he made a blogging debut Thursday by sharing personal
musings in a post at the Blogger weblogging website Google bought in early
2003.
Brin wrote of his mother being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and how
testing by 23andMe, a company started by his wife Anne Wojcicki, shows he
has a gene mutation that "markedly" increases his chances of getting the
illness.
"This leaves me in a rather unique position," Brin wrote.
"I now have the opportunity to adjust my life to reduce those odds. I also
have the opportunity to perform and support research into this disease long
before it may affect me."
Brin told of working with The Parkinson's Institute and the Michael J. Fox
Foundation to combat the disease and provided links to the organizations'
websites.
"I feel fortunate to be in this position," Brin wrote.
"Until the fountain of youth is discovered, all of us will have some
conditions in our old age, only we don't know what they will be. I have a
better guess than almost anyone else for what ills may be mine and I have
decades to prepare for it."
Brin wrote of comparing his genes with those of relatives and of checking
whether his DNA links him to others with his family name.
Founded by Wojcicki and Linda Avey two years ago, California-based 23andMe
offers genotyping for a price of 399 per person.
