If you are worried that you will get fat as you grow older, there’s now a way to keep you from pulling your hair out and making you bald as well. MapMyGenome, a Hyderabad-based DNA and gene testing company launched two products — SlimGene and SMART Tuberculosis — on Friday, to help diagnose and identify two huge problems Indians face when it comes to their health — obesity and Tuberculosis.
Smarter TB tests: The SMART Tuberculosis system, developed in partnership with US-based Codiagnostics Inc., aims to give diagnosticians a quicker turnaround time for results, without having to compromise on the quality of the tests.
MapMyGenome CEO Anu Acharya said that DNA test results for Tuberculosis can now be received within three hours, with an accuracy rate of above 90 per cent.
“We’ve been in the TB space for a long time with another product called SPOLIGO TB, which has been sold to over 80 countries,” says Anu, “It had a restriction of having to need 43 samples at a time, but this one allows you to test one sample at any time. The turnaround time for SPOLIGO was about eight-nine hours, while SMART can be done in about three hours at most.”
Andrew Benson, COO of Codiagnostics, said that the tests can achieve such results because it’s based on technology that “allows us to develop molecular diagnostics faster and cheaper than conventional tests, across diseases”. Anu says that the company is also offering these test machines for free to labs that receive high volumes of samples.
Slimmer down: SlimGene, the other product launched by MapMyGenome, helps people by telling them just how much at risk they are to obesity and the implications it comes with. “We felt that a lot of people aren’t interested in checking for cancer and other diseases, so we started coming up with these smaller products,” says Anu.
The process is simple enough: You order a kit online or on the phone, and it gets delivered home once you’ve made an online payment. You swab your cheeks to collect DNA samples, and someone comes over to collect it and take it to the lab.
Arun Kiran, a Genetic Counsellor with the company, says that the tests look for specific gene markers and variations in the body, based on which their risk factor is assessed. “It’s a much healthier way than going in for plastic surgery, liposuction, etc.,” he says, “It’s also cheaper; for SlimGene we charge Rs 2,000, whereas a nutritionist may charge you Rs 20,000 just for a diet plan. With us, if you want a 30-minute counselling session for diet and nutrition plans, we charge around Rs 4,000.”
