Bringing The World Home To You

© 2024 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines 89.9 Chadbourn
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Is Your DNA Private? It Might Not Be

Vickie Chaplin loads patient samples into a machine for testing at Myriad Genetics Friday, May 31, 2002, in Salt Lake City. (Douglas C. Pizac/AP)
Vickie Chaplin loads patient samples into a machine for testing at Myriad Genetics Friday, May 31, 2002, in Salt Lake City. (Douglas C. Pizac/AP)

Would you want your girlfriend’s parents to be able to test your DNA to find out your ancestry? What if the grad school you were applying to wanted to test for tendencies for mental illness?

Within a few years, the cost of DNA sequencing may be just a few hundred dollars. When it gets that cheap, it will be easy for anyone to get a test.

But should there be legal restrictions on it? And is there a way to keep our DNA private?

Guest:

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.