This is the time of the year where many magazines are publishing their gift guides for the holidays.
This year, they'll have somewhat unusual new gifts to talk about, like jewels, rugs or glassware designed after someone's genes. Andy Coghlan reports from England.
Items bearing colourful patterns based on the recipient's own genetic fingerprint are being touted as the ultimate personalised gift.
Neil Sullivan, CEO of Complement Genomics Ltd in Sunderland, England, conceived the idea as a sideline to his company's main business. This includes collecting DNA for pharmaceuticals companies and paternity testing.
Using a kit provided by the company, customers swab the inside of the lucky recipient's mouth to collect some cells. They then send the swabs back with a description of the kind of gift they want. Sullivan's team then extracts DNA from the cells and analyses it to provide the basis for a pattern.
Here is a picture of a necklace picked from an article by Robert Brooks, "The ultimate gift with that personal twist."
I guess that some of these objects, named DesigNAgifts, might show interesting patterns. But what about privacy?
Sullivan stresses that the DNA never belongs to the company and is taken in accordance with international legal standards. It is not entered into any databases and is destroyed after three months.
He adds that the patterns are not detailed enough to be used for paternity testing and avoids regions of DNA that could reveal a person's genetic secrets.
Please contact the company for prices -- and happy holidays!!
Sources: Andy Coghlan, New Scientist, November 28, 2002; Robert Brooks, The Journal, November 28, 2002
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