Whole Genomics Sequencing (WGS) - offers and discounts

[daftasabrush]

I thought a thread for any special offers would be useful.

Currently Nebula have free worldwide delivery, and WGS x30 for $299 (normal price $1000), which is a bit over £200 since the exchange rate is good at the moment.

There is a x100 offer on too, plus an upgrade from x30 to x100 for previous customers.

You do have to get either a lifetime membership, monthly or yearly subscription for data analysis, but the first monthly one only costs $19.99. I'm not clear if you can cancel that before the first change though.

Not sure how long the offer is on. There is lifetime subscription discounted to $200 with discount codes like ENDOF2020 for another $50 off, works out about £330 for the lot. I think those codes might be on until late May.

More discount codes are on Hotdeals and https://www.dnaweekly.com/reviews/nebula-genomics/coupons/

Nebula is describing itself and privacy focused and doesn't have Big Pharma owners.

If you are looking at this but not yet, then Hotdeals can email you when offers come up next - seems like a regular thing.

They also have an option for analysing your 23AndMe or AncestryDNA date, but doesn't look like good value to me.

I would be interested to here anyone else being WGS, and which company and what the results were like.

 

[daftasabrush]

Nebula is doing another discount - not sure how long for.

Basic Whole Genome Sequencing
$99 (should be $299)

Deep x30 Whole Genome Sequencing
$199 (should be $999)

Ultra Deep x100 Whole Genome Sequencing
$999 (should be $2999)

then there is also an analysis / reporting tool and they insist you get one of the subscriptions (but you can cancel) - these are
+$24.99/mo Yearly

+$12.49/mo

+$274.99 Unlimited Lifetime Access Sale: Save $500

https://nebula.org/whole-genome-sequencing-dna-test/

I have this and thought it was pretty good although the analysis subscription emails are lame and the analysis want as good as expected (I don't have anything to compare it with).

You can also use to upload your 23andMe data for free

 

[Hoopoe]

That's an amazing discount and a much more reasonable price for something with uncertain benefit for many patients. I bought it.

 

[lunarainbows]

@daftasabrush you probably already know this, but many of these DTC (direct to consumer) tests are inaccurate. I looked into this a couple of years ago - I was told to do 23andME, and it came back with lots of weird results. So I read about it, and I found that up to 40% of 23andME results were false positives. Thats a huge amount. There’s also a lot of false negatives, which meant people became falsely reassured when they shouldn’t have been. I don’t know specifically about the test you’ve posted, but similar issues apply to other DTC tests.

It’s worth reading this article about DTC, inaccuracies and interpretation (including whole genome sequencing); https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l5688

I think this is one of the important bits:

“Genome sequencing is another method becoming more widely used in DTC genetic tests. These tests sequence almost the entire genetic code and identify the variants present within it. However, detecting variants is not the same as knowing their clinical effects—clinical interpretation of genetic variants is challenging and depends on context.”

From what I understand, there’s a lot that goes into identifying whether a certain gene could be causing your symptoms. It’s not as simple as running your data past a known database of mutations. There are people who are there to interpret the dna, who know your case history, and your symptoms. They sometimes have to compare to your parents too, to try to get an accurate result that means something.

If you really want to have whole genome sequencing done, best to find a doctor who can run WGS & interpret it. Rather than DTC tests which are inaccurate even on raw data, let alone the interpretation. Sorry, I’m not trying to be a downer - I know not everyone has access to a doctor to do tests. But it’s also even worse getting inaccurate results but thinking they’re accurate, and interpreting things wrongly, especially for something as important (and serious) as DNA and health.

I remember back when I read a lot about these DTC tests a couple of years ago, I was really surprised (in a bad way!) at many of the issues with them. I felt it was deeply unethical, to be honest. Btw - the company you mention, Nebula, is telling users that it will pay them $20 if they give them a positive trustpilot review. It is also flagging peoples negative reviews saying they’re not “based on genuine experience”. I had a look on trustpilot and saw people calling them out on it.

 

[Hoopoe]

@daftasabrush you probably already know this, but many of these DTC (direct to consumer) tests are inaccurate. I looked into this a couple of years ago - I was told to do 23andME, and it came back with lots of weird results. So I read about it, and I found that up to 40% of 23andME results were false positives. Thats a huge amount. There’s also a lot of false negatives, which meant people became falsely reassured when they shouldn’t have been. I don’t know specifically about the test you’ve posted, but similar issues apply to other DTC tests.

It’s worth reading this article about DTC, inaccuracies and interpretation (including whole genome sequencing); https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l5688

It's definitely important to know about the problems and limitations with genetic testing. However:

The article says that direct-to-consumer genetic testing often uses a method called SNP-chip, which can falsely report the presence of a rare and therefore likely pathogenic variant. This is likely a big reason for the bad reputation of services like 23andME.

Whole genome sequencing does not use this technique as far as I understand.

 

[lunarainbows]

It's definitely important to know about the problems and limitations with genetic testing. However:

The article says that direct-to-consumer genetic testing often uses a method called SNP-chip, which can falsely report the presence of a rare and therefore likely pathogenic variant. This is likely a big reason for the bad reputation of services like 23andME.

Whole genome sequencing does not use this technique as far as I understand.

Sorry I meant to reply to this earlier but forgot. yes you are right about the SNP chip not affecting whole genome sequencing. But it’s just one of the issues with general DTC (direct to consumer) testing that can occur. There are also problems with DTC whole genome sequencing as well. Just requoting what I said above:

““However, detecting variants is not the same as knowing their clinical effects—clinical interpretation of genetic variants is challenging and depends on context.”

From what I understand, there’s a lot that goes into identifying whether a certain gene could be causing your symptoms. It’s not as simple as running your data past a known database of mutations. There are people who are there to interpret the dna, who know your case history, and your symptoms. They sometimes have to compare to your parents too, to try to get an accurate result that means something.”

Because the whole genome data is so large - before they go through the results they gather details including your parents DNA samples (which can help rule out variants that aren’t important / possibly rule in? ), as well as data on your clinical case. usually the doctor will give them details about your symptoms. This helps them narrow in on which places of the whole genome they should be looking. And sometimes, they don’t get it right the first or second time, so they keep having to go back and look again in a different place and narrow things down. With the DTC whole genome sequencing, such as the testing kit mentioned earlier in this thread, none of this is in place. There’s no parents DNA, no geneticist or anyone using your clinical data to try to find the variant.

So they either may miss variants, or report variants that don’t mean anything (and then it can be very difficult for a patient to try to make sense of data, or find a variant that truly means something, given how large the whole genome is). So that’s why I said if someone wanted to do WGS or WES, I think it would be much better to try to get it done through a doctor, rather than DTC.