Get genotyped for free ( If your IQ is high enough)

Actually, they will not sequence your genome - they will genotype you. It's actually quite a difference and I would recommend changing the title of this post. So what they do is use a so called "SNP chip" to test your genotype at a large number (hundreds of thousands) of positions known to be polymorphic in the human population (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNP_genotyping). This is the same technology currently used by personal genomics companies such as 23andMe, and it's not particularly expensive.

Sequencing a genome is done by totally different technologies, and can potentially determine your entire genome sequence (whereas in the genotyping case you are restricted to the particular loci that were included on the chip). It it also still considerably more expensive.

Continuing; general media coverage:

1. Newsweek: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/04/24/high-quality-dna.print.html (mentions company funding but not how much the high-IQ sequencing will cost)
2. http://www.susanohanian.org/show_research.php?id=381 South China Morning Post (found in LexisNexis, this is an open web copy)

3. Economist, http://www.economist.com/node/16349410

   "That could change soon. As mentioned earlier, for example, the BGI in China plans a study to look specifically for intelligence genes. And according to Nick Martin of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, in Australia, dozens of GWAS investigations of behavioural and cognitive links are now under way. So as not to be caught with the dark-matter problem that has bedevilled the study of genetic disease, plans are afoot to consolidate these studies into “meta-analyses” big enough to detect otherwise-hidden effects. If all goes well, the old arguments about the role of nature and nurture in human development may soon be seen in a new light."

Couldn't help but be bemused by http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/03/china.dna.children.ability/ & http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_46453.asp - if ever phenotype should be screening off genotype...

And on the topic of whether they will use the results? http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/16/world/scientists-debate-china-s-law-on-sterilizing-the-carriers-of-genetic-defects.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm came up in a search:

The 1994 law, whose main purpose is to guarantee prenatal and pediatric health care to poor women and children, nonetheless contains two small but controversial articles dealing with genetic counseling. They stipulate that couples undergoing their required premarital physical examination be informed of any genetic problems. But articles 10 and 16 then direct doctors to ''take steps'' to ''prevent childbearing'' -- through sterilization or long-term contraception -- should a problem be detected. And the law is unclear as to who should make the decision regarding sterilization -- the doctor or the couple. Dr. Griffiths said that many scientists and human right advocates were concerned about the ambiguity, particularly given the charges of forced sterilization that have plagued China's one-child family program. Article 10, for example, says that physicians must give ''medical advice'' to couples who have been ''diagnosed with certain genetic diseases of serious nature which are considered inappropriate for childbearing.'' It continues, ''The two may be married only if both agree to take long-term contraceptive measures or to take a ligation operation for sterility.'' It is unclear how many people have been sterilized or forbidden to marry under the law, since Professor Qiu said that provinces were generally still preparing to implement it. But local laws requiring sterilization under narrower circumstances already exist. In 1988, Gansu province in northwest China passed a law requiring compulsory sterilization of people with I.Q.'s under 49. Several other provinces subsequently adopted similar provisions.

...When Xin Mao, a Chinese geneticist now working in England, polled genetic counselors from 37 countries on whether reducing defective genes in the population was an important goal of their work, all respondents in China said ''yes,'' while fewer than 6 percent in Canada and 5 percent in the United States agreed....Dr. Mao's research also found that Asian physicians were more inclined than their Western colleagues to recommend sterilization in cases of genetic problems. Only 3 percent of genetic counselors in the United States said they would advise a couple where both man and woman carried a gene linked to cystic fibrosis to undergo sterilization, compared with 52 percent of Chinese counsellors.

From another South China Morning Post article, "Genetic data on IQ could mislead, academics say":

Three applicants who were rejected for government jobs after they were found to be carrying the thalassaemia gene sued the Foshan city government this summer, becoming China's first case of workplace discrimination because of the gene. China does not yet have laws against gene discrimination, although many employers measure intelligence to cull candidates from pools of applicants, through the use of aptitude tests.

Where do you get the IQ of 145 from? I don't see anything about it on their website.

I wonder how these criteria were decided upon. I don't see how a 1500 GRE score is at all comparable to an honorable mention on the Putnam. It seems like even getting a 20 on the Putnam (most years) is significantly more impressive than any GRE score.

For those of you still waiting, got an email to the effect of: We did it, sorry it took so long, it'll be uploaded in 3 weeks. Also they said that more than half were not yet done.

Apropos of that, that's part of the Chinese effort http://duende.uoregon.edu/~hsu/talks/ggenomics.pdf :

Headquarters in Shenzhen, China. Raised funding of US $ 1.6 billion. Nearly 5000 employees (1000 in software development alone). More sequencing power than all of US or Europe combined. Aims to become leading platform for sequencing and bioinformatics. Soon to hit 1000 genomes sequenced per day at $ 5k cost per genome. Previous successes: participant in original Human Genome Project (1 percent), rice genome, Panda genome, Tibetan altitude adaptation, early hominid sequence, over 1000 Han genomes sequenced.

Seek 10^3 or more subjects with IQ +3 SD or higher (roughly 1 in 1000). Conveniently pre-filtered population: students invited to training camps for physics, math and informatics Olympiads. Each student ranked roughly top 5 in his or her province, roughly 100 per subject per year in China. Math ability, possibly as high as +4 SD, general intelligence probably roughly +3 SD. Randomized testing to check these estimates.

Expect full sequencing (not just SNP genotyping) of 10^5 to 10^6 individuals within next few years. (Recall, BGI should reach rate of 10^3 per day within a year!) Probably paid for by science agencies of national governments. (Total cost roughly US $1 billion or so ... comparable to first genome sequenced by Human Genome Project!) IF sufficient phenotype data is collected about these individuals, will have very well-powered GWAS studies within next few years – enough statistical power to capture a good fraction of total additive variance (about .6 for intelligence).

I was struck by Hsu's estimate of how well the selection would work if the optimistic estimates about how many alleles they find works out:

Suppose that we have 100 g-affecting loci, each with minor allele frequency (MAF) of 0.1 and an average effect of 0.02. • Instead of using a random sperm cell to conceive, a couple might go through 500 cells and choose the one with the most + alleles. • If all couples in the population do this, what will happen to the level of g?

In the offspring generation, the mean level of g will increase by 0.2 SDs. • Consequences will be especially prominent at the tails ...

The talk isn't really citable, but there's "BGI Cognitive Genomics Lab: Proposal for Gene-Trait Association Study of g"

There are some delicious discussions in there; for example, on weaknesses in previous research (this sort of discussion is why I tend to skepticism, as in my previous email on genes):

Several positive findings from candidate gene studies of g have been reported [13, 19, 34, 35, 75, 79, 88]. However, given the consistent failures to replicate these findings [41, 56, 63], it appears that most or all of these reports are false positives. The poor track record of candidate gene studies is not peculiar to research on g but rather is characteristic of research on a wide variety of traits. In retrospect this trend is not surprising. Researchers performing candidate gene studies have labored under the illusion that a lax statistical significance threshold is acceptable if the total number of tested hypotheses is small. As succinctly explained by the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, however, the critical factor is not the number of tested hypotheses but rather the prior probability that any given hypothesis is correct [99]. Now consider the fact that there are more than 10^7 SNPs with a minor allele frequency (MAF) exceeding .01 in the human species [1, 52]. Any reasonable prior probability that one of these SNPs has a detectable effect on a particular phenotype must be extremely small. Since prior probabilities do not depend on the amount of data gathered, extremely strong evidence of association is required to overcome a conservative prior probability, regardless of how many loci are examined in a particular study. Theoretical calculations and practical experience have shown that any associations clearing a significance threshold of 5 × 10^−8 will attain a high posterior probability of being authentic [43, 66, 99]. Since candidate gene studies have not employed significance thresholds anywhere near this strict, statistical considerations provide a sufficient explanation for the inconsistent results under this approach.

Here's information on Big Five and heredity:

A paper in press by de Moor and colleagues reports a GWAS of the Big Five personality traits [2]. Although these personality traits do not include g, the results are nevertheless arguably relevant. The discovery sample consisted of 17,375 adults; five in silico replication samples totaling 3,294 adults were also employed. Genome-wide significance was obtained for Openness to Experience near the RASA1 gene (p = 2.8×10^−8 ) and for Conscientiousness in the brain-expressed KATNAL2 gene (p = 4.9 × 10^−8 ). However, the replication samples did not show significant associations between the top SNPs and the personality traits, although the direction of effect of the KATNAL2 SNP on Conscientiousness was consistent in all replication samples.

The results of the de Moor study are sobering. Compare its number of hits (one at best) with those from the initial studies of height:

1. The GWAS of 13,664 individuals by Weedon and colleagues uncovered seven loci showing evidence of association at p < 5 × 10^−8 , all of which were later replicated [98]; and
2. The GWAS of 15,821 individuals by Lettre and colleagues also uncovered seven loci showing evidence of association at p < 5 × 10^−8 , all of which were later replicated [55].

According to the comprehensive analysis of the GIANT Consortium, there are only ten common variants associated with height that account for more than 0.1% percent of the variance in that trait [53]. It appears, then, that the variants most strongly associated with the Big Five personality traits may not even account for 0.1% of trait variance.2

Thank you for this info. I've signed up. I think this flipped my mood from gloomy to happy.

Incidentally, this is the second study I've signed up for via the web. The first is the Good Judgement Project which has been a fun exercise so far.

Is anyone aware of a cheap/free way to check your SAT scores online and provide documentation for this survey? The last time I had need of my SAT scores was nearly a decade ago, and my best memory is "really high and I got scholarships a lot," which I don't think would count officially.

Update: Jeff says they only ever sent him part of his data.

Update: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324162304578303992108696034.html?mod=WSJ_hp_EditorsPicks

"The genetic basis of intelligence has been ignored for a very long time," says Mr. Zhao. "Our data will be ready in three months' time."

I remember when this was announced; I eagerly checked my old SAT & GRE scores and... I was short by a few dozen points. Oh well. Genomics is falling so fast I'll just have it done in 10 years or so for next to nothing.

Hmmm... this seems like a fascinating project. The ego boost I got from qualifying is enough to motivate me to sign up :) .

Deadline: 25 March 2012. For those of us who are fascinating minorities or human specimens but not the sharpest tools in the shed, you may still have a chance at free genotyping via OpenSNP: http://opensnp.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/apply-now-for-a-free-genotyping/

Watching the talk linked below, at about 35:26 he mentions some new results on the comparison of IQ similarity to genetic similarity. Does anyone know where to find these results?

I will be happy to take the free stuff, thanks! But seriously...the GRE is kind of easy.

Since risk from individual SNP's 'should' not be aggregated to indicate an individual's risk based on multiple sources of evidence, how are the magnitudes for genosets determined?. Can bayes or another method be used to interpret a promethease report?

Even genetic epidemiology textbooks seem pessimistic: about the usefulness of the genetic research underpinning precision medicine:

‘...for the repeated failure to replicate positive findings in genetic epidemiology (102; 103) and remains the subejct of an important ongoing debate (101-105)’ -pg. 26 on chapter 1. An Introduction to Genetic Epidemiology

The references in question are about the impact of population stratification on genetic association studies. That doesn’t seem to substantiate such a broad stroke about the non-replicability of genetic epidemiology. I don't know what to make of these findings.

Damnit, can't post images in-line with comments. So, here is a link to a screenshot of those references

It suprises me that entrepreneurial machine learning analysts don’t beg for genetic research to identify how combinatorial patterns of genes to be able to characterise individual risk. It seems like if/once they can get hold of that information, the sequence from genetic science to consumer actionable health information is bridged. So where are the 'lean gene learning machine' startups? I certainly don’t have the lean gene to do it myself. I don’t know machine learning.

Regulatory issues seems like the biggest hurdle. To the best of my google-fu, 23andme doesn't even disclose what it's 'Established Research' genes are. So, once regulatory hurdles are summounted, lots of useful research will flood out.

( If your IQ is high enough)

That's a bit misleading given that they don't make the decisions via IQ scores.

It's been a while; any further updates on this project? All the BGI website says is that my sample has been received.

I haven't had my IQ tested in so long. But back in the 1970s, via the Stanford Binet and the Wechsler (WISC) I qualified for the gifted education program (MGM- Mentally gifted minors) with scores of 142 and 144 respectively. I did not take the SAT as my family was poor and it was certain I wouldn't attend college, or at least, not a four year university. As it turned out, I did finish with my BA degree (financial aid and working odd jobs).

Anyway, I have already had my genotype (and other genetic information determined) via saliva sample sent to labs at 23andme.com, and I have the AA genotype. According to articles on 23andme.com, this genotype is prevalent among those with higher I.Q.s . It will be interesting to see if your findings corroborate these findings.

Apparently selection is still ongoing: I got an email today saying they're sending me the kit. What kind of information should I expect when the results come back? I've never been genotyped before, so I don't know if this will be telling me stuff I already know, listing risk factors for diseases, declaring me genetically nonhuman, or what. I'm a step behind the rest of you on what genotyping actually does.

Sadly, since I did neither grow up in the USA, nor participate in any competition due to disinterest, I am surely not eligible for this study but I am very much interested in the findings since IQ seems to be correlated with the risk of some serious mental disorders.

Edit: I would also be very interested in a study that examines the genetic basis for other personality traits, like conscientiousness or extraversion.

I signed up. I'm interested to see what their sequencing finds, although it seems like we will have to wait a while for that information.