Last week, Verogen and Gene by Gene announced a partnership to accelerate the adoption of forensic investigative genetic genealogy. The meshing of Verogen and Gene by Gene—and the databases of GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA—effectively doubles the number of profiles available for genetic genealogy matching.
Under the agreement, Gene by Gene will support DNA uploads generated from the Verogen ForenSeq Kintelligence kit, and both organizations will create algorithms and software dedicated to standardizing and lowering the cost of the forensic investigative genetic genealogy workflow. This is all part of Verogen’s vision of a “democratized” genetic genealogy, according to Verogen CEO Brett Williams.
“The workflow can be adopted by an operating public forensic laboratory, not just private laboratories,” said Williams, stressing that this alliance places whole genome sequencing and bioinformatics into the hands of many more forensic labs.
Listen to the rest of Editor-in-Chief Michelle Taylor’s interview with Williams, where he takes reader-submitted questions and shares his perspective on the future of forensic investigative genetic genealogy.