Health News And Updates: Apple Partners With 23andMe To Detect More Genetic Data Of Patients

Tech giant Apple has partnered with a genetic testing company, 23andME, releasing a software module that allows developers to know details about a person's genetics. Apple made its announcement on April 4 and both the tech and medical industry are excited about the benefits that they could get from it.

Apple Insider reported that the ResearchKit apps founded by Apple would now have 23andME's new module for the benefit of researchers in gathering genetic information. This won't just improve the lives of people in the medical industry, but even tech developers could benefit from it. Through this, they could also gain the same information in whatever project that would require them to use genetics.

A photo posted by Maegan Stanley ✨ (@missmaeflower_) on Feb 1, 2016 at 8:31am PST

23andME is confident about the contribution of their new software module in the advancement of research and giving out information about genetics. "This will enable research on a much broader scale," Anne Wojcocki, 23andME's CEO, said during a press conference. "Incorporating genetics into a platform with the reach of ResearchKit will accelerate insights into illness and disease even further."

The Verge also shared this innovation saying that the first two medical institutions to benefit from this software are Mount Sinai and Stanford Medicine. Both of these institutions are already using Apple's ResearchKit, but this is going to be their first encounter with the 23andME update on the kit. Mount Sinai has been using the Asthma Health app to help them track symptoms of the said disease from over 8,800 iOS subscribers who are part of their research.

Meanwhile, Stanford also has an app that they use courtesy of Apple, and it is called the MyHeart Counts. It helps them monitor the activities of the 50,000 people they are using for their research. Now that the 23andME would be incorporated later this month, all of their participants could now upload their own genetic information. This will make things easier for researchers to come up with their conclusions.

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