A Test Unlike Any Other

Abstract

My story of direct-to-consumer personal genome testing (DTCPGT) differs from many of those published online because it was inspired not so much by a desire to understand my background or my future but by a research interest in DTCPGT itself. A desire to know what it is that is so compelling about DTCPGT. My PhD project was about understanding Australian consumers’ knowledge, attitudes, and experiences of DTCPGT. So to understand DTCPGT better I became a consumer myself. In reality, of course, my personal interest in DTCPGT dates back to when I first started studying genetics in secondary school. Indeed, had these tests been available when I first learned about DNA, I would have been among those first in line to purchase it. While that naive enthusiasm is still within me, it has been tempered over time to the extent that when I eventually had the test results before me—I didn’t look at them right away, but wondered whether I really wanted to know what it would tell me. But, I am getting ahead of myself—to understand my story, I need to explain how DTCPGT was at the core of my research but how it has also transcended it.