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Google co-founder Sergey Brin begins blogging
2008-09-20
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Google co-founder Sergey Brin has started a blog, candidly telling of being at risk for Parkinson's Disease and plugging his wife's genetic testing start-up firm. While Brin is no stranger to news-making webcasts and online press announcements, he made a blogging debut Thursday by sharing personal musings in a post at the Blogger weblogging website Google bought in early 2003. Brin wrote of his mother being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and how testing by 23andMe, a company started by his wife Anne Wojcicki, shows he has a gene mutation that "markedly" increases his chances of getting the illness. "This leaves me in a rather unique position," Brin wrote. "I now have the opportunity to adjust my life to reduce those odds. I also have the opportunity to perform and support research into this disease long before it may affect me." Brin told of working with The Parkinson's Institute and the Michael J. Fox Foundation to combat the disease and provided links to the organizations' websites. "I feel fortunate to be in this position," Brin wrote. "Until the fountain of youth is discovered, all of us will have some conditions in our old age, only we don't know what they will be. I have a better guess than almost anyone else for what ills may be mine and I have decades to prepare for it." Brin wrote of comparing his genes with those of relatives and of checking whether his DNA links him to others with his family name. Founded by Wojcicki and Linda Avey two years ago, California-based 23andMe offers genotyping for a price of 399 per person.
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