Delian Asparouhov, a partner in the Founders Fund, discovered this week that he hadn’t looked at his DNA in a long time. He opened a dashboard made by Nucleus Genomics, a startup supported by the Founders Fund that sequences saliva samples and compares the DNA results to a wealth of information that links genes to health problems.
Within seconds, he concluded that he had a predisposition for schizophrenia, a sky-high IQ, and prostate cancer. “Bummer,” he shrugged.
Asparouhov and his team at Nucleus are seeing a future in which dating apps have a “kid simulation” that integrates genetic tests, and couples have their DNA sequenced before having children. Medical treatments are customized based on genetics. Kian Sadeghi launched Nucleus, which has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round.
Sadeghi said
“DNA is actually the kind of ultimate health test,”
“So one swab and you get your analysis on about 800-plus conditions. And that’s going to be rapidly growing over the next several months, until it’s effectively every common and rare disease known.”
Because genome sequencing has become so inexpensive in recent years, Nucleus is now feasible. Genome sequencing cost nearly $1 million in 2007. These days, Nucleus, which employs a group of genetic specialists and PhDs, charges $400 to send a saliva sample to a third-party sequencer. The results are then analyzed, and customers are informed of a variety of potential diseases they might be susceptible to.
Sadeghi believes that, in the next five years, “the cost of sequencing the genome is going to be negligible,” and everyone will have “their genome on their smartphone.”
Tragic events sparked Sadeghi’s dream. His relative passed away one night while she slept due to an unidentified hereditary disorder. The loss changed the course of his life forever. He left college to live at home, where his routine consisted of waking up, meditating for an hour, writing down business concepts pertaining to genes for twelve hours, and then meditating for another hour.
“I do believe in the soul,” he reflected. “I’ve meditated every day for, I think, five years.”