Let me file this under unconfirmed rumors. It looks like Sergey Brin of Google fame may be suffering from a classic case of nepotism. Google just took a 3.9 Million Dollar stake in 23andMe, a biomedical company of all things.

Their Mission

Here is their mission, straight from their website.

Even though your body contains trillions of copies of your genome, you’ve likely never read any of it. Our goal is to connect you to the 23 paired volumes of your own genetic blueprint (plus your mitochondrial DNA), bringing you personal insight into ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits. By connecting you to others, we can also help put your genome into the larger context of human commonality and diversity.

Toward this goal, we are building on recent advances in DNA analysis technologies to enable broad, secure, and private access to trustworthy and accurate individual genetic information. Combined with educational and scientific resources with which to interpret and understand it, your genome will soon become personal in a whole new way.

Why would Sergey Brin invest in a biomedical company? Well, one reason could be that this company was co-founded by Anne Wojcicki who married Sergey about a month ago. While we might soon hear a really good reason why this deal happened, lets do a bit of back of the envelope justification on the matter.

Web 2.0 Roundup

Google is in the business of indexing all of the worlds information. Albeit a bit cryptic, your genetic code is a piece of information.Thus, Google should be looking for companies that are working in biomed so that someday they will be able to develop products and services around searching your genetic code.

Is this a little far out? I’d say it is much more than a little bit, but using this line of reasoning at least this investment was not completely pointless.

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