For a Good Cause

23andme is expanding its 23andWe initiative, which aims to acquire detailed health and trait data from existing customers, by recruiting 10,000 Parkinson's disease patients for a targeted analysis of the genetic and environmental causes of this disease. The program, backed in part by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, was announced on the 23andMe blog. Parkinson's patients get access to the full features of a 23andMe genome scan for $25 in return for participation in online surveys. "I think the model of participant-driven research is a novel and powerful one, that will increasingly come to dominate the genomic research landscape," according to blogger Daniel MacArthur.