ANDNA® - Private Genes

 

 

Utopias - why do we need them? And why should designers work on utopian ideas? We currently live in a digital utopia based on personal data. At the same time, commercial services working with DNA-databases are on the rise with an estimated market value of $20 billion dollars in 2020. Bottomline - the most personalized data available to anybody, the genetic sequence, is considered to become one of the most economically valuable resources of the future. ANDNA® is looking into how we can approach this future mindfully, combining services to protect your genes and offering detailed knowledge about DNA and consumer genomics. 

For this project, we set up an in-depth analysis of the consumer genomics market. We looked at their market value and their fundings, the services provided, different segments of the market such as sequencing software and hardware, suppliers of secondary services and databases and many other factors to give a full picture what is actually going on today. We also looked at the laws and regulations constricting the field of consumer genomics and saw huge grey areas in personal privacy and ethics. More so, we saw a relatively new and highly funded field of business, that was operating with such speed, virtually no lawmakers could keep up.

Based on this analysis we developed a utopian concept of a company that would conceal all DNA-traces in human cells. A low-cost service you can use like a wellness-treatment. We gave a detailed concept of how DNA in dead body cells (externally and internally) can be dissembled to make it unreadable and even went on to give a concept how to recover genetic information in case of a crime where DNA needs to be sequenced. In the end, we developed ANDNAs first brochure (60+ pages) showing our concept and research, parts of which you can see above. (It's german, but I can explain everything in English!)

 

Project Partners:

 

Helena Wallander

Monnier Ostermair

 

2017