The week that took us from August to September was one for the books over at BoomTown, especially if you’re 12.

Kara spent Monday morning at Activision Blizzard (ATVI), where they are pushing forward with the entire Guitar Hero line, even as the game industry faces a nearly 50 percent decline in U.S. sales this year. Kara got to play hero to several of the forthcoming releases, including previewing the much anticipated DJ Hero console.

The youth movement continued with the fancy bar graph from Forrester Research’s annual “State of Consumers and Technology,” which drove home an important fact of life for media outlets. All the money being spent on new media expansion is a fight for the young; older consumers are sticking to more reliable fare.

BoomTown wasn’t just about the kids though, as 23andMe co-founder Linda Avey announced her exit from the gene-juicing business to focus on a foundation related to Alzheimer’s research. Avey co-founded 23andMe with Anne Wojcicki in 2006 with early money from Genentech (DNA), Google (GOOG) and New Enterprise Associates, as well as Wojcicki’s husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

While BoomTown was keepin’ it real with the kids, Digital Daily was abuzz with a spate of iPhone news. John started Monday off on the topic of the Sept. 9 iPod event with confirmation that music, indeed, will be center stage. In the Apple world, that means iPods and iTunes, though Beatles fans are keeping their fingers crossed.

Readers got a compare-and-contrast of Apple’s (AAPL) foreign and domestic policy when John covered a potential two-carrier system in China and the long-awaited stateside activation of MMS features in the iPhone OS3. Meaning that while China may get the iPhone carrier flexibility so far absent in the U.S. market, American consumers are just about to get a new feature that’s been standard on every smartphone for a year or more.

MediaMemo covered a fluid week in the world of media giants and Top Chefs. Disney (DIS) went off to the mines and instead of seven dwarfs, found Marvel and the rights to its 5,000-character portfolio. Disney CEO Bob Iger didn’t think $4 billion was too much to pay to bring Iron Man and friends to the happiest media empire on earth and is sure the company will benefit from such “rich intellectual property.”

If the Disney vault got 5,000 new friends this week, eBay said goodbye to one long-time partner. Peter reported that the long, difficult breakup between eBay and Skype was finalized when eBay sold a 65 percent stake in the VOIP juggernaut to the internationally mixed bag of Silver Lake, Index ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and a Canadian pension fund.

Peter rounded out the week of motion with lots of changes in Google’s ranks. The search giant shuffled the chairs with David Fischer moving out of the self-serve ad business with no sign yet of a replacement. Google China saw the big chair turn upside-down when Kai-Fu Lee announced that he’d leave the company this month to begin his own venture. Lee will be replaced by the tag team of Boon-Lock Yeo and John Liu, who will oversee engineering and business, respectively.

Not all Google’s shifts were outbound though. “Charlie’s Café” at the main campus got its Top Chef back after Preeti Mistry failed to make the cut on the Las Vegas iteration of the popular TV show. Regular fans of the show weren’t surprised by her dismissal, but at least Google can put one in the plus column this week.

Over at The Mossberg Solution, Katie took aim at a possible answer to a question plaguing all image-conscious technophiles: Yea or nay to the omnipresent Bluetooth earpiece. Plantronics (PLT) and Aliph, maker of the Jawbone, both say yea and are upping the ante on the recently reviled symbol of cellphone userdom. Katie reviewed the fashion-forward Discovery 975 and Jawbone Prime, each designed to separate its users from $130. In exchange, they’ll get redesigned outsides and some new features that might even put one back in Brad Pitt’s ear.

BoomTown just got the following email from Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andMe, the personal genetics start-up, about the departure of her co-founder, Linda Avey (pictured here). She will be starting a foundation related to Alzheimer’s disease.

The pair founded the high-profile company–whose Series A investors include Genentech (DNA), Google (GOOG) and New Enterprise Associates, as well as Wojcicki’s husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin–in 2006.

It has collected almost $23 million in funding.

Avey noted in an email to staff, which is posted in its entirety below: “I also recognize that the company has reached a critical point in its growth where new leadership can take it to the successful heights we all think it can achieve.”

Wojcicki’s email reads, in part:

I wanted to let you know that Linda Avey will be leaving 23andMe to focus her energy on transforming Alzheimer’s research and treatment, leveraging the 23andMe platform. Linda and I have talked about doing research in Alzheimer’s since the inception of the company. Linda, whose father-in-law recently died from the disorder, will be leveraging 23andMe’s platform as she works to revolutionize the research, treatments and prevention for Alzheimer’s.

Linda will be greatly missed by me and my colleagues but we’re glad she will continue to be in a related field, and we are committed to continuing the work that she and I started three years ago.

And here is the email from Avey to the staff, as well as Wojcicki’s below it and then the official press release:

Dear all-

As I trust you all know, 23andMe is very special to me. I also recognize that the company has reached a critical point in its growth where new leadership can take it to the successful heights we all think it can achieve.

I’ve decided that I’d like to focus my efforts on an area that is personally significant and will continue to have a huge impact on our healthcare system–Alzheimer’s disease. Effective today, I’m leaving 23andMe and have begun making plans for the creation of a foundation dedicated to the study of this disorder. The foundation will leverage the research platform we’ve built at 23andMe–the goal is to drive the formation of the world’s largest community of individuals with a family history of Alzheimer’s, empower them with their genetic information and track their brain health using state-of-the-art tools. We’ve always planned to include Alzheimer’s in our 23andWe research mission…I’m just approaching it from a new angle.

Some of you might be aware that my father-in-law suffered from Alzheimer’s and passed away last year. For this reason, Randy and I are motivated to do what we can to improve the understanding of what leads to the debilitating symptoms and what might prevent them from starting in the first place. The ApoE4 association is barely understood but gives us a great starting point.

I’ll miss working with you but will be excited to hear about the progress I know you’ll be making!

All the best,
Linda

Team:

As Linda has told you, she will be leaving 23andMe to focus her energy on transforming Alzheimer’s research and treatment, leveraging the 23andMe platform. While I am quite sad to see her leave I am excited and hopeful as she takes on this mission. As Linda’s co-founder and partner over the last three years, it has been clear that revolutionizing research has been a primary passion. Our drive to change health care has always had roots in our personal lives and we have tried to structure 23andMe so that any individual or organization could actively participate in research. Linda and I have talked about doing research in Alzheimer’s since the inception of the company and the need for the Alzheimer’s community to have a strong leader. With Linda’s involvement, I believe that the APOE4 community could be the first asymptomatic community to successfully develop preventative treatments. I hope that going forward we’ll both be able to shake up and transform the health care space, making health care and treatments better for all.

Linda’s departure is also a sign of 23andMe’s maturation. When we started the company, the personal genetics industry did not exist; now it is a thriving and competitive landscape. Our company has grown and we continue to be an innovative industry leader. While our success has been exceptional, it is also clear we have a lot of work ahead. We have created a significant and empowering tool, but we must find new and better ways to promote the value of knowing your DNA. In the weeks ahead, we will outline a strategy for the company that we believe will make genetics a routine part of health care and will lead us to making significant research discoveries.

Linda has been instrumental in making 23andMe what it is today and we thank her for her passion and dedication to the company. We have many exciting opportunities before us, and I look forward to working with all of you to make 23andMe a spectacular success.

Anne

Linda Avey to Create Alzheimer’s Foundation

Mountain View, CA–September 4, 2009–Linda Avey, co-founder of 23andMe, an industry leader in personal genetics, announced today that she is leaving the company to start a new foundation focused on Alzheimer’s disease. Ms. Avey’s foundation will leverage the 23andMe research platform to search for causes and treatments for the disease, which afflicts more than 5.2 million people in the United States.

Ms. Avey and Anne Wojcicki founded 23andMe together in 2006. The company provides personalized genetic information through DNA analysis and allows individuals to interact with their private information through a variety of web-based tools.

“I could not be more proud of what we have accomplished in the three years since Anne and I created 23andMe, and I am excited to take the next step in applying my experiences to one of the great health challenges of our time,” said Ms. Avey, who has more than 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. “There is a clear need for revolutionary research and concentrated effort to confront Alzheimer’s, and we need to start now in order to make meaningful progress. The resources are out there–my goal is to marshal them to find answers for families, like mine, who have lost family members to such a debilitating disease.”

Concurrent with Ms. Avey’s announcement, Ms. Wojcicki said that 23andMe expects to make its genetic data platform available to Ms. Avey’s foundation in order to advance its research.

“Linda has been a true partner with me over these last three years, an innovative leader for our company and our industry, and instrumental in making 23andMe what it is today,” said Wojcicki. “It is only fitting that she will be making full use of our work together and leveraging the 23andMe platform for a tremendous cause. We look forward to joining her as a partner in her efforts.”

Ms. Avey’s departure announced today takes effect immediately.

Here is a video, in two parts, of Avey and Wojcicki demoing some new features of 23andMe at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference in 2008.

In the first one, they introduce 23andMe, explain the main service and ask News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch, Walt and me about our tolerance for milk and about our racing abilities. (Full disclosure: News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site.)

In the second one, Avey and Wojcicki survey Murdoch on his genetic traits and show me what genes my kids have in common (and discover that I am not hyperactive).

Here are the D6 demos:

If you’re a media mogul, you might note the symbolism of a Google (GOOG) co-founder boosting a group dedicated to overhauling intellectual property law.

If you’re a cold-hearted cynic, you might note that at least this is a bonafide donation made by private individuals, as opposed to the $6.5 million that Brin’s company has invested in his wife’s “personal genetics” start-up.

But since I don’t fall under either category, I’ll just make this note, directed at other nonprofits looking for a billionaire’s donation: It helps if you can leverage family ties.

In this case, very close ties–Wojcicki’s mother, Esther Wojcicki, chairs the Creative Commons board of directors.

BoomTown just got to Paris, as in France, to attend and moderate sessions for the third annual Le Web conference.

Le Web is organized by Loïc and Geraldine Le Meur, with 1,500 people signed up to hear a range of Internet players, many of whom are from the U.S., tomorrow and Wednesday.

U.S. speakers include TED’s Chris Anderson, News Corp. (NWS) social-networking site MySpace’s Amit Kapur, Marissa Mayer of Google (GOOG), Linda Avey of 23andMe, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, and Dan’l Lewin of Microsoft (MSFT).

And some interesting European execs include France Telecom Orange Chairman and CEO Didier Lombard, and Jacques-Antoine Granjon, CEO and co-founder of a very interesting fashion sale site, Vente-Privee.com.

Of course, there’s a passel of bloggers here like BoomTown. I’ll be interviewing Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon (AMZN) and well-known Israeli entrepreneur Yossi Vardi.

Besides this conference, Loïc Le Meur has been trying to make a go of it with his San Francisco-based start-up Seesmic, which–like a lot of Web 2.0 companies–has recently made cutbacks. See my video interview below with him in better times, when I visited Seesmic in February.

You can also watch the conference streamed live from its site. More shaky–but Frenchtastic, although no lip-synching extravaganzas for me!–videos from me at Le Web to come, of course.

[Full disclosure: My partner, Google exec Megan Smith (you can read all about it here in detail), is judging a start-up competition at Le Web on Wednesday. But I am trying to find an excuse not to go to that panel, because I always nod off at those things, even if the crazy version of Britney Spears were a judge. Instead, I hopefully will be enjoying the lovely artwork at the Louvre right then.]

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

In the less contentious spirit of DEMOfall and TechCrunch50, two demo conferences taking place simultaneously this week, we’re happy to bring you all the demos we had onstage at D6.

Next up is the demo for 23andMe, the Web-based, direct-to-consumer genome site that showed off its new 23andWe service at the conference.

The new offering is aimed at conducting large-scale genome-wide association studies with the help of individuals willing to share information about their health and other personal traits.

(Today, 23andMe announced that it was dropping the price of its service from $1,000 to $399 and unveiling new technology enhancements and community features, as well as striking a partnership with Ancestry.com.)

There are two videos showing the whole demo below.

In the first one, 23andMe Co-Founders Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki introduce 23andWe, explain the main service and ask News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch, Walt and me about our tolerance for milk and about our racing abilities (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site).

In the second one, Avey and Wojcicki survey Murdoch on his genetic traits and show me what genes my kids have in common (and discover that I am not hyperactive).

Day One

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft

You would have loved Windows 1.0. Walt. You would have LOVED it.”

–Ballmer

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Windows 7 Demo

Day Two

Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com

People loved their horses, too. But you don’t keep riding your horse to work just because you love it.”

–Bezos on the difference between physical books and digital ones

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Bobby Kotick, Activision

The social element has really transformed the gaming experience.”

– Kotick on the impact of games like Guitar Hero

Session post |  Video

Guitar Hero IV Demo with Tony Hawk and Paula Abdul

Howard Stringer, Sony

If we were any more successful, we’d be bankrupt.”

–Stringer on the success of Sony’s LCD business

Session post |  Video

Barry Diller, IAC

Hollywood is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”

Session post |  Video

Michael Dell, Dell

I could take him.”

–Dell on his chances of success in a brawl with Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Session post |  Video

Jerry Yang and Sue Decker, Yahoo

I will never be a CEO again.”

–Yang

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Jeff Bewkes, AOL

AOL is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Web. We don’t get no respect.”

Session post |  Video

Nathan Myhrvold, Intellectual Ventures

We invest in the creation of ideas… It’s like Baby Mama, with me as the mama.”

Session post |  Video

Demo: G.ho.st Web Operating System

Lets users access their desktop from any computer with an Internet connection.

Session post |  Video

Tom Glocer, Thomson Reuters

We have one great advantage over bloggers: we write once, and sell many times to many different media outlets.”

Session post |  Video

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook

I won’t ever stop until you’re either the biggest thing around, or you’re dead.”

–Kara Swisher on her relentless coverage of Facebook

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation

I want to meet Obama. I want to know if he’s going to walk the walk.”

Session post |  Full Session Videos: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six

Day Three

Demo: evri

An application that graphs the Web via grammatical information.

Session post |  Video

Demo: 23andMe

Web-based, direct-to-consumer genome services.

Session post |  Video

Melinda Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

All lives are equal.”

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Demo: TransMedia’s Glide

A mobile-operating system that cuts across all operating systems.

Session post |  Video

Tom Rogers, TiVo

The TV set and its primary position in the home isn’t going anywhere in the future.”

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Demo: Deka

The “Luke Arm” prosthesis, a state-of-the-art bionic arm.

Session post |  Video

Kevin Martin, FCC and Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless

You’re the chairman of the FCC. How did you allow this to happen?”

–Walt Mossberg grills Martin on the lousy broadband situation in the States

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Today’s session begins with a demo from personal genomics outfit 23andMe, brought onstage by Kara and Walt. Founded by Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki (wife of Google’s Sergey Brin), the company is among those pioneering Web-based, direct-to-consumer genome services. Today the two will talk about 23andMe’s newest effort, 23andWe, which will conduct large-scale genome-wide association studies with the help of individuals willing to share information about their health and other personal traits.

• Avey and Wojcicki take the stage. They note that attendee Esther Dyson (and 23andMe board member) has over 30 family members signed up for the service, before giving a brief overview of their genotyping tools. Simple as a spit-test, apparently.

• Company was born out a frustration over the genetic industry’s statistical powers. With 23andWe, the company hopes to dramatically accelerate the pace of genetic research by empowering the public to come together themselves to fuel new studies. Walt asks if these studies will be peer-reviewed, and they will.
• Demo involves a sort of old-media-versus-new-media DNA-off: Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt versus Kara and Rupert Murdoch.
• Is Rupert Murdoch lactose intolerant? Murdoch says no. According to 23andMe’s analysis, that’s true. Kara and Brin, unfortunately won’t be making any trips to the ice-cream store. “There go the dairy ads,” quips Walt.
• Wojcicki asks Murdoch if he would prefer a long-distance race or a sprint. Murdoch says neither. Wojcicki says his genetic info suggests he’d be a great long-distance runner.
• Moving on to the 23andWe demo. Question to the audience: How many people can smell asparagus in their urine? Uncomfortable giggle, raising of hands.
• Murdoch volunteers to fill out 23andMe’s survey: Do you sneeze in bright sunlight? Do you wear glasses? Any cavities? (Lots, says Murdoch.) Freckles? Lots. Right- or left-handed. Does your urine smell after you eat asparagus? Murdoch doesn’t think so.
• The survey finished, 23andMe crunches the data provided. Turns out most people don’t sneeze when they see sunlight. Lots of people have cavities. Lots of right-handed folks. And a fair number of people do not notice the smell of their urine after eating asparagus.
• Reviewing Kara’s data for information about her two sons. Turns out neither is related to Rupert Murdoch.
• Looking at Murdoch’s info again now. Kara: “Where’s Rupert’s elk-despising gene?”

I have no idea, nor do I know why Burda broke out into song either–how much do you have to love a media mogul willing to do that?

But I got it all on video and a whole lot more on the last day of the pre-Davos European gathering focused on digital issues and innovation.

(And here is a post by European serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky, who apparently thinks his video shows that Accel Partners’ Simon Levene and I were not impressed enough by Campbell.)

In any case, DLD’s motto was: “Uploading the 21st Century.” And while it did not quite do that, there were definitely a lot of interesting moments I captured for your viewing pleasure.

Along with Campbell (who was supposed to appear on a panel on Africa, but did not) and a singing Burda, the video features clips from two sessions today.

The first was titled “Exploding Media” and included: pundit Clay Shirky riffing on flash mobs; a very funny clip of kids talking about television (made by Technorati’s Peter Hirshberg); Google’s Marissa Mayer noting that Google will still not be in the content business; Yahoo’s Bradley Horowitz discussing Yahoo’s plans to de-focus on making original content; and BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis advising old media to just ask WWGD? (What would Google do?).

Another session on the video features the founders of the genetics-focused social-networking company 23andMe–Anne Wojcicki, Linda Avey and Esther Dyson–answering questions about fears people have about learning too much about DNA.

Here is the video (and now I am off to Hamburg to visit Xing, a business social-networking company):

There is no gene for the human spirit.

Only one criterion : genetic perfection.”

–Taglines from the film “Gattaca”

The Genetic Nondiscrimination Act of 2007, which would prevent health insurers and employers from using genetic information in decisions of employment or insurability, will soon be signed into law. And, given recent advances in retail genetics it really couldn’t happen at a better time.

This morning the Google-funded 23andMe opened its doors for business, and began peddling its Personal Genome Service. What, exactly is a “Personal Genome Service?” Kara Swisher explains:

For [$999], a person spits out a largish saliva sample using an at-home kit, sends it in for intense analysis and then uses the site’s interactive tools to go to town with the scads of the DNA information.

“That could mean everything from analyzing personal ancestry and genealogy to determining inherited traits to finding out way too much about proclivities for a range of scary diseases.”

There is no gene for the human spirit.

Only one criterion : genetic perfection.”

–Taglines from the film “Gattaca”

The Genetic Nondiscrimination Act of 2007, which would prevent health insurers and employers from using genetic information in decisions of employment or insurability, will soon be signed into law. And, given recent advances in retail genetics it really couldn’t happen at a better time.

This morning the Google-funded 23andMe opened its doors for business, and began peddling its Personal Genome Service. What, exactly is a “Personal Genome Service?” Kara Swisher explains:

For [$999], a person spits out a largish saliva sample using an at-home kit, sends it in for intense analysis and then uses the site’s interactive tools to go to town with the scads of the DNA information.

“That could mean everything from analyzing personal ancestry and genealogy to determining inherited traits to finding out way too much about proclivities for a range of scary diseases.”

So I paid a visit a few weeks ago to the new offices of 23andMe, a start-up that has gotten a lot of attention for its unusual aim of joining together DNA research and social networking.

It’s an arena sure to be interesting, so here’s a video I made of my tour of 23andMe:

The service, which rolls out today with the launch of its Web site, bills itself as a “Personal Genome Service” and its motto is “Genetics Just Got Personal.”

And, indeed, the company–as well as several others (such as also Silicon Valley-based Navigenics)–hope a lot of people want to learn about their genes and what that information means, all in an attempt to carve out a lucrative new Web space by making DNA consumer-friendly.

The goal? For 23andMe, getting mainstream consumers to pay $999 for a personalized genomics assessment. For that price, a person spits out a largish saliva sample using an at-home kit, sends it in for intense analysis and then uses the site’s interactive tools to go to town with the scads of the DNA information.

That could mean everything from analyzing personal ancestry and genealogy to determining inherited traits to finding out way too much about proclivities for a range of scary diseases.

That presumably sets the stage for endlessly discussing all this genetic information within various personal and public social networks that might form. The font of all this juicy data comes from the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up each individual’s genome.

Hence, the company’s unusual name.

Also noteworthy has been the funding around the company, especially a $3.9 million investment from Google. The company initially had an early investment from Google co-founder Sergey Brin, whose investment was replaced by Google’s.

The issue? He was recently married to 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki (in addition, her sister Susan is a high-ranking executive at Google and provided Brin and other co-founder Larry Page with a garage space where the search company was first located).

This, of course, has attracted a lot of scrutiny to 23andMe’s founding–should Google have made the investment, even in an arms-length manner the company has said it used in determining its involvement, with someone so closely linked to Brin?–even though both Wojcicki and Linda Avey have much previous experience in the health-care and biotech sectors.

If the payoff is big, that issue will become moot. Other 23andMe investors are no slouches either, including Genentech and New Enterprise Associates. (Navigenics also has big backers in venture powerhouses Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mohr Davidow Ventures and Sequoia Capital.)

Of course, there might be even bigger controversies for all these companies, ranging from: the potential confusion all this detailed health information might bring to consumers; the thorny issues around privacy and the possibility that insurance companies might want to grab this rich vein of genetic information as it becomes available; and even the chance that some current genetic analysis given might turn out to be completely wrong.

Here are links to Part 1 and Part 2 of a longer interview I did with Avey and Wojcicki.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

The company name comes from the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up each individual’s genome.

In this part, they talk about the privacy of DNA information and why we should trust any of these services, what the goal of collecting all this genetic information is, what it is like for two women to run a Web company and their own personal genetic details:

In addition, here’s a tour of the 23andMe offices and the first part of the interview.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google (an investor in 23andMe).

The company name comes from the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up each individual’s genome.

In this part, they talk about why customers would want to know a lot about their DNA and whether that information is helpful and informative (tracing your ancient lineage) or just plain scary (you could have a proclivity for a zillion scary diseases you never heard of before!):

In addition, here’s a tour of the 23andMe offices and the second part of the interview.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google (an investor in 23andMe).

So what’s the founder of the Institute for Genomic Research doing at a Web 2.0 conference? Shilling for his new book, “A Life Decoded” (Viking), which arrives at market today, and chatting about the implications of DNA sequencing on medicine.

Venter, widely known for his work on the Human Genome Project as the former president and founder of Celera Genomics, takes the stage with conference co-host Tim O’Reilly (founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media).

O’Reilly opens with a question about the relevance of knowing your genome. Venter replies that it affects your attitude toward risk. Without knowing your entire genetic code, he explains, you can’t know what’s at risk. Venter, who famously sequenced his own DNA as part of his research, says the costs of sequencing DNA are dropping–his cost around $70 million, but with refinements in the process he expects that in a couple of years, the cost per sequence should go down to $100,000 or less. It won’t be long before it will become part of a standard medical work-up. And when it does, it will change the medical world. Genetic medicine is truly preventative, he says: “We like to pay for disasters, but we don’t like to pay to prevent them.” Venter cautions, however, that the nonscientific public may be challenged in interpreting all the new information.

On the subject of customized genome sequences, Venter says that companies like 23andMe that are commercializing genome sequencing need to be taken seriously. But this “revolution” should be approached with caution. At first, it was believed that we all had the same genes with minor variations, “but now we know it’s much more complex. Some companies are using just a fraction of the code, and that could be misleading.”

What about the obvious next step, taking the genome from read to read/write? “I’ve been trying to digitize biology for the past 15 years now. With synthetic biology, we can remake the analog genetic code in the form of DNA. … We are learning how to design life. We’re currently weeks to months away from being able to synthesize bacteria.”

Synthesizing bacteria? To what end? To change “everything,” says Venter. Replace the fossil fuels on which we currently rely, for example. “We now have biological fuel cells driven by bacteria that can take human wastewater and make electricity or clean water out of it. Each home can generate its own fuel in the future.”

But as for bio-engineered fuels, he says that ethanol is not the one you’d develop if you were looking to design a fuel from scratch.

(To read more on Venter’s conversation, see the blogs by Eric Savitz of Tech Trader Daily and Bobbie Johnson.)

What is surprising is 23andMe’s pedigree. It was established by Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s wife, Ann Wojcicki. More surprising still, $2.6 million of Google’s investment in 23andMe is essentially a repayment of a loan Brin made to the company as part of some interim debt financing.

Now, clearly this investment makes sense for Google, and Brin did recuse himself from all discussions of it. That said, friends-and-family transactions like these almost always spark charges of nepotism. Not a good thing for a closely scrutinized public company, especially one with an “evil scale.”