A few months ago, a tweet from Patrick Collison (the founder of Stripe) went viral on Twitter. Patrick had sequenced his genome at home, run the raw data through an AI, and discovered a meaningful genetic predisposition to melanoma.
I read that and thought: I need to do this.
So I did. I got a DNA test done, got my raw data and gave it to AI, and the results were… pretty darn interesting.
I’m lucky to have access to the best doctors and tests there are, but this single home experiment made more impact on how I think about my health than anything else.
What’s truly amazing is that what all is now possible for basically anyone with $150 and a laptop.
This small project has the highest cost-benefit ratio of what you can do for your health this year and below I’ll walk you through the whole thing: my results, the test I used, the file, the prompt I gave Claude, and by the end you’ll know how to run the same experiment.
The $100 genome
First, why is this even a thing? Sequencing your own genome at home and running it through AI? Because you can, and it has never been cheaper.
The Human Genome Project which was completed in 2001 cost roughly $100 million to sequence a single human genome. The price dropped to $1000 in the previous decade, and now you can sequence your whole genome for about $100, depending on the service.
That’s a 1,000,000x reduction in cost in 25 years , which is much faster than what even Moore's Law predicted.
Just 25 years ago, it cost as much as a nice house - now it costs less than a fancy dinner for two.
But why even bother doing this at home on your own with AI (and not your doctor)?
The reality of the US healthcare system is that the average doctor appointment is 12 minutes. And it takes 31 days to even get that 12 minute slot. Some specialists in metro cities exceed the appointment booking time to even 50 days.
I had posted something a year ago about AI outperforming doctorson diagnostic tasks, and at the time, I was pointing to OpenAI’s HealthBench release, which showed the AI model was already outperforming physicians with no access to AI, on its own, with zero human input!
In one study from the University of Virginia, ChatGPT achieved a median diagnostic accuracy of over 92% when working through case vignettes, outperforming physician groups who were also using AI tools actively (76.3%) and those using conventional approaches (73.7%).
And that was 2024. Since then AI has gotten better exponentially. Also, AI does not get tired. It has consumed more medical books than all doctors on Earth, combined. It can actually hold your entire genome in mind during diagnosis.
The reality of modern healthcare is that doctors don't have bandwith to provide hyper-personalized approach, and the appointments last for 12 minutes with doctors having low context about patient.
This is why I am incredibly bullish on AI as the tool that finally empowers people to reclaim their health, and excited about the sheer velocity of progress in this field.
My at home DNA diagnosis
Here is how I did it.
- Step 1: I downloaded my old 23andme genetic data (yes, I’m aware there are better DNA tests out there). Services like Nebula Genomics or similar platforms can give you whole genome sequencing at a relatively low cost. 23andMe works too for a genotype (i.e., a subset of SNP variants rather than the full genome), though the raw data has its limitations.
- Step 2: I downloaded the raw data. It's a huge .txt or .zip file with millions of rows. It's not readable by a human without interpretation.
- Step 3: I ran this file through Claude, specifically Claude Code as it can handle large data contexts. I used a stupidly-simple prompt:
Please investigate my specific mutations, and recommend specific follow-on tests and treatments? What are some takeaways I should learn about my genome?
The response included things like my APoE genotype, variants related to metabolic function, athletic performance predispositions, and sleep traits.
To start with, my paid Claude subscription forever absolved me of the shame of not becoming a bodybuilder. Apparently, I am “built for zone 2, not for sprinting.”
Also, I seem to carry one copy of the APoE4 allele. That’s the strongest known risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s. A single copy roughly triples your risk. About 15% to 25% of the population carries at least one copy (most have no idea).
Frankly, I’d never thought much about Alzheimer’s risk before. Now I think about it constantly, but this worry isn’t a bad worry. It’s changed how I exercise, how I approach sleep, what I eat, etc.
And I’m not the only one "playing" with my DNA data and AI.
On Reddit, you can find ordinary people comparing notes, learning more about their biology than most ever have.
On r/Peterattia, one user described finding out he has two copies of APoE4 completely by accident after years of using Promethease to interpret his raw 23andMe data. Another user lost both his parents to Alzheimer’s and when he got tested, he learned he was an APoE4 carrier, which led him to completely restructure his life.
Health is not a rich person's game anymore
This whole setup costs around $120-220.
- The DNA test is $99-$199 depending on the service (23andMe) on the low end, and whole-genome sequencing on the higher end)
- Claude Pro subscription is $20 a month
Compare this to a single cocktail night in NYC. Or a month of Netflix + Spotify + Amazon + whatever else is in the credit card.
Ordinary people online have been posting their own genome interpretation posts for about two years now. With these new cheap power tools at their disposal, they are curious and health conscious, and have decided to vibe genomics.
e.g. on r/genetics, one person uploaded their raw 23andMe data and used it to flag potential Lynch Syndrome risk markers in the MLH1 gene, well before bringing it up with a doctor. Another one cross-referenced their raw data against genetics literature for muscle composition, checking if they possess certain genes associated with athletes.
And there are many more pople doing this that we don't know about, and there will only be more as AI and diagnostics become better and cheaper.
Understanding your own genome is one of the most high leverage things you can do to take control of your health.
What you learn gives you a roadmap for what to do next.
That roadmap is now accessible to almost everyone. Our grandparents’ generation had to wait for symptoms, then wait for an (often inaccurate) diagnosis, and finally for a possible treatment.
You don’t have to wait. For the price of a fancy dinner, you can know what’s coming for you and have 30-40 years to do something about it. I believe this is the biggest shift in healthcare in our generation.
We have the tools at our disposal. What we do with them is up to us.
