iGenea Review: know your genes better

iGenea Basic Facts:

• Company Name: iGenea
• Foundation Year: 2003
• Location: Switzerland
• Monthly Visits: unknown
• Number of Databases: Unknown
• Website: https://www.igenea.com/en/home 

What services/products are included in iGenea test?- Rated: 2/5

Although it doesn't have bad services, really any competitor offers the same services except for the certificate, and they don't give much information either.

• Ancestor genealogy

With this service you will be able to determine the origin and relationship of your ancestors. The cheap package goes up to 2000 years in time, while the two more complete ones go up to 100000 years.

• Village of origin

There is a tool to see the historical and prehistoric settlement of your lineage, by analysing maternal and paternal chromosomes.

• DNA Certification

You will receive a dna percentage certificate with your results, accrediting them for legal or personal cases. This is a service that is as controversial as it is unique and worth mentioning.

Availability of Diverse Collection Methods (swab, blood ...) - Rated: 4/5

There is only one way to take your samples, which is quite common in the industry. This is the oral swab, which is based on collecting dead cells from the inner cheek wall. This is a very efficient and easy procedure to get enough DNA for analysis without contamination, although not being able to choose the method may have limitations. This is not the case for iGenea, as they only measure ancestry.

iGenea Customer Support - Rated: 3/5

The customer support is not as competent as others in this field, relying on a rather rudimentary FAQ and a very non-transparent contact page, where you have to register to be able to talk to them via email. In fact, the products you are going to buy are not well explained on the page, you are redirected to another subpage that supposedly does explain them, but you are left with a line of text for each option and the same screenshot. They leave you with many doubts that are not resolved.

https://www.igenea.com/en/contact 

iGenea Kits Pricing/cost- Rated: 1.5/5

Although the certificate and the number of years is not bad, the prices in this case are unjustifiable, even if they were the best on the market.

iGenea Database size - Rated: 2.5/5

Despite being on the market since 2003, we could not find any information about the database on iGenea or any other portal. This is a bit strange because they should have been made public. However, the results certainly seem consistent. Like all companies that do not publish their databases, they should be treated with caution.

iGenea Free trial- Rated: 0/5

iGenea does not currently offer free testing services. 

iGenea Expected turn-around - Rated: 2.5/5

They don't have the best ratio on the market, but they have an expected outcome of 6 to 8 weeks after receiving your samples. They claim that not all their packages take the same amount of time, because it depends on the analysis your biological data is subjected to. 

iGenea Accuracy - Rated: 2.5/5

The company also does not disclose the sequencing method used to analyse your DNA, which is essential to know the accuracy of the results. This makes it impossible to determine the error rate of nucleotide reading, which irremediably conditions the negative evaluation for iGenea in this field. 

The average error rate is around 2% for a standard sequencer, while the best on the market are around 1% or less. This means that for every 100 nucleotides, 1 is read incorrectly. This rate can be reversed by statistical techniques that iGenea also does not make public, but it is never 100% accurate. 

iGenea Interface - Rated: 3.5/5

The interface is not a strong point of iGenea either, as both the site and the results are provided in a sparse, dull and somewhat sober medium that can be unnoticeable. They only boast paid reviews in newspapers or other media, something interesting that other competitors also do. 

The results are not clear, and when they are, they are not very conclusive because they do not bring with them much information. There are cool options like being able to talk to your closest relatives by applying genetic results, but other than that, pretty mediocre.

iGenea Privacy - Rated: 5/5

In this respect it is a good candidate, because you can see how seriously they take the legislation and the treatment of biological samples. They talk about the Swiss data protection law and make it clear that you can receive your personal data from them at any time, and that you can also ask them to delete it from the servers. 

iGenea Innovation - Rated: 2.5/5

It is not known to have any direct scientific or dissemination activities, which is bad enough for such a long-established company. However, precisely because of this, we can say that it is one of the pioneers that has laid the foundations of molecular ancestry testing together with Ancestry DNA, and has expanded a purely biological business from Switzerland to the extremely rare. 

iGenea Rate and quality of updates - Rated: 2.5/5

There is also no information about updates to your genome, but judging by the mechanism of all these companies, you will receive an email or call when the database has undergone a substantial modification or addition. This allows your results to be a living thing and also teaches us that we should never take anything for granted as a fixed fact, as science always works with the most falsifiable hypothesis.

Best Alternatives To iGenea

• Ancestry DNA

Ancestry DNA is perhaps the largest and most reliable platform for this type of test. However, it has shortcomings such as not offering its services to all countries at the moment. 

• Family Tree DNA

This is a very interesting alternative. If there is one thing that iGenea DNA lacks, it is the variety of services, as well as the variety of techniques used, which only comprise autosomal DNA analysis. Family Tree DNA is stronger on these points.

• Living DNA

This other alternative is perhaps the most versatile of all, as it is not only focused on ancestry. It explores other genomic possibilities such as the wellbeing associated with your code. This is possible through various algorithms that compare your data with predispositions to diseases or resistances, etc.

Summary

So much for the review of this Swiss-based company. It is an option that distinguishes itself from the others by its sober air, which is not exactly a good thing for this type of service. We don't really know much about this company, as there is quite a lot of information that their site doesn't resolve, and only by looking at the opinions of their customers on the web can we elucidate reasonable doubts. 

Their most critical point is undoubtedly the exorbitant price, especially for the complete package. It does not offer anything substantially different from the previous ones and yet it multiplies its price in a somewhat absurd way. If the price were different, perhaps it would be a more powerful alternative, updated to fight against the emerging companies that have been able to respond to the drift of this market.