Healthcare consortium to offer DNA-based health prediction service through metaverse platform

By Park Sae-jin Posted : January 4, 2022, 08:52 Updated : January 4, 2022, 13:54

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SEOUL -- A consortium led by Eone Diagnomics Genome Center, a South Korea-based healthcare company engaged in genetic analysis, will provide a DNA-based health prediction service in a metaverse platform to help business partners create new business models based on genomic big data. A beta service involving consortium partners is underway, with an official service to be launched as early as this year.
 
The project aims to move the real world step by step into the virtual world like a mirror. It is a fourth-generation social network service that combines reality and virtual reality to allow hundreds of millions of users to mingle together using avatars and enable various commercial transactions as well as social and economic activities such as performances, games, fashion, and smart healthcare.
 
It is a customized service that matches genetic data collected by Eone Diagnomics Genome Center (EDGC) with individual genetic data uploaded by users. The primary profit model is to create value by using cyber models and establishing a meta-commerce ecosystem through games. Companies can quickly and safely market new technologies through virtual spaces.
 
"It is the first project to try and develop a metaverse platform that can make avatars by analyzing DNA through saliva collection," EDGC's public relations official Kim Seon-gyun told Aju Business Daily. "Using EDGC's genetic big data, consortium partners can develop new products and services and implement new business models on the metaverse platform."
 
EDGC, which has accumulated genomic data by participating in a global genome standardization project, will provide YouWho, a blood analysis engine algorithm launched in February 2020, that can analyze the characteristics of genes in saliva and provide many different gene-related information to customers such as the history and key information of the race to which they belong.
 
YouWho that provides additional information on the characteristics of different races and countries by analyzing individual racial distribution would help users simulate future experiences they want to meet in reality while living in a metaverse space. Game items and content using DNA lineage can be checked with YouWho as well as customized information that genetically affects health, such as obesity, hair loss, insomnia, and alcohol resilience.
 
YouWho can be used in almost all areas beyond precision medicine, new drug development, and smart healthcare, Kim said. Consortium members can create new business models using genomic data in the virtual world. "It is a service that allows individuals to manage diseases that they will suffer from probability in advance," Kim said, adding that the new service would focus on predicting and preventing diseases based on genetic data.
 
"Users can create their own avatars based on YouWho's analysis of salvia samples," Kim said. Users can upload genetic information analyzed through YouWho for healthcare services. EDGC provides genetic big data algorithms, while software companies and game companies in the consortium develop avatars.
 
EDGC hopes to distribute the DNA-based health prediction service through its overseas network. In April 2021, the genomic company tied up with Mygenomebox (MGB), a cloud-based genomics healthcare web portal, to develop a community platform based on genomic data that would allow users to share solutions through communication on the results of genetic analysis. Like a social networking service, users can share solutions through communication on the results of genetic analysis in the DNA app market.