A new year, a few changes, and a streamlined approach

Wow! What a fast-changing world we are living in when talking about DNA. Many of you will be aware of the changes at GEDmatch, with Verogen now taking over the reigns. We very much enjoyed working with Curtis and John (the previous owners) and are looking forward to the future with Verogen. We are confident Verogen will continue the great work of Curtis and John, as well as take GEDmatch to the next level.

We are working with Verogen to establish a formal agreement to be able to upload our customers’ autosomal DNA files to GEDmatch. As totheletter DNA files are not usually as “pristine” as a file generated from a fresh DNA sample, our files are currently being screened out. This is because of security measures put in place by GEDmatch, which have not been designed to impact totheletter DNA, but the measures have had a knock-on effect. Discussions with the Verogen CEO Brett Williams have assured us that the issue will be resolved shortly, and we expect to be signing a Memorandum of Understanding with them in the next couple of weeks.

We are also introducing new techniques to improve our results for customers. To date, while we’ve successfully genotyped DNA from customer artefacts, we want and need to improve our results. For this reason we now have a set price of $450AUD for extractions, which will include the cost of the new techniques. A further payment is required if the customer wishes to have the artefact returned, depending on size and weight. Our new techniques involve both cleaning up the DNA and making more DNA available for processing.

The main benefit of the new techniques is that we will be able to process more samples on the microarray - which is much cheaper than whole genome sequencing (WGS). Customers are asked on checkout to state whether their preference is for genotyping (some customers do prefer WGS), as the techniques we use can preclude WGS if we are working towards genotyping. We are happy to answer any questions about this if you are not sure which process you want us to target.

As always, our processes take longer that we hope. Customers are welcome to place orders now for extractions for all artefact types (after discussing their potential order with totheletter DNA via info@totheletterDNA.com). Extractions will typically be completed within 8 to 12 weeks. Downstream processing can take a further 8 to 12 weeks.

We have also streamlined our website ordering process, with Extractions, Genotyping, Whole Genome Sequencing, and Postage as four separate options on our “Buy” page. This is to make ordering more clear for our customers.

A few customers have asked if we’ll be attending RootsTech this year - sadly not - as we will be at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in February. We’ve had to make a call on what will benefit us most - and we are hoping that being amongst scientists who are at the forefront of forensic science will help us in our continual improvements.

Once again, we are working to continually improve our outcomes, and are always happy to talk through questions or concerns with our customers.