october founder zachary apte jessica richman headquarters san francisco california united states website www.ubiome.com ubiome is a biotechnology company based in san francisco that gives individuals and organizations access to sequencing technology to sequence their microbiomes with a sampling kit and website . contents 1 history 2 products and services 3 controversy 4 references 5 external links history edit the company was founded by jessica richman and zachary apte . 1 in november 2012 ubiome generated 350 000 through a crowdfunding campaign 2 and as of 2015 ubiome had raised a total of more than 6 million but had failed to achieve profitability . according to fastcompany ubiome s ceo has not set a goal for when the company will turn a profit . 3 originally based in the california institute for quantitative biosciences the company received money from y combinator 4 and andreesen horowitz . 5 ubiome partners with the center for disease control cdc and the national institute of mental health for microbiome research . with the cdc ubiome is using stool samples to research how treatments such as antibiotics alter gut microbes . the company also partners with apple on the creation of an app to analyze gut bacteria . the app allows users to input information about health history diet and sleeping patterns and compare their microbiome with other users . 6 7 8 the company awards grants in the form of microbiome kits to researchers . 6 products and services edit customers purchase kits to sample one or more parts of their body including the gut genitals mouth nose or skin . after swabbing a participant takes a survey which is used to make correlations with microbiome data . the participant sends his kit in the mail and receives data in a few weeks ; he or she can compare their data with that of ubiome s data set . 3 ubiome is certified by the clinical laboratory improvement amendments clia which regulates laboratory testing and acceptance of human samples for diagnostic testing . 9 controversy edit several business and science publications have expressed concerns over various aspects of ubiome s business model . the wall street journal noted concerns that citizen science initiatives like ubiome may attract participants who do not understand the medical significance of their test results since ubiome does not provide access to physicians or other experts who can explain how results uniquely affect an individual . 10 a scientific american blog criticized company founders zachary apte and jessica richman on the grounds that they weren t very upfront about how they address ethical issues since they were working with human subjects . 11 judy stone called further attention to the company in a piece for scientific american calling ubiome ceo jessica richman a great saleswoman who also excels at sounding innocent and playing the misunderstood victim in the ethical controversy surrounding her company . 1 in response to the controversy amy dockser marcus wrote an essay on the wall street journal s website 12 arguing that institutional review boards irbs belonged to the old world of scientific inquiry and didn t address the unique challenges of citizen science . responding to criticism in a post to a scientific american blog ubiome claimed it had received irb approval from a private company e & i services . 13 references edit a b stone judy . ubiome ethical lapse or not . scientific american . retrieved 9 february 2015 . cutler kim mai . andreessen backed ubiome is now doing an indiegogo campaign to check out dental bacteria . techcrunch . a b gertner jon . what s lurking in your microbiome possibly a cure for disease . fast company . chokkattu julian . ubiome raises 4.5 m from angel investors andreessen horowitz to crowdsource microbiome research . techcrunch . dillet romain . andreessen horowitz raises massive new 1.5 billion fund . techcrunch . a b zhang sarah . microbiome startup ubiome will sequence poop for the cdc . wired . nov. 30 2015 maldarelli claire . ubiome teams up with apple to study your gut popular science . 10 7 15 arnold carrie.could the microbiome cure eating disorders the daily beast . 8 19 15 khamsi roxanne 17 july 2014 . can gut dna sequencing actually tell you anything about your health . newsweek . retrieved 21 march 2015 . the ethics of experimenting on yourself . wall street journal . on ethics and self policing in citizen science . the urban scientist . scientific american . retrieved 9 february 2015 . markus amy dockser . the ethics of experimenting on yourself . wall street journal . crowdfunding and irbs the case of ubiome . scientific american . external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title ubiome & oldid 743700419 categories companies based in san franciscobiotechnology companies of the united statesgenomics companiescitizen sciencemicrobiomes navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 10 october 2016 at 19 48 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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