Choosing your depth
DNA array or whole genome, how deep to read.
Both read your DNA. They differ in how much of it. A DNA array reads about a million pre-selected, well-studied positions; whole-genome sequencing reads every base, about three billion. The areas you can explore are the same, and so is the hand-written interpretation. What changes is how much of your DNA there is to read, and what can be reached.
What does whole genome find that an array can't?
A DNA array reads only the common, pre-selected positions printed on its chip, about a million of your three billion bases. Whole-genome sequencing reads them all, so it reaches the rare and private variants, the finer structural changes, and the fuller medicine-handling detail an array never reads.
The honest difference
What an array reads, and what it misses.
An array is a fixed set of probes for common, well-studied variants. Ours is a customised Global Screening Array. It is fast, affordable, and genuinely useful: ancestry, common tendencies across the areas you choose, and the everyday genetics of food, drink, sleep and movement. Its reach is then extended by imputation, which infers the common variants between the probes from a large reference panel, so we can compute polygenic risk scores across common variants. But imputation cannot conjure a rare variant that was never on the chip.
Whole-genome sequencing reads every base directly: short-read sequencing on an Illumina NovaSeq, with paired 150bp reads, inserts around 400bp, at about 35x mean depth. That is where the rare, high-impact variants live, the ones an array is blind to by design, along with larger structural changes and the deeper detail of how you handle medicines. It is not a different practice. It is a depth you can choose, with more of your DNA to read.
Side by side
A DNA array, and the whole genome.
| DNA array | Whole-genome sequencing | |
|---|---|---|
| What it reads | About a million pre-selected, well-studied positions | Every base of your genome, about three billion |
| How it is read | Customised Global Screening Array, then imputed | Short-read NovaSeq, ~150bp reads, ~35x mean depth |
| Common variants | Yes, the well-studied ones | Yes, read directly |
| Rare and private variants | No, only what is on the chip | Yes, including ones almost unique to you |
| Structural changes | Large gains and losses, not the finer detail | Yes, down to smaller indels and rearrangements |
| Medicine-handling detail | The common variants | Fuller, including rarer ones |
| Ancestry and traits | Yes | Yes |
| Starts from | $690 | $2,900 |
Which depth fits you
The right depth is the honest one.
An array is enough when you want a clear, affordable read of the common picture: ancestry, the everyday genetics of how you live, and common-variant tendencies across the areas you choose.
Whole genome earns its cost when you want the depth an array cannot reach: the rare and private variants beyond its probes, the fullest detail on how you handle medicines, and the confidence of having read all of it rather than a sample.
Either way, the same precision medicine analyst reads your DNA by hand and writes the same kind of analysis. You choose the depth on the questionnaire: an array starts from $690, whole genome from $2,900. See how pricing works.
This is informational and educational, not clinical or diagnostic. Anything of clinical consequence is flagged plainly for you to bring to your own physician.
Choose your depth
Read the common picture, or all of it.
Tell us how deep you want to read. A precision medicine analyst replies with a proposal shaped around the depth and the areas you chose, not a template.