What's involved?

By giving a small sample of blood to OurDNA, you can make sure your community is included in genetic research. This can help improve medical diagnosis, improve prediction and prevention of illness, and improve disease treatment.

Your journey with OurDNA

If you have any questions, contact us.

To take part in OurDNA, you must:

  • Be over 18 years old
  • Be eligible for Medicare
  • Self-identify as having ancestry from at least one of the following communities: Filipino, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Tongan, Samoan, or Fijian
  • Be able to donate a blood sample in Victoria or New South Wales
  • People cannot participate if they or anyone in their close family has a known severe genetic health condition, like cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy. This does not include common conditions like inflammatory bowel disease, cancer or diabetes.

Sign up on our website by clicking any "Join now" button. Follow the prompts to register online. 

Once you have registered, read the consent information and complete the consent forms. There are five sections for you to complete before you can give blood.

Once you’ve given your consent, you can give blood by either:

  • Attending an OurDNA event
  • Finding the pathology partner location closest to you

If you’re at an OurDNA event, find a member of the OurDNA team so they can assist you with next steps.

If you’re giving blood at the pathology partner clinic located closest to you, an OurDNA team member will email you with your pathology form within 2 business days of your registration. They will provide you with more detailed information on how you can give blood.

If you’re located in Victoria, you can give blood at any Melbourne Pathology location. If you’re in New South Wales, you can give blood at any Douglas Hanly Moir Pathology location. You can give blood at any time during opening hours from Monday to Thursday. You don’t need to make an appointment to give blood.

There is no need for you to fast before giving blood. Please drink plenty of water before and after your donation!

Once you have given blood, you will receive a voucher to reimburse you for your time.

If you are at an OurDNA event, a team member will give this to you immediately after you have given blood.

If you are giving blood at your closest pathology partner location, an OurDNA team member will send you a voucher within 2 business days. You should receive the voucher in the mail within 2-3 business days.

As part of the consent process, you can also choose to receive updates on the research, outcomes, and impact of your involvement.

You can also stay in touch with us by following us on Instagram or Facebook, or by subscribing to our newsletter.

Join now and make a difference

Representation in research matters

By taking part in OurDNA, you can make sure your community is included in genetic research. This can help improve diagnosis, prediction, prevention, and treatment of illness.

A small sample, a large impact

By giving a small sample of blood, you’re directly contributing to the resources and databases that doctors and researchers use to understand the health issues that are important to your community.

For example, a change or variant in your DNA could be the cause of a health condition you have. The same change or variant in a person from a different community could be very common and not impact their health. Knowing more about DNA changes in your community can help to better diagnose health conditions and work towards treating or even preventing them in the future.

Building better genetic resources

 

The people making a difference

"The good thing with OurDNA is they're here to learn more about the common and the unknown diseases, especially for Filipino communities."

Niel Tequin, Founder of Filipino Ballers Club

Member of the Filipino Community

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Upcoming OurDNA events

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Do you have questions?

If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, contact us.

To take part in OurDNA, you must:

  • Be over 18 years old
  • Be eligible for Medicare
  • Be able to give a blood sample in Victoria or New South Wales
  • Self-identify as having ancestry from one of the communities underrepresented in genetics resources. Visit this page to check which communities we are actively working with.
  • People cannot participate if they or anyone in their close family has a known severe genetic health condition, like cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy. This does not include common conditions like inflammatory bowel disease, cancer or diabetes.

If you join OurDNA and choose to get genetic information back, this information could tell you something about your health or the health of your family in the future.

While there is no cost to find out this information through the study, we require Medicare eligibility to ensure you can access clinical services if we do return a result. If you are covered by Medicare in Australia, there is usually no or low cost for genetic health services with a doctor's referral.

Regardless of visa status, OurDNA is only including people who are covered by Medicare at the time of consent. If you are unsure about your eligibility for OurDNA, please speak with a member of the study team. 

Yes, you can take part in OurDNA if you have tattoos.

No, you can only take part in OurDNA once. Each person’s contribution is unique and valuable but we need many different people to take part for OurDNA to make a difference to medical research and healthcare in the future.

Consent for taking part in the OurDNA program is done through a secure online portal. You can register on the website by clicking the “Join now” button or through the “OurDNA” app in the App Store or Google Play Store.

The online portal will give you information about taking part in OurDNA and explain what will happen with your blood and DNA samples. There are five forms for you to complete to give your consent:

  • Screening survey
  • Registration
  • Ancestry, health, and cultural information
  • Your consent
  • Blood collection

The consent process will take about 20 minutes to complete. If you have any questions or need help, please contact us.

OurDNA is asking participants to complete a short set of questions to help us understand some things about your health and if you’ve previously had, or currently have, certain health conditions.

This information will help doctors and researchers to study health conditions that may be common in your community, and make the relationship between changes in DNA and these common conditions clearer. This will help researchers to create better tools to predict, identify and treat conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease.

If you take part in OurDNA, you give a blood sample at an OurDNA event or one of out partner pathology clinics. 

Some of your blood sample will be used to collect DNA and read off your genetic information. Your blood, blood cells, health information, and genetic information will be stored and studied to make future health and medical research easier to do. 

If you plan to give your blood sample at one of our pathology partner clinics, please visit them from Monday through Thursday. 

Giving blood between Monday to Thursday helps ensure your involvement has the greatest impact. Some labs are closed on weekends and shipping is also slower. We can’t guarantee that samples given Friday to Sunday can be included in OurDNA unless they are given at an organised OurDNA event.

If you can only give blood on the weekend, please check here for upcoming OurDNA events.

Our qualified blood collectors will only take a small sample of blood: 30 ml. This is less than two tablespoons of liquid!

If you take part in OurDNA, you can request a copy of your ‘raw’ genetic data. Your genetic data is an electronic readout of your DNA that can only be read by computer programs. However, it will not come with any written information about your health, your ancestry or other characteristics. 

Most, but not all, participants in OurDNA will have raw genetic data created from their blood sample. If you request it, and we have the raw data, we can provide it to you.

If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact us.

If you choose to take part in OurDNA, we will ask if you would like to receive information back about any genetic changes that could tell you something about your health in the future or the health of your family.

Only a small number of people who take part in OurDNA are likely to receive a result like this. OurDNA will only offer this information for genetic changes that are:

  • well understood, and
  • where there are actions that you can take to improve your health or to prevent a health condition

This information may not be available for a few years because researchers need to study the genetic information in OurDNA to work out what is helpful to return. If you are interested in genetic testing for health purposes, please talk with your doctor or a genetic health professional.

OurDNA will only offer results for genetic changes that are well understood, and where there are actions you and your doctor can take to improve your health or prevent a health condition.

Conditions could include:

  • hereditary breast and ovarian cancer and some colon cancers
  • inherited high cholesterol (familial hypercholesterolemia)
  • genetic heart conditions such as arrhythmias and cardiomyopathies

OurDNA does not currently return information for conditions like dementia, where there are many different factors involved, and no clear genetic cause or action you can take.

This information will be returned to you by an OurDNA health professional: for example, a genetic counsellor. Genetic counsellors are trained to support people and families affected by, or at risk of having, a genetic health condition.
 

OurDNA does not return information about genetic ancestry to people who take part. We understand that many people are curious about their ancestry, but we also recognise that there are many different ways to think about family, connections and identity. 

We want to respect everyone’s identity and culture, and the mission of OurDNA is to make genetic discoveries that benefit everyone. If you take part in OurDNA, you can choose to get genetic information back that could tell you something about your health or your family’s health in the future.

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