Answers to the questions we get most often — what MyGeneLog™ does, which files it reads, how your genome data is handled, and what a result does and doesn't mean.
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MyGeneLog™ is a free Windows desktop app that reads a raw genome file (VCF, or a 23andMe/AncestryDNA export) and explains what specific, well-studied genetic variants mean in plain language — entirely offline, on your own computer.
The app is free, and every page of this reference is free to read and free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 — no account and no subscription for any of it. The public API is open too, with no key. Two optional things are paid: a dated snapshot of the whole dataset, for people who need a version they can cite in a paper, and a raised API rate limit for anyone who needs more than the open one. Neither takes anything away from what is already free, and nothing that is free today becomes paid later.
No. Your genome file is parsed entirely in memory on your own computer and is never uploaded, stored, or transmitted anywhere. The app has no server-side genome processing at all.
MyGeneLog™ accepts raw VCF files and raw data exports from 23andMe and AncestryDNA.
No. MyGeneLog™ is informational only — it does not diagnose any medical condition, predict when a condition will occur, or recommend medication or treatment. Always talk to a doctor or a licensed genetic counselor about what a result means for you.
MyGeneLog™ does not perform genetic testing itself — it reads a raw data file you already own (for example, one exported from 23andMe or AncestryDNA, or a VCF from any other source) and gives you a deeper, plain-language explanation of specific variants, entirely offline.
No. Neither the MyGeneLog™ app nor mygenelog.com requires an account, login, or signup — there is nothing to register for.
New variants are added to mygenelog.com on an ongoing basis — some added manually after research review, and some collected automatically from the GWAS Catalog, a public research database, several times a day. Installed apps pick up new variants automatically, usually within 24 hours.
Yes, and it needs no signup and no key. /api/v1/variants and /api/v1/conditions are open, unauthenticated JSON endpoints returning the whole live dataset in one response — see the API docs page. A light rate limit of 10 requests a minute per IP applies because this runs on one small server rather than a CDN. A free key is available if you would rather be identified than anonymous; it carries the same limit. If you need a higher one, ask us rather than scrape.
MyGeneLog™ is developed and maintained by narubox. The application and the site are built by Louis Byun, who handles full-stack development of the Windows app (React/TypeScript front end, Rust back end) and of mygenelog.com, including the genome-matching algorithm behind Analyze. MyGeneLog™ is independent and is not affiliated with 23andMe, AncestryDNA, or any clinical genetic testing service.
Because the information that explains your own biology is split between two kinds of places, and neither one serves an ordinary person. On one side are the research databases — precise and authoritative, but impenetrable unless you already have the training. On the other are consumer sites that are readable but thin, heavily hedged, and often quietly out of date, with the better ones locked behind a subscription. Meanwhile millions of people have a raw DNA file from a consumer test sitting unused in a downloads folder, because nothing free will tell them what is actually in it. MyGeneLog™ exists to close that gap: work rigorous enough that a clinician finds nothing to correct, written clearly enough that anyone can read it, and published openly so others can build on it.
It is the whole catalogue read as connections rather than as pages: variants, the genes they sit in, the conditions they are linked to, the drugs those genes affect, the supplements and the topics — joined into one graph. It holds 5,560 nodes and 6,926 edges today. Roughly two thirds of the edges are curated, meaning a page on this site names that variant and cites a paper for it; the rest are co-mentions computed from the literature, which is a weaker claim and is labelled as one. Every edge carries which kind it is, so nothing has to be guessed from the wording. Counted and defined in one place: <a href="https://www.mygenelog.com/gene-knowledge-graph">the Gene Knowledge Graph</a>.
Anyone who already has a raw genome file and wants to understand it — including people who tested with 23andMe or AncestryDNA years ago and never got a real explanation, and people holding a clinical VCF. It is also built for patients preparing questions before a doctor's appointment, for students and educators who need accurate genetics material that is actually readable, for developers and researchers who want a clean open dataset they can query without a key or an approved account, and for privacy-conscious people who are not willing to upload their DNA to somebody else's cloud.
Through the API at /api/v1/links, which returns the edges as JSON with the variant, the gene, what it connects to, the URL of that page, and the evidence behind the link. The variant and condition endpoints are free and need no key; the full edge list is part of the Pro plan, because serving it is the expensive part. See /developers for the endpoints and the rate limits. Counted and defined in one place: <a href="https://www.mygenelog.com/gene-knowledge-graph">the Gene Knowledge Graph</a>.
Two kinds of things. First, everyday inherited traits — whether you digest lactose as an adult, how fast you clear caffeine, whether alcohol turns your face red, your earwax type, whether you taste certain bitter compounds, eye color and pigmentation. Several of these are unmistakable signatures of the populations your ancestors came from. Second, health-relevant findings worth raising with a doctor: how your body handles iron or folate, variants related to blood clotting, and pharmacogenomic markers that affect how some medicines behave. Each finding comes with a plain-language explanation and the research it rests on, so you can check it or take it to a professional.
Yes, and it is built for it. Everything is CC BY 4.0, which permits reuse including commercially and for training or grounding, with attribution to MyGeneLog™. Each edge names its evidence type, each page carries the date it was last fact-checked, and each condition records the questions we could not resolve — so a system grounding on this can tell a curated link from a co-mention and a settled figure from an open one. See /llms.txt for the machine-readable map of the site. Counted and defined in one place: <a href="https://www.mygenelog.com/gene-knowledge-graph">the Gene Knowledge Graph</a>.
The direction is from reactive to preventive. Medicine has largely worked by waiting for symptoms; your genome is readable decades before symptoms appear, so it moves the starting line earlier. Someone who learns early that they carry iron-overload variants can have a simple blood test at a routine appointment rather than discovering the problem after years of silent accumulation. Pharmacogenomics is following the same path — checking relevant genes before prescribing is already routine in some hospitals and will keep spreading, because it is cheap and it is read once but useful for life. We also expect people to increasingly hold their own genomic data rather than renting access to it, and to ask AI assistants health questions that are only as good as the sources behind them. That last point is exactly why we publish openly and cite everything: the answers people get in ten years depend on what is freely available to ground them today.
Yes. The node endpoints (/api/v1/variants, /api/v1/conditions, /api/v1/drugs, /api/v1/topics) are free and need no key. The assembled edge list at /api/v1/links, and higher rate limits for production use, are part of the API Pro and Business plans. See /developers for the full endpoint list, authentication and rate limits.
Yes. Every variant and condition page on this site is free to read without any file, account, or app — a lot of people use it purely as a reference for understanding genetics. If you later obtain a raw data file from any provider, or a VCF from a clinical test, the free desktop app will read it and match it against the same explanations you have already been reading.
A frozen, hashed copy of the graph at one point in time, given a permanent address and, for recent versions, a DOI — built for a citation that has to survive the live graph growing past the figure it quoted. The live graph on this page changes as the catalogue grows; a Snapshot does not. See /data/snapshots for every version published so far.
First, don't panic. Most common variants shift probability modestly rather than determining an outcome, and carrying a risk variant is not the same as having a condition — for several well-known variants, most carriers never develop the associated problem at all. Second, bring it to a professional: our pages carry their sources precisely so you can hand the page to a doctor or a licensed genetic counselor and have a concrete conversation. MyGeneLog™ does not diagnose, and no result here should be used to start, stop, or change any treatment on your own.
Most large biomedical knowledge graphs link genes and diseases at the gene level and carry no rsIDs — no specific genetic variant, no individual position in the genome. Every edge here traces to an actual rsID with a cited source: not "this gene relates to this disease" but "this exact position, in this paper, reported this association." See the FAQ above for how a curated edge differs from a co-mention.
Tell us — the app is actively maintained and problems get fixed. Use the contact form on this page and include what happened, which file type you were opening (VCF, 23andMe, or AncestryDNA export), and your Windows version if you know it. You never need to send us your genome file itself, and you should not: the file stays on your computer, and a description of the problem is enough for us to reproduce it. Fixes ship as app updates, and new variant data reaches installed copies automatically, usually within 24 hours.
Because it is the rare part of genetics where a variant does not nudge a probability — it changes what a person actually perceives. Two people meet the same molecule and one of them smells nothing at all. It is also how we choose what to eat, which links it directly to the metabolism and disease pages. TAS2R38, the bitter-taste receptor, carries the strongest association on this whole site.
A position in your file is not information until it is connected to something, and connected differently the same position becomes a different kind of answer: the condition it relates to, how a medicine behaves in you, or what you smell and taste. Every one of those connections is a page here with its source cited. You can start from any of the four and reach the others — from a drug name to the variant your own file contains, or from a variant back out to the condition it belongs to.
Yes. The Drugs section lists each medicine we cover, the genes involved, what published guidelines actually say, and the variants MyGeneLog™ reports for those genes. It contains no dosing information and is not medical advice — where a clinical guideline exists it is written for prescribers, and decisions about your treatment belong with the clinician or pharmacist managing it.
The connections. A reference tells you what a variant is; the Gene Knowledge Graph tells you what it is joined to — which conditions name it, which drugs its gene affects, which topics researchers write about it alongside — and labels how strong each of those links is. That is the part that takes work to assemble and the part that is hard to find anywhere else in the open.
Didn't find your answer above? Send us a note — questions about a result, a correction to something we've written, or an idea for a variant or condition we should cover. A real person reads every message, and we're glad you asked.