Comments on: Concerns about the legitimacy and integrity of Nucleus Genomics

By: totalhealth

totalhealth — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 22:12:26 +0000

In reply to MC. Perhaps Herasight

By: MC

MC — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:18:30 +0000

On a similar path to you (minus the IVF need), I was combing through potential DTC WGS options. Since I have a PhD in genomics, I’m able to analyze all the data myself and don’t need any flashy software gated behind a description.

Nonetheless, I was leaning toward Nucleus because of their sequencing platform (Illumina NovaSeq X vs other’s using BGI-derived tech) and local processing (versus in HK). Before reading this, I was already on edge because of how scammy their website was – but good data is all I need, right? After this debacle (and your follow-up)? Absolutely not, hard pass on Nucleus.

But now I need to find an alternative for my wife and I. Any alternative services you ended up pursuing or one that you would recommend?

By: totalhealth

totalhealth — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 08:31:07 +0000

In reply to Leo. Well, when half the article is about them plagiarizing Herasight, and when the only source of external validation of their PRSes is again Herasight, I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to avoid mentioning them.

By: Leo

Leo — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 14:33:05 +0000

Hi totalhealth! I got pulled into the blog with your intro where you say you and your husband are looking forward to having kids, and I must say this turned out to be one of the wildest, most polarizing reading experiences I’ve had in some time! This is a very capable piece of work and clearly there’s so much effort that went into this (kudos to you and your research!). However, as a layperson, this begins to feel less like a consumer warning piece and more like corporate positioning.
IVF brings a lot of hope to people in their 30s like me, and I’m tired of almost every company in this space pushing its own narrative and distorting real conversations. From my POV, this post is extremely polished, but it also feels like it’s aimed at undermining Nucleus rather than genuinely helping users. There’s such strong accusatory language throughout, incessant mention of Herasight that probably shares the competitive space, and an almost surgical compilation of points that signals broader corporate rivalry (or at least some kind of power play) rather than consumer support. It’s also very weird and non-objective + unprofessional to bring out legal claims without outlining both sides of the story or recent verdicts – that’s just sensationalizing.
I also don’t get some of the critiques you mention – like the AI testimonial headshots or whatever. Aren’t such sensitive reviews supposed to be anonymized either way? Like, I wouldn’t want my name and face plastered on a website just cause I had a baby.
I also found the multiple mentions of Scott Alexander weird when I followed one the linked blogs and noticed they had mentioned a conflict of interest for using Herasight and Orchid products.
Same for plagiarism claims – it’s hard to be convinced with the data available here, and aren’t similar technical content going to sound broadly similar?
While I only have surface-level awareness of all these companies, including Nucleus – like they’re all profit-motivated folks selling products, and I still don’t understand the hyperfocus on Nucleus because their socials look really compelling otherwise.

By: Nucleus attempts to respond, but accidentally admits its own guilt – Total Health Optimization

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 21:04:11 +0000

[…] response to my recent post, Concerns about the legitimacy and integrity of Nucleus Genomics, Stephan Cordogan, the lead author of Nucleus Origin, posted a response, entitled Setting the Record […]

By: totalhealth

totalhealth — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 02:56:16 +0000

In reply to Pulkit. Unfortunately, given the attention that this post is getting I feel that it would be inappropriate for me to express opinions on other companies for the time being. I want the criticism to stand on its own merits, rather than getting tarnished by accusations of bias in favor of other companies.

By: Pulkit

Pulkit — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 23:31:49 +0000

Super interesting stuff. Since you’re looking to do this yourself, which company do you think offers the highest quality of this service?

By: Eric Kernfeld

Eric Kernfeld — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 17:01:04 +0000

Thank you for doing Brandolini’s work. This post is a valuable service to … I was gonna say the community, but how about to the truth.

By: totalhealth

totalhealth — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 21:48:13 +0000

In reply to Daniel Filan.

Re: plagiarism, I agree it’s not as though they just lifted entire sentences and published them as-is, but my accusation of plagiarism comes not from any one specific example but the entire gestalt of suspicious similarities. To be honest, I was getting a bit tired of copy-pasting screenshots and writing detailed analyses of the similarities between the two papers, but I feel that it’s fairly self-evident and invite the reader to make their own judgment.

I think the ToS wording clearly implies that the specific instantiations of the product that you order are reviewed by physicians: ” When you purchase Nucleus Health or Nucleus Family […] You understand and agree that, in the U.S., these Products are physician-ordered and reviewed.” I agree maybe there is some interpretive room here, but “physician-ordered” doesn’t make sense if they’re just saying that a physician signed off on the product development as a whole.

Also, regardless of whether the law in New York state is unjust or not, flagrantly disobeying state law like this is basically ‘shitting in the soup’ of a nascent industry.

By: Daniel Filan

Daniel Filan — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 16:58:49 +0000

I think the overall thrust of this post is probably right, but a few of your specific points seem overblown:
– Citing one party’s complaint in a lawsuit (without looking at the other party’s response or checking it at all) is somewhat dubious, because sometimes people stretch the truth in such things
– You describe the nucleus origin paper as “plagiarized”, but as far as I can tell the thing you show is that the analysis is very similar and there are a few overlaps in words. I think this is also explained by Nucleus stealing Herasight’s IP and having to write a paper about the exact same procedure. This explains the same logical flow and citing the same papers. The minor wording overlaps are what you’d expect from such a large document in such a circumstance (and furthermore if it were actually plagiarized, given the level of incompetence you plausibly allege elsewhere, I would expect you to have more examples to show me).
– The Terms of Service seem much less suspicious to me than they seem to seem to you. Two sub-points:
– They say that the products Nucleus Health and Nucleus Family are reviewed by physicians, but that the reports are not, nor are the results or analyses. This seems consistent to me: it could be the case that a physician reviewed their analysis strategy and the technology they used, said it looked good, but that no physician looks at any given set of results or analysis.
– My impression is that many products have terms of service that purport to mandate arbitration and bar class actions, and that Nucleus is not unusual for doing so.
– I’m not particularly bothered by violating an unjust law and serving clients in New York while providing a fig leaf in the ToS saying you won’t.

Most of the words in this comment are about ways in which I think you are wrong, so to re-iterate I’d like to clarify that my guess is that the thrust of the post is right.