DNA dating
Ottawa matchmaker bets that a cheek swab could help you find your special someone. LAURA ARMSTRONG reports.
Scenario: you’re on a blind date and so far, so fairy tale. Your date has a great job, drives a nice car and doesn’t raise eyebrows when you reach for a second dinner roll.
He or she is everything you want, but there’s just no chemistry.
Luckily, there’s a new genetic test to weed out the goodon-paper folk in favour of the scads-of-chemistry ones — and it’s now available in Ottawa. All you need is a cheek swab and your name on the client list; the three-step love connection test is only offered through matchmaking services, such as Ottawa-based Misty River Introductions.
Partnering with Torontobased startup Instant Chemistry, Misty River, helmed by chief executive Linda Miller, offers clients the chance to take a DNA test as part of the company’s services.
For an extra $500, on top of the service’s $1,650 minimum fee, clients get to swab the inside of their cheek and send the sample to a lab at Queen’s University.
Once the DNA is tested, a swabber’s results will be added to a database with results from others who have taken the test.
Up to 40 per cent of physical attraction can be determined through genes alone, says Instant Chemistry co-founder and CEO Dr. Ron Gonzales.
Research shows men and women are more attracted to people with dissimilar immune systems, a trait humans subconsciously detect by the Human Leukocyte Antigen — a cluster of genes that make up part of our immune system — otherwise known as body scent.
“Studies show the more different your immune system is, the more likely you are to be attracted to someone, the more likely you are to be in a long-term relationship with them, and the greater your fertility is with that person,” said Miller, who started Misty River in Ottawa about 18 years ago.
With the launch of the Instant Chemistry DNA test in mid-September, the company was the first of its kind in Canada to be able to translate more than two decades of research around genes into a quantifiable matchmaking service.
As clients begin to buy the kits, a database is building. Miller can access that database to see how well her clients match up with other people that have been tested.
“When I match one of my clients, it’ll run a list of people that have been tested in that age group and it’ll show me, in descending order, the best match to the worst match of those people, according to their biology.”
Miller, whose service has 5,000 clients in Ottawa, negotiated with Instant Chemistry to gain exclusive rights to the testing in Ontario and Quebec. Miller’s former company, Camelot Introductions, which she sold to Lianne Tregobov after moving to Ottawa, has exclusive rights to the kits in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
The testing process takes about two weeks. Miller expects to make her first matches through the DNA database this week. So far, she said, about 80 per cent of her new clients are interested in producing a swab, a trend she believes will continue going forward.
“Anything that makes finding somebody that you’re going to love and spend the rest of your life with easier, people will accept and adopt.”