the use of certain medications." Another novel characteristic of these tests was the integration of multiple, well-validated genetic risk factors. The overall impact of these different risk factors was combined and calculated into what was called a polygenic risk score, placing the individual on a spectrum of risk with regard to that of the population in general, independent of and in addition to other health or lifestyle risk factors. With each new discovery, deCODE could broaden the risk factors tested. The idea was to make screening and prevention strategies and therapies more specific and more effective for those at higher risk, and hopefully to provide new incentive for individuals to follow through with well understood lifestyle modification such as weight loss, smoking cessation, etc. This was the essence of what was then called personalized medicine, but because these tests were new, their medical usefulness was as yet unproven. As everyone is by definition at risk of common diseases, and doctors generally understood genetic risk only as it referred to rare diseases, the medical community approached these tests with skepticism. In 2018, advocacy for the use of polygenic risk scores for identifying those at significantly increased risk of common diseases, and using whole-genome data and new algorithms to build on many early deCODE markers, began a revival. To judge by the intense media coverage of deCODE's discoveries, ordinary people were very certainly interested in these genetic risk factors and how they might be relevant to their health. In late 2007, the company effectively launched the field of personal genomics with its deCODEme direct-to-consumer (DTC) scan aimed at enabling people to better understand their risk of common diseases and use this information to stay healthy. deCODEme hit the market a day before the now widely known, Google-funded 23andMe. deCODEme's marketing emphasized its pedigree, seriousness and scientific rigor: "provided by a world leader in the discovery of genetic risk factors for disease...[so that its customers] benefit directly from the knowledge and experience of scientists carrying out internationally renowned research" (its competitors used deCODE's published variants as the basis for many of their results); with the scan processed in the same labs that had found them. By 2012, the deCODEme complete scan measured one million SNPs and calculated risk for 47 common diseases and traits as well as basic information on maternal and paternal ancestry, noting that most ancestry scans of the period were