London, Nov. 3: A teenager who traced his biological father using his own saliva and the Internet has shown that it may no longer be possible for sperm donors to keep their identity secret.
The 15-year-old boy’s discovery using DNA databases on the Internet raises doubts over whether men who have donated sperm can maintain anonymity.
The US teenager traced his father from the Y chromosome, which is passed from father to son almost unchanged, says New Scientist.
He took a saliva swab and sent it to FamilyTreeDNA.com, an online DNA-testing site. His genetic father had never offered his DNA to the site. But after nine months, the boy, who was unnamed in the report, was contacted by two men on the database.
Their Y chromosomes were a close match to his, suggesting a 50 per cent chance that all three had the same father, grandfather or great-grandfather. The men had the same surname,but spellings differed.
His mother had not been told the donor’s name but given his birth date, place of birth and his college degree.
Using Omnitrace.com, he purchased the names of everyone born in the same place that day. One man had the surname he sought and in 10 days he made contact.