DNA Q&A

Andrew Steele

Andrew Steele (UK) Olympic Athlete, Founder & Head of Product @ DNAFit Andrew Steele is an Olympic athlete, running the 400m and 4x400m for Great Britain. Having competed internationally for over 12 years Andrew is one of the most experienced athletes on Team GB, having been part of national teams at European, Commonwealth, World and Olympic level. Alongside his training for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Andrew is also one of the founding members and Head of Product for personal genetics company DNAFit, specialising in DNA testing for fitness and nutrition, to create genetically-guided training and dietary interventions.

Andrew Steele's talk explores how DNA test results can personalize fitness

Genetics should not dictate what you do or predict what you can or can't be. It is not fatalistic or deterministic; it is about how we tweak how we get to our goal, whatever that goal may be.

Summary

- Genetic testing identifies predispositions for power or endurance responses, allowing individuals to optimize training methods and workout intensity to reach specific fitness goals.

- Analysis of genes like FTO and FABP2 helps determine individual sensitivities to fats and carbohydrates, offering a personalized alternative to following generic dietary trends.

- Genetic markers for detoxification provide actionable insights into liver function, suggesting lifestyle changes like increased cruciferous vegetable intake to mitigate health risks.

- DNA results should not be used for "talent identification" or deterministic predictions, but rather as one data source to help refine training, recovery, and injury prevention protocols.

- The program emphasizes using rigorous scientific standards and integrating DNA data with other sources to provide a comprehensive, ongoing view of an individual's fitness and wellness profile.

Article

DNA As Coach, Not Destiny

Andrew Steele’s Biohacker Summit 2016 London Talk Argued For A More Personal Science Of Fitness And Food

On 21 May 2016 at Biohacker Summit 2016 London, Andrew Steele stood before an audience already fluent in the language of self-optimization and made a case for something both seductive and sobering. DNA, he suggested, could help sharpen the way people train, eat and recover. But it could not, and should not, be mistaken for fate.

Steele, an Olympic 400m runner for Great Britain and founder and Head of Product at DNAFit, framed genetics not as a verdict on human potential but as a practical tool. His presentation, titled *DNA Q&A*, moved through the increasingly crowded territory where sport, nutrition and genomics meet, and tried to separate useful guidance from genetic mysticism.

“Understanding your genetic data is not the be-all and end-all of everything you need,” Steele said, “but it is an important data source that acts as a key to unlocking your potential.”

That distinction mattered. In a culture that often turns biology into prophecy, Steele’s central message was refreshingly resistant to determinism. Genes, in his telling, were not a prison. They were a starting point.

A Science Of Difference, Not A Theory Of Limits

At the heart of Steele’s argument was a simple premise: generic advice often fails because bodies do not respond in generic ways.

The modern fitness and nutrition landscape is full of contradictory commandments. Lift heavy. Lift light. Eat high fat. Eat low fat. Fear carbohydrates. Embrace them. Steele suggested that at least part of this confusion came from the fact that multiple approaches can work, but not equally well for everyone.

“We are all different from the same starting point,” he said. “Understanding how we differ on a genetic level can lead to better, personalized nutrition and fitness advice.”

His company’s reports, he explained, were designed to turn clusters of SNPs, or single nucleotide polymorphisms, into accessible recommendations. Rather than overwhelming users with raw genomic information, the aim was to create a first port of call: what genetic variants are present, what they may mean, and what practical changes might follow.

That could include a raised need for cruciferous vegetables based on detoxification genes such as GSTM1 and GSTT1, a moderate response to VO2 max training, or a heightened predisposition to injury and slower recovery. The point was not merely to label people, but to give them a more individualized framework for action.

Power, Endurance, And The Middle Ground Between Them

One of the most compelling sections of Steele’s talk focused on what he called a power or endurance response algorithm, built from 15 SNPs associated with response to different training stimuli.

Here, Steele was careful. This was not, he stressed, talent identification. It was not about deciding whether someone was born to be a sprinter, a marathon runner or a champion at all. It was about refining the route to a goal, not replacing the goal itself.

“Within the spectrum of what you are trying to achieve, use your genetics to help you place your priority and pick your battles,” he said.

That idea allowed for nuance. A person with a stronger endurance profile who wanted to become a powerlifter would not be told to run 10Ks. A marathoner with a stronger power response would not suddenly be redirected toward weightlifting. Instead, training would be adjusted within the demands of the chosen sport.

For a 400m runner, Steele explained, that spectrum might range from explosive Olympic lifts at one end to aerobic interval sessions at the other. For an endurance athlete with latent power tendencies, resistance training might shift toward heavier loads and fewer repetitions, while cardio sessions might include more intense interval structures.

The ambition was modest, but meaningful: make better choices inside the discipline someone already inhabits.

Research, Caution, And The Rejection Of Genetic Fatalism

Steele also described early research conducted with university-level athletes at the University of Manchester and the University of Central Lancashire. In that study, participants were matched or mismatched to resistance training programs based on the genetic algorithm, and assessed using power and endurance performance measures.

The cohort was small, Steele acknowledged, and the findings preliminary. But he spoke with the excitement of someone who believed the field was beginning to move from speculation toward measurable use.

Just as importantly, he returned repeatedly to what the science could not justify.

“You cannot use it for talent id, you cannot and you should not and it should never be used for that,” he said.

It was a necessary warning. Sports genetics has long been haunted by fantasies of sorting children into futures before they can choose them. Steele rejected that logic outright. His argument rested instead on interaction: genes matter, but only through the environments they meet.

“The genotype means nothing once you make the right environment change,” he said. “That is the whole message I try to get across to everyone.”

Muscle Fibres, Injury Risk, And The Biology Beneath The Advice

When questioned about the physiological basis of these profiles, Steele pointed to genes linked to muscle fibre propensity and connective tissue resilience.

The ACTN3 gene, often discussed in sports science, may influence an individual’s tendency to develop fast-twitch muscle fibres under the right training conditions. Other genes, including GDF5, COL1A1 and COL5A1, can shape predisposition to connective tissue injuries.

But again, predisposition was not destiny. Steele’s examples were deliberately earthy. A person genetically prone to tendon issues would probably remain injury-free if they spent every day “sit[ting] in a jacuzzi,” he joked. By contrast, someone with a favourable injury profile could still end up with Achilles tendinopathy through reckless training loads.

It was not a glamorous idea, but it was a humane one. Biology mattered. So did behaviour. Neither could sensibly be interpreted without the other.

Nutrition Beyond Fashion

If training advice is crowded with dogma, nutrition may be even worse. Steele approached this terrain with the same mixture of enthusiasm and restraint.

Using markers such as FTO, FABP2 and TCF7L2, DNAFit sought to identify whether someone might be more sensitive to saturated fats, refined carbohydrates or glycaemic load. That did not mean a person’s genes could dictate the perfect diet. It meant they could help explain why one popular diet trend left one person thriving and another stalled.

The FTO gene served as Steele’s most vivid example. In a large study he referenced, individuals with the AA genotype appeared more likely to accumulate body fat when dietary fat intake increased, while other genotypes showed far less change. The finding complicated the idea that high-fat eating is universally beneficial.

For those with certain variants, he suggested, the contemporary permission to eat saturated fat with abandon might be misplaced. The broader lesson was not that fats were bad or carbohydrates good, but that dietary advice had to become more discriminating.

Similarly, the TCF7L2 gene, associated with type 2 diabetes risk, illustrated the power of environmental intervention. A higher-risk genotype did not sentence anyone to disease. It simply made the wrong dietary pattern more costly.

“You can cancel out any negative connotation from a gene through the correct physical activity and diet,” Steele said.

The Bitter Taste Of Personalization

Perhaps the most memorable moment of the session came not from a graph but from a strip of paper.

Steele invited the audience to try a simple taste test linked to the TAS2R38 gene, known as the supertaster gene. For some, the paper was nearly tasteless. For others, it was sharply, revoltingly bitter. The room divided instantly along invisible biological lines.

The demonstration worked because it made genetics tangible. A single SNP could profoundly alter perception, not in theory but on the tongue. And from there, Steele suggested, it was not difficult to imagine how such differences might shape eating habits, especially in children sensitive to bitter vegetables such as broccoli or Brussels sprouts.

It was one of the clearest illustrations of the talk’s larger theme: people inhabit the same world differently, and biology can help explain why.

Recovery, Inflammation, And The Limits Of Universal Protocols

The discussion widened to cover detoxification markers, inflammatory response and recovery. Variants in GST and catalase-related pathways, Steele and fellow speaker Alessandro noted, may influence how efficiently someone handles oxidative stress after hard exercise.

For some athletes, chronic endurance work may provoke a more counterproductive inflammatory response, leaving them worn down rather than strengthened. For others, nutrition changes, including greater intake of cruciferous vegetables or adjustments to fat composition, may help support better physiological balance.

There was even room for comic realism. In discussing ketogenic diets, Alessandro referred to the digestive consequences some people experience when the wrong fats are emphasized as “disaster pants,” a phrase Steele gleefully repeated to audience laughter.

It was a silly line in a serious conversation, but it underscored an important point. Personalized nutrition is often not about ideology. It is about tolerability, recovery and what a body can actually use well.

DNA As One Signal Among Many

One of the strongest elements of Steele’s presentation was his refusal to oversell.

He compared genetic data to other forms of personal tracking, such as heart rate variability. Useful, yes. Complete, no. DNA should sit alongside training history, lifestyle, goals, subjective feedback and other biomarkers, not tower over them.

That perspective felt especially valuable in a room predisposed to embrace optimization. Biohacking can drift easily into the fantasy that one more metric will finally explain everything. Steele resisted that temptation.

Instead, he proposed a more grounded future for consumer genetics: one in which DNA helps people train smarter, recover more strategically and eat with greater self-knowledge, while leaving room for uncertainty, coaching judgment and lived experience.

At Biohacker Summit 2016 London, Andrew Steele did not promise a revolution in human performance. He offered something subtler and perhaps more durable: a language for individual difference that neither flatters nor condemns, but guides.

In the end, that may be the most useful thing genetic science can do. Not tell us who we must become, but help us understand how we might better get there.

Part of Biohacker Summit 2016 London