A letter will be sent to all candidates for this research project, followed by a phone call from a MCTFR recruiter. If you receive a letter but no phone call we may not have a current phone number for you. Please go to the home page of this website and enter your current contact information, or call the project recruiter directly at 612-626-0833 and leave a message with your full name and updated information.

We started recruiting participants for this project in December 2005 and will continue to recruit for this project through August 2008. If you are a twin and you gave blood at a visit to the MCTFR between December 2005 and now, it is likely that you have already participated in this project.

Each person receives $25.00 for participating in the blood draw. Unfortunately, due to the complicated nature of this kind of research, we cannot provide you with any results from your DNA sample. Click here to read more about why we cannot share individual results.

If you are a candidate for this particular study, a recruiter will be contacting you. In order to obtain a DNA sample with minimal inconvenience to you, we offer several ways to get involved. A phlebotomist (blood drawer) at the Twin Family Study is available to conduct draws in our lab on the University of Minnesota Campus in Minneapolis. Appointments for draws at the Twin Family Study will be scheduled on an individual basis. If coming to University of Minnesota Campus for a draw is not convenient for you, we also offer the options of doing your draw at your local clinic or having someone come to you. This option is even available for our out-of-state participants! To have someone come to you, we contract with a professional firm specializing in taking blood samples. If you agree to participate, a representative of a laboratory testing company will call you to schedule an appointment for a phlebotomist to come to your home or work at your convenience to take a blood sample. A typical appointment takes about fifteen minutes.