With DNA Dating App Pheramor, You Swab, Then Swipe For Love

Christopher Plata doesn't have time or patience for bad dates anymore. The 30 year-old nursing student has been trying for years to meet Mr. Right--first on Grindr and Compatible Partners (eHarmony's queer subsidiary), and more recently on Bumble--and has yet to find someone with whom he shares a real connection. "I've really been through the ringer," he says. So in December, while he was attending Houston's Day For Night music festival, he stopped by a booth hawking cheek swabs, and handed over a few thousand cheek cells in the name of love. The booth belonged to Pheramor, a Houston-based online dating startup that claims to use your DNA as the secret sauce in its matchmaking formulation.