Home ยป The Daily Scan

A GWAS Cheat Sheet

July 20, 2010

At Genomes Unzipped, Jeff Barrett gives a how-to on determining whether a genome-wide association study is "a landmark finding or a dud." Five factors to take into consideration, he says, are sample size, quality control, confounders, replication, and biology. "The biggest challenge to successfully carrying out a GWAS is getting good, clean genotype data. Pay close attention not only to the standard QC metrics ... but also to whether extra attention was focused on the genotypes of the most associated SNPs," he writes. In general, he adds that "you should be suspicious" if the study contained fewer than 1,000 cases and controls.

thank you! very nice

Submitted by captaindory on Tue, 07/20/2010 - 12:55.

thank you! very nice

I do not trust GWAS studies;

Submitted by lermanmi on Tue, 07/20/2010 - 17:27.

I do not trust GWAS studies; I remember in an early study on kidney cancer
they didn't detect the genes causing renal cell carcinomas; the biology underlaying GWAS studies I looked at was not properly formulated.