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What to Do With the GWAS

April 16, 2009

In three commentaries in the New England Journal of Medicine, Children's Hospital's Joel Hirschhorn, Duke's David Goldstein, and Harvard's Peter Kraft and David Hunter discuss the complexity basis of common genetic diseases. The New York Times' Nicholas Wade characterizes the disagreements among the researchers as "whether, despite the prospect of diminishing returns, to continue with the genomewide studies, which cost many millions of dollars apiece, or switch to a new approach." Hirschhorn is optimistic. "I predict that by the 2012 ASHG meeting, genomewide association studies will have yielded important new biologic insights for at least four common diseases or polygenic traits," he writes. Goldstein is less so, suggesting that the "modest effect of common variation on most human disease" should lead researchers to instead focus on uncovering rare variants. Kraft and Hunter take the middle way and write that the risk estimates need to be refined as it's "too early in the cycle of discovery for most tests that are based on newly discovered associations to provide stable estimates of genetic risk for many diseases."

meh.....we already knew this

Submitted by The Sherpa on Thu, 04/16/2009 - 12:50.

meh.....we already knew this

Agree! Any one who knows

Submitted by jawechi on Thu, 04/16/2009 - 14:29.

Agree! Any one who knows anything about genome wide studies already knew all this. If anyone has any sense, one would also know that you can't put all your eggs in one basket, and that BOTH approaches will be necessary, depending on the phenotype or genetic scenario. These articles representing "opposing" camps is NEJM's juvenile approach to generate more readership through a sensational topic. Do these commentaries really move science forward by creating more conflict? Seems to me someone should try to get everyone to play together and combine efforts in this field. The GWAS studies have launched the field of genetics into next level, both from a scientific and public awareness perspective. Why bring that down with these useless debates. Bottom line is we need both approaches to get the job done!