Researchers propose deep trawl of DNA to help uncover the causes of ME/CFS (Simon McG blog)

[Tom Kindlon]

 

[Simon M]

Update [to blog]:
Eric Lander highlighted further GWAS successes at a recent lecture at the Broad Institute (which is based at Harvard and MIT).

• Heart disease. Analysis of significant SNPs revealed that HDL-cholesterol is not protective (which explains why the $5 billion investment by the Pharma industry in drugs that increase HDL came to nothing). Instead, they reveal that triglycerides are a risk. It turns out that HDL is negatively correlated with triglycerides so the correlation of HDL with heart disease was correlation not causation.

• Inflammatory bowel disease. 10 new significant biological pathways identified. Autophagy, where the body kills off old cells, recycling their contents, and TGF beta signalling, were identified as therapeutic targets.

• Alzheimer’s disease. Microglia, the immune cells of the brain, have been shown to play a key role in the disease.

• Obesity. GWAS shows that thermogenesis (where “brown fat” cells burn off fat to produce heat) is an important pathway impacting on BMI.

 

[Saz94]

When is the GWAS likely to happen?

 

[InitialConditions]

When is the GWAS likely to happen?

The question is still 'Is' rather than 'When is', but if funded my guess would be from 2021 onwards, for perhaps three years.