Largest ever study of genetics of common diseases published 11/06/07. By the Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium publishes its findings.

The Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, the largest ever study of the genetics behind common diseases such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and coronary heart disease, has published its findings in the journals Nature and Nature Genetics.

The £9 million study is one of the UK's biggest and most successful academic collaborations to date. It has examined DNA samples from 17 000 people across the UK, bringing together 50 leading research groups and 200 scientists in the field of human genetics from dozens of UK institutions. Over two years, they have analysed almost 10 billion pieces of genetic information.

The study has substantially increased the number of genes known to play a role in the development of some of our most common diseases. Many of the genes that have been found are in areas of the genome not previously thought to have been related to the diseases.

References

Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium. Genome-wide association study of 14,000 cases of seven common diseases and 3,000 shared controls. Nature 2007;447(7145):661-78. Abstract

Parkes M et al. Sequence variants in the autophagy gene IRGM and multiple other replicating loci contribute to Crohn's disease susceptibility. Nat Genet 2007;39(7):830-2. Abstract

Todd JA et al. Robust associations of four new chromosome regions from genome-wide analyses of type 1 diabetes. Nat Genet 2007;39(7):857-64. Abstract

Links

• Full press release
• Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium