Study reveals broad 'genetic architectures' of traits and diseases

Scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have developed a powerful method for characterizing the broad patterns of genetic contributions to traits and diseases. The new method provides a "big picture" of genetic influences that should be particularly helpful in designing future genetic studies and understanding potential for genetic risk prediction. The scientists, in a study published on Aug. 13 in the journal Nature Genetics, mined existing data from genetic studies and used novel statistical techniques to obtain estimates of the numbers of DNA variations that contribute to different physical traits and diseases, including height, BMI, childhood IQ, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, heart disease and bipolar disorder.