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After the human genome was sequenced, popular press accounts suggested that researchers would soon pick out, one by one, the genes conferring risk for various disorders, leading the way to a revolution in understanding of health and disease. Subsequent studies and analysis lead to a more sobering, although still hopeful, conclusion.
A review article and three essays from the New England Journal of Medicine discuss the implications of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for future clinical practice. Although the authors do not address psychiatric disorders, their provocative discussions are applicable to genetics research in the psychiatric field.
Goldstein uses the examples of a disease (diabetes) as complex as psychiatric illness and a co…