So maybe GWAS aren’t completely useless
The standard treatment for infection with the hepatitis C virus is a grueling 48-week course of the antiviral drugs interferon and ribavirin that gives some patients flulike symptoms and severe depression. The treatment varies in its effectiveness, being much more successful in Americans of European descent than in African-Americans.A Duke University team has now uncovered the principal reason for the disparity between the races. It lies not in differing compliance to the treatment or access to health care, as some have assumed, but in genetics.Using a genetic test called a genome-wide association study, the Duke team, led by David B. Goldstein and John McHutchison, found that the coding at a single site on the DNA, out of the three billion sites in the human genome, made all the difference in people’s response to the treatment.
I suppose it’s all about what questions one chooses to ask.
[Hat tip: Linda]
I work as an Assistant Professor in the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (although this site and its content are my own).
In 2007 I became the fourth subject in Harvard geneticist George Church's Personal Genome Project. As the PGP moves forward, I am chronicling the dawn of personal genomics, that is, people obtaining their genomic information for whatever reason(s) and figuring out what to do with it. I am interested in the relevant technologies and especially the attendant privacy and other ethical/legal/social issues.
This blog may also discuss some of my non-genome interests or, to paraphrase Dwight Yoakam, "Guitars, Cadillacs, hillbilly music, etc etc."
The header image comes from the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's multimedia performance piece, "Ferocious Beauty: Genome."