A Brief History of Human Disease Genetics
Review A brief history of human disease genetics https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1879-7 Melina Claussnitzer1,2,3, Judy H. Cho4,5,6, Rory Collins7,8, Nancy J. Cox9, Emmanouil T. Dermitzakis10,11, Matthew E. Hurles12, Sekar Kathiresan2,13,14, Eimear E. Kenny4,6,15, Received: 16 July 2019 Cecilia M. Lindgren2,16,17, Daniel G. MacArthur2,13,18, Kathryn N. North19,20, Sharon E. Plon21,22, Accepted: 13 November 2019 Heidi L. Rehm2,13,18,23, Neil Risch24, Charles N. Rotimi25, Jay Shendure26,27,28, Nicole Soranzo12,29 & Mark I. McCarthy17,30,31,32* Published online: 8 January 2020 A primary goal of human genetics is to identify DNA sequence variants that infuence biomedical traits, particularly those related to the onset and progression of human disease. Over the past 25 years, progress in realizing this objective has been transformed by advances in technology, foundational genomic resources and analytical tools, and by access to vast amounts of genotype and phenotype data. Genetic discoveries have substantially improved our understanding of the mechanisms responsible for many rare and common diseases and driven development of novel preventative and therapeutic strategies. Medical innovation will increasingly focus on delivering care tailored to individual patterns of genetic predisposition. medicine, which was previously restricted to a few specific clinical Anniversary indications, is poised to go mainstream. collection: This Review charts recent milestones in the history of human disease go.nature.com/ genetics and provides an opportunity to reflect on lessons learned by nature150 the human genetics community. We focus first on the long-standing division between genetic discovery efforts targeting rare variants with large effects and those seeking alleles that influence predispo- sition to common diseases.
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