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The authorship network of genome-wide association studies

Nature Genetics volume 44, page 113 (2012)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of complex human traits have become an important approach in human genetics. Taken together, GWAS are arguably the largest biological investigations of humans ever conducted. The total number of people genotyped to date with a GWAS array is difficult to know but probably exceeds 1,000,000. Major findings from these studies are that many common diseases have a polygenic architecture, the genetic effect sizes of common SNP variants are small, the identification of the involvement of genes and biological processes not previously suspected, and the association of some loci with different diseases1,2. Critically, the sample sizes necessary to identify robust and replicable findings are beyond those achievable by single groups, and collaborations have rapidly evolved to augment statistical power.

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Figure 1: Coauthorship network graph for GWAS published 2005–2008.

References

  1. Hindorff, L.A. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 106, 9362–9367 (2009).

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  2. Lander, E.S. Nature 470, 187–197 (2011).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by US National Institutes of Health grants MH077139 and MH085520.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Berkeley, California, USA

    Brendan K. Bulik-Sullivan

  2. Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

    Patrick F. Sullivan

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  1. Brendan K. Bulik-Sullivan
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  2. Patrick F. Sullivan
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Correspondence to Patrick F. Sullivan.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Methods, Supplementary FIgures 1–4 and Supplementary Tables 1 and 2. (PDF 6072 kb)

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Bulik-Sullivan, B., Sullivan, P. The authorship network of genome-wide association studies. Nat Genet 44, 113 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.1052

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