World Congress in Psychiatric Genetics 2011
I'm on my way back from the 2011 World Congress in Psychiatric Genetics, so here's a brief subjective account of some aspects of where the field seems to be. Methodology Results from sequencing studies, particularly whole-exome sequencing, are starting to trickle through. They are likely to turn into a flood over the next year. Sequencing studies carry the promise of finally being able to detect rare DNA changes having a really major effect on disease risk. Some concerns exist that sequencing studies confined to the exome may miss important mutations in non-coding regions. It remains to be seen how severe this problem will be in practice. Sequencing the genome rather than the exome is more expensive and yields vast amounts of data which may be difficult to interpret. Even with exome sequencing, a major challenge will be how to recognize which are likely to be disease-relevant mutations among the many thousands of variants each subject will possess. With sequencing studies w