title: Statistical false positive or true disease pathway?
abstract: Three very recent reports provide convincing statistical evidence (P < 10(-8)), at a genome-wide level, of the association of common polymorphisms with three different common diseases: systemic lupus erythematosus (IRF5), prostate cancer and type 1 diabetes (IFIH1 region). This adds to the trickle--soon to be a flood--of disease association results that are highly unlikely to be false positives. There are other convincing examples in the last 12 months: age-related macular degeneration (CFH), type 1 diabetes (IL2RA, also known as CD25) and type 2 diabetes (TCF7L2). Given 20 years of a literature full of irreproducible results, what has changed?
authors.affiliation: University of Cambridge, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation/Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Addenbrooke's Hospital Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB2 2XY, UK. john.todd@cimr.cam.ac.uk
authors.forename: John A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Todd
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D001699:Biometry; D004843:Epistasis, Genetic; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D005260:Female; D030342:Genetic Diseases, Inborn / Q000235:genetics*; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D023281:Genomics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic