Sixty seconds on . . . genetic studies

Here we go. What am I inheriting now?I sense some scepticism. But maybe that’s no surprise given that, ever since the human genome project was completed in the early 2000s, not a week goes by without another revelation about our genes—often from large, population level datasets such as UK Biobank or genome-wide association studies.But are they representative?That’s the question. A new study based on 30 000 people’s data from UK Biobank and published in Nature Genetics found a genetic component to a person’s probability to participate in genetic studies.1 That is, people who participate in genetic studies are genetically more likely to participate in genetic studies.Calling Captain Obvious!Not as obvious as it may seem. One might expect such findings to be correlation rather than causation and to be explained by confounding factors. But the researchers found that the “footprints” of genetic bias were distinct from the genetic components of traits…
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