GWAS: heritability missing in action?

We have followed with interest the discussion in your journal and elsewhere of the contribution of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to the elucidation of the aetiology of complex disorders. Although GWAS have been very successful in identifying specific loci and/or genomic regions that contribute to the causation of certain disorders, there has been some disappointment that only a small proportion of the heritability of many conditions has been accounted for.1, 2 Although fully aware of the inherent limitations of GWAS, we nevertheless believe that the ‘failure' of this approach may well have been overstated owing to previous misconceptions regarding available measures of heritability.

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