Obesity is globally prevalent and highly heritable, but its underlying genetic factors remain
largely elusive. To identify genetic loci for obesity susceptibility, we examined associations …

Background The study of microbial communities has been revolutionised in recent years by
the widespread adoption of culture independent analytical techniques such as 16S rRNA …

Background Susceptibility to asthma is influenced by genes and environment; implicated
genes may indicate pathways for therapeutic intervention. Genetic risk factors may be useful in …

Asthma is caused by a combination of poorly understood genetic and environmental factors
1 , 2 . We have systematically mapped the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs…

Background A rich microbial environment in infancy protects against asthma [1] , [2] and
infections precipitate asthma exacerbations [3] . We compared the airway microbiota at three …

We have created a global map of the effects of polymorphism on gene expression in 400
children from families recruited through a proband with asthma. We genotyped 408,273 SNPs …

Waist-hip ratio (WHR) is a measure of body fat distribution and a predictor of metabolic
consequences independent of overall adiposity. WHR is heritable, but few genetic variants …

We performed a genome-wide association study of non-Hispanic, white individuals with fibrotic
idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIPs; n = 1,616) and controls (n = 4,683), with follow-up …

Concentrations of liver enzymes in plasma are widely used as indicators of liver disease.
We carried out a genome-wide association study in 61,089 individuals, identifying 42 loci …

Rationale: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive lung disease of unknown
cause that leads to respiratory failure and death within 5 years of diagnosis. Overt respiratory …