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Genes and disease: OHRI scientists contribute to guidelines for reporting genetic associations


February 3, 2009

Several high-profile medical journals are publishing the results of a recent initiative designed to enhance the transparency of reporting in genetic-association studies — performed to determine whether a genetic variant is associated with a disease or trait. The publication comes at a time when experts in the field are faced with a high volume of reports linking genes with common illness, but have difficulty making sense of the information.

The Annals of Internal Medicine; the European Journal of Epidemiology; the European Journal of Clinical Investigation; Genetic Epidemiology; Human Genetics; the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, as well as PLoS Medicine featured the paper on STrengthening the REporting of Genetic Association studies (STREGA). Several of these journals also published editorials on the topic.

The initiative was led by Dr. Julian Little, professor in the department of epidemiology and community medicine at the University of Ottawa. OHRI scientists Dr. David Moher and Dr. Jeremy Grimshaw also contributed.

Links:
University of Ottawa press release
STREGA on the Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine website
STREGA paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine