“In the space of just 3 years, the HapMap has delivered this remarkable picture of how DNA variation has occurred across all chromosomes,” he said. “This has been a gold mine of information for people trying to unravel the genetic contributions of diabetes, heart disease, mental illness, blindness, and a whole host of conditions that fill up our hospitals and our clinics.”
If medical researchers really want to know how genetic variation affects predisposition to illness, “we're going to need more data, and the good news is, in another 2 or 3 years, we're going to have a lot more data on this subject and will be much more poised to do something about it,” he said.
International HapMap Project information can be found online at www.hapmap.org