Editorial Autoimmune Disease Genetics 2013

License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The familial predilection toward autoimmunity is in part due to genetic risk factors, and recent studies have greatly expanded our understanding of the complex genetic architec-ture underlying autoimmune disease. Technical advances and the assembly of large patient cohorts have resulted in rapid progress in the field, which does not appear to be slowing. Studies which have included multiple ancestral backgrounds have demonstrated differences in risk factors between ances-tral backgrounds, as well as some similarities [1–3]. Also, genetic studies examining subphenotypes in autoimmune diseases have illustrated the idea of biological diversity within a complex condition, that different individuals with a given condition have different genetic risk factors, and some of th