Are genome-wide association studies all that we need to dissect the genetic component of complex human diseases?

With the availability of dense maps of anonymous and frequent SNPs spanning the whole human genome, genome-wide association studies are now becoming a reality. In this paper, we discuss the utility of these approaches to detect genetic risk variants involved in complex disease susceptibility and, in the best case scenario where a signal is detected, how helpful it will be to the understanding of the pathological process.European Journal of Human Genetics advance online publication, 13 December 2006; doi:10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201753