Associating COMT with Schizophrenia: Statistical Tools in Population-Based Genetic Studies

Biological research in human is motivated to a large degree by the promise of discovery of new drugs for the cure of common diseases. This process of developing a new drug is time consuming and expensive. However, the human and economic rewards from putting in the market a new product are immense. It is of no surprise, thus, that extensive resources, both from the academic world and from pharmaceutical companies, are devoted to drug-related research. The process of discovery is typically initiated by the identification of a target: A biological pathway or a protein within a pathway, which is connected to, or even leading to, the development of the given disease. Once such a pathway (or protein) is detected, compounds that affect the biological function may be tested towards becoming the new drug.

An important track for the identification of such targets is via genetic studies. This track has been paved during the last two decades with the emergence of new technologies that allow the “reading” of genetic information from DNA molecules. New vigor was added to this approach in recent years with the completion of the Human Genome Project and the sequencing of the entire human genome. An outgrowth of this project is the mapping of a practically unlimited number of bi-allelic genomic markers, termed Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms or SNPs in short.