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Phenotypic data from electronic health records and epidemiological studies can be exploited to study the impact of genetic variation on the phenome. This Review highlights challenges that need to be overcome for the characterization of the complex human genome–phenome relationship using phenome-wide association studies (PheWAS).
RNA-guided endonucleases have the potential to revolutionize the engineering of synthetic gene drives, which may be particularly useful for the control of vector-borne diseases. Here, the authors review different types of engineered gene drives and their potential applications, as well as considerations regarding the safety and regulation of gene drives for the manipulation of wild populations.
Genome-wide approaches have advanced the study into mechanisms triggering autoimmunity. This Review illustrates how this has been achieved for twelve common autoimmune diseases, and discusses recent functional genomics approaches that have the potential to help define key immune molecular traits, cell types and cell states.
Single-cell genome sequencing can provide detailed insights into the composition of single genomes that are not readily apparent when studying bulk cell populations. This Review discusses the considerable technical challenges of amplifying and interrogating genomes from single cells, emerging innovative solutions and various applications in microbiology and human disease, in particular in cancer.