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Personal genomes: The case of the missing heritability

Nature volume 456, pages 18–21 (2008)Cite this article

When scientists opened up the human genome, they expected to find the genetic components of common traits and diseases. But they were nowhere to be seen. Brendan Maher shines a light on six places where the missing loot could be stashed away.

If you want to predict how tall your children might one day be, a good bet would be to look in the mirror, and at your mate. Studies going back almost a century have estimated that height is 80–90% heritable. So if 29 centimetres separate the tallest 5% of a population from the shortest, then genetics would account for as many as 27 of them1.

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  1. Brendan Maher
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See Editorial, page 1, and News Feature, page 26.

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A Catalog of Published Genome-Wide Association Studies

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Maher, B. Personal genomes: The case of the missing heritability. Nature 456, 18–21 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/456018a

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