I’ve linked to a list of recent articles using a whole genome approach to studying diseases. Essentially this is a classic example of the post-Popperian approach to biomedical research–rather than treat the question as a detective story, carefully putting together a series of hypotheses to test a theory, we instead simply “print” out all of the genetic information and see what’s different. Of course is the case of many brain diseases this may obscure the role for the environment in the etiologies…but the advocates of this industrial style of science are gaining a good deal of strength (look at the journals where these article are published).
I do see a tremendous utility in such research from the standpoint of adding new potential therapeutic targets and also giving us clues outside a disease’s conventional dogma.
In the meantime, happy 2007.
Jim
Discoverers and Discoveries 