So far, genetic advances have been few. "There was really a misjudgment on the part of some in the field," says Kenneth Kendler, professor of psychiatry and human genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University. Today, the disease's other potential causes, working in tandem with schizophrenia's genetic component, are receiving considerable attention as well.
Many who participated had preconceived notions about the sample sizes required to mount the necessary statistical gene-finding power. Steven Moldin, chief of the NIMH's Genetics Research Branch, says that researchers expected 100 families would do the trick. As it turned out, that number was off by an order of magnitude.
Some investigators presumed they would find a straightforward relationship between gene and disease, but they learned that with schizophrenia, as with other complex diseases, simple Mendelian genetics did not apply. Moreover, researchers underestimated the number of loci across the genome that could be involved and the degree of ...
