“Last year, in a paper published in Molecular Psychiatry, Stan Skafidas and colleagues made a remarkable claim: a simple genetic test could be used to predict autism risk from birth. The degree of genetic predictive power suggested by the paper was unprecedented for a common disease, let alone for a disease as complex and poorly understood as autism. However, instead of representing a revolution in autism research, many scientists felt that the paper illustrated the pitfalls of pursuing genetic risk prediction. After nearly a year of study, two papers have shown how the Skafidas et al. study demonstrates the dangers of poor experimental design and biases due to important confounders.” (from the article in Genomes Unzipped: The perils of genetic risk prediction in autism, October 28, 2013)

Read full article in Genomes Unzipped.