Introduction to genetic analysis workshop 15 summaries

The 15th biennial Genetic Analysis Workshop (GAW15) took place November 11-15, 2006 in St. Pete Beach, Florida. The workshop's primary focus was on the appropriate linkage, association, and other analyses of the increasingly large datasets generated by genetics research. A record number of participants (N = 350) contributed 252 papers to GAW15. These contributions were organized into 17 presentation groups, with a range of 11 to 18 papers in each group (median of 15 papers per group). The data sets - or "problems" - for GAW15 included information from two real data sets and a simulated data set. The first problem utilizing real data included gene expression as the phenotype and genome-wide markers for linkage and association studies. The second problem allowed for detecting and characterizing genetic effects for rheumatoid arthritis. And the simulated problem was generated to reflect the data structure underlying the rheumatoid arthritis study. Further details on GAW15 are provided here, and the primary findings from the workshop are highlighted in the following group summary papers.