Psychiatric Genomics Consortium: From Gwas Findings To Drug Targets

Abstract

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in psychiatry that reach sufficient sample size for power to detect common variant effect sizes have been enormously successful. The Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) aims for mega-analyses with sample sizes that will grow to >1 million individuals in the next few years. This should lead to hundreds of new findings for common genetic variants across the nine psychiatric disorders studied by the PGC. The new targets discovered by GWAS have the potential to restart largely stalled psychiatric drug development pipelines, and the translation of GWAS findings into the clinic is a key aim of the recently funded phase 3 of the PGC. This is not without considerable technical challenges. Using the example of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, I will discuss what evidence there is that existing drugs are indicated by GWAS results and how GWAS can be used to identify novel drug targets and potential drug repositioning opportunities.