Genetic association is the occurrence, more often than can be readily explained by chance, of two or more traits in a population of individuals, of which at least one trait is known to be genetic.
Studies of genetic association aim to test whether single-locus alleles or genotype frequencies (or more generally, multilocus haplotype frequencies) differ between two groups of individuals (usually diseased subjects and healthy controls). Genetic association studies are based on the principle that genotypes can be compared "directly", i.e. with the sequences of the actual genomes.
Read more about Genetic Association: What Is Genetic Association?, Statistical Programs of Association Analysis
Famous quotes containing the words genetic and/or association:
“We cannot think of a legitimate argument why ... whites and blacks need be affected by the knowledge that an aggregate difference in measured intelligence is genetic instead of environmental.... Given a chance, each clan ... will encounter the world with confidence in its own worth and, most importantly, will be unconcerned about comparing its accomplishments line-by-line with those of any other clan. This is wise ethnocentricism.”
—Richard Herrnstein (1930–1994)
“They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful and captious; tenacious of their own practices and maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence; and impatient of any association but with those that will watch their nod, and submit themselves to unlimited authority.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)