The purpose of this Neuron NeuroView is to describe the Psychiatric Genome-Wide Association Consortium (PGC) which was created in an attempt to conduct large-scale mega-analyses of GWAS data for psychiatric disorders. Psychiatric diseases are compelling targets for genetics research – they are mostly idiopathic, first-rank public health problems, and cause enormous morbidity, mortality, and personal/societal cost. Moreover, despite considerable research, little is known for certain about disease etiology. The fact that disease definition in psychiatry is descriptive poses particular problems. The diagnostic process relies heavily on signs and symptoms without recourse to biological means of distinguishing affected from unaffected individuals. This poses unique challenges for genetic studies. Although the PGC's focus has been in the area of psychiatric genetics, the organization and consortia approach which the PGC exemplifies could be a model for other disorders and more broadly, even outside of genetics, for other research communities applying high-throughput analytic approaches to biological problems.
