that play a role in disease. Though hundreds of genetic variants have been conclusively confirmed by GWAS as contributors to complex diseases, the number of confirmed genetic variants is more modest than what is expected from the candidate gene studies. Overall, only a modest percentage of the numerous genetic associations proposed in the candidate gene era have been subsequently replicated in genome wide association studies (Siontis et al., 2010), which suggests that many of the candidate gene studies were false positive reports. Interestingly, those that conclusively replicate have strong genetic effects.
