Microarray Technology and Applications in the Arena of Genome-Wide Association‪.‬

The genetic underpinnings of complex disease, such as diabetes, asthma, and inflammatory bowel disease, have remained largely elusive until very recently, when the advent of new array-based technologies has enabled investigators to leverage genetic variation across the entire genome, in a nonhypothetical manner, to pinpoint these major genetic factors. This progress was made possible by key developments in human genomics over the last decade. The completion of the human genome sequence was a crucial prerequisite. The subsequent International Hap-Map Project (1, 2) yielded insights into human genetic diversity. During this same period advances in single-base extension biochemistry and hybridization/detection to synthetic oligonucleotides have made it possible to accurately genotype hundreds of thousands of genetic variants, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), (3) in tandem (3).