Phenome connections

Human phenomics is about to come of age with studies that systematically assess the overlap and relationships among all human genetic diseases. A recent study by Andrey Rzhetsky and colleagues illustrates the power of phenomics by revealing links between conditions that were thought to be distinct, suggesting that they share a genetic basis. Their results imply that the human phenome can be viewed as a landscape of interrelated diseases, reflecting overlapping molecular causation.