The Epilepsy Genetic Association D …
The Epilepsy Genetic Association Database (epiGAD) is an online repository of data relating to genetic association studies in the field of epilepsy. It summarizes the results of both published and unpublished studies, and is intended as a tool for researchers in the field to keep abreast of recent studies, providing a "bird's eye view" of this research area.
The goal of epiGAD is to collate all association studies in epilepsy in order to help researchers in this area identify all the available gene-disease associations. Finally, by including unpublished studies, it hopes to reduce the problem of publication bias and provide more accurate data for future meta-analyses. It is also hoped that epiGAD will foster collaboration between the different epilepsy genetics groups around the world, and faciliate formation of a network of investigators in epilepsy genetics.
There are 4 databases within epiGAD:
- the susceptibility genes database
- the epilepsy pharmacogenetics database
- the meta-analysis database
- the genome-wide association studies (GWAS) database
The susceptibility genes database compiles all studies related to putative epilepsy susceptibility genes (eg. interleukin-1-beta in TLE), while the pharmacogenetics studies in epilepsy (eg. ABCB1 studies) are stored in 'phamacogenetics'. The meta-analysis database compiles all existing published epilepsy genetic meta-analyses, whether for susceptibility genes, or pharmacogenetics. The GWAS database is currently empty, but will be filled once GWAS are published.