Latest publication in NATURE from our unit

The level of educational attainment as measured by years of schooling completed, while strongly influenced by social and environmental factors, has also been shown to have a smaller genetic contribution. Colleagues from the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC) - including Prof Franco Cappuccio from the University of Warwick - now report a genome-wide association study in 293,723 individuals identifying 74 genetic variants associated with level of educational attainment. Although the genetic associations explain only a small proportion of the variation in educational attainment, they highlight candidate genes and pathways for further study.

The full results are published in Okbay A et al. Genome-wide association study identifies 74 loci associated with educational attainment. Nature 2016; 533: 539-542

and can be downloaded at

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v533/n7604/full/nature17671.html