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Sex-stratified GWAS analyses for 530 traits within 452,264 individuals of European ancestry from the UK Biobank provide insights into the scope of genotype by sex (GxS) interactions and the genetics of sex differences.

Delirium is a sudden change in mental function that is common in hospitalized older adults. To better understand this serious condition, Raptis et al. analyze large-scale genetic and proteomic datasets. They provide evidence that APOE-ε4 increases the risk for delirium independently of dementia, and highlight potentially clinically relevant plasma proteins.

The authors investigated over 100 human complex traits in 80,889 couples from UK Biobank, finding evidence that the genotype of one person explains trait variation in another person. The genotypes of those around us are an important part of our environment.

Albert Tenesa and colleagues report an analysis of the heritability of 12 complex diseases in 1,555,906 individuals from the UK Biobank. They find that SNP heritability explains a higher proportion of estimated heritability when shared familial environmental factors are taken into account.

Anna Köttgen and colleagues report genome-wide association studies for serum urate in over 140,000 individuals from the Global Urate Genetics Consortium (GUGC). They identify 18 loci newly associated with serum urate concentrations and confirm 10 known loci, characterize their associations with gout and include a network analysis suggesting a role for inhibins-activins pathways in regulating urate homeostasis.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

Availability of computing power can limit computational analysis of large genetic and genomic datasets. Here, Canela-Xandri, et al. describe a software called DISSECT that is capable of analyzing large-scale genetic data by distributing the work across thousands of networked computers.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

Recent studies have identified common genetic variants that contribute to colorectal cancer aetiology, providing new insight into the genetic architecture of the disease. Associations identified so far suggest an overlap with familial cases in terms of biological mechanisms, and also provide new avenues for exploration.

Heritability estimates provide a useful means of understanding the genetic and environmental contributions to phenotypic variance. The authors define heritability, discuss how to estimate and interpret it in the context of disease and examine how biases in heritability estimates arise.

Natural hair colour in Europeans is a complex genetic trait. Here, the authors carry out a genome-wide association study using UK BioBank data, suggesting that in combination with pigmentation genes, variants with roles in hair texture and growth can affect hair colouration or our perception of it.

The pilot phase of PigGTEx, re-analyzing 5,457 published RNA-seq samples, presents a pan-tissue catalog of molecular quantitative trait loci. Cross-species comparisons identify traits with shared genetic regulation in humans.

GeneATLAS is a web resource that presents genetic association results for 118 non-binary and 660 binary traits using UK Biobank data. This atlas allows researchers to query these results without incurring high computational costs.

A genome-wide association study of critically ill patients with COVID-19 identifies genetic signals that relate to important host antiviral defence mechanisms and mediators of inflammatory organ damage that may be targeted by repurposing drug treatments.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

Kathryn Lunetta and colleagues report a meta-analysis of 22 genome-wide association studies for age at menopause. They identify 13 loci newly associated with age at natural menopause, including several candidate genes with roles in DNA repair and immune function.

Using a unique and rich data set of lifetime cognitive measures, the contribution of genetics to differences in cognitive ageing is explored.

Genetic studies of eczema to date have mostly explored common genetic variation. Here, the authors perform a large meta-analysis for common and rare variants and discover 8 loci associated with eczema. Over 20% of the heritability of the condition is attributable to rare variants.

The cattle Genotype–Tissue Expression atlas of expression and splicing QTLs is generated from 7,180 uniformly re-processed RNA-seq samples. Integration with GWAS identifies candidate genes and variants associated with economically important traits.

A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies in more than 66,000 individuals identifies 68 new genomic loci that reliably associate with platelet count and volume, and reveals new gene functions.

Parent-of-origin effects (POE) are observed when there are different effects from alleles inherited from the two parents on phenotypic measures. Here, Zeng et al. study POE on DNA methylation in 5,101 individuals and identify genetic variants that associate with methylation variation via POE and their potential phenotypic consequences.

Stuart Ralston and colleagues report results of a genome-wide association study for Paget's disease of bone. Their work identifies common variants at three loci associated with risk of this disease.

Haydeh Payami and colleagues report results of a genome-wide association study for Parkinson's disease. They identify common variants in the HLA region associated with the late-onset sporadic form of the disease and replicate published associations with SNCA, MAPT and GAK.

Crowdsourcing analysis improves computational prediction of cytotoxic responses in humans.

Ian Tomlinson, Richard Houlston, Malcolm Dunlop and colleagues report results of a large genome-wide association study of colorectal cancer. They identify four new risk loci and suggest that many more loci of similar effect size are likely to exist.

Richard Houlston and colleagues report a genome-wide association study for colorectal cancer. They report three loci newly associated with colorectal cancer, bringing the total number of common susceptibility loci to 20.

Richard Houlston and colleagues identify four new susceptibility loci for colorectal cancer through a meta-analysis of genome-wide association data, followed by replication testing in a large collection of independent samples. The study brings to ten the number of confirmed loci harboring low-penetrance risk alleles for this common malignancy.

A genome-wide association study finds an inverse relationship between progression of coronary artery disease and retinal vasculature’s complexity measured as fractal dimension, and validates a predictive model for myocardial infarction.