Genetics

This blog post examines a recent genetic study investigating Multiple Sclerosis susceptibility in individuals of South Asian and African ancestry living in the United Kingdom. The article highlights how MS genetics has historically been studied mainly in European populations and explains why broader ancestral representation is essential for improving genetic risk prediction, fine mapping disease-associated loci, and identifying biologically meaningful therapeutic targets. By analysing genome-wide and HLA-region associations, the study shows that many MS risk mechanisms appear to be shared across ancestries, while also revealing important differences in allele frequencies and polygenic risk score performance.