Genetics

Genetic risk scores are often marketed as powerful tools that can predict who is more likely to develop diseases like multiple sclerosis—but most of these tools have been built using data from people of European ancestry. This blog post walks through a new study that put one of the leading MS genetic risk scores to the test in a large, diverse U.S. cohort. The findings are both sobering and hopeful: the score works reasonably well for people with European and Latino/admixed ancestry, but largely falls short for people of African ancestry—until newer, ancestry-aware methods are used. Along the way, we unpack why this happens, what it reveals about bias baked into genetic research, and how smarter study design and modeling can move us toward truly equitable precision medicine.