Genetics

This blog post examines a study published in Brain Communications that evaluates whether European-derived polygenic risk scores can accurately predict multiple sclerosis risk in individuals of South Asian ancestry. Using data from the Genes & Health cohort and UK Biobank, the article shows that genetic risk scores developed from European genome-wide association studies have weaker predictive performance in British–Bangladeshi and British–Pakistani individuals than in European-ancestry participants. The findings highlight a major challenge for precision medicine: genetic prediction tools may deepen health inequities unless genome-wide studies include more ancestrally diverse populations.