“Watershed Moment in Schizophrenia Research”–Large Study Reveals Ultra-Rare Mutations in 10 Genes That Strongly Influence Schizophrenia Risk; Mutations in One Gene Increase Schizophrenia Risk More Than 50-Fold; Second, Complementary Study Finds Common Variants (SNPs) in Hundreds of Genomic Loci Associated with Increased Schizophrenia Risk; Combined Findings Implicate Synaptic Biology in Schizophrenia; “We’ve Tried for Years and Years to Gain This Kind of Traction on the Biology of Schizophrenia,” Expert States

In a landmark genetic study of more than 121,000 people, an international consortium called SCHEMA, led by researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, has identified extremely rare protein-disrupting mutations in 10 genes that strongly increase an individual's risk of developing schizophrenia--in one instance, by more than 50-fold. A second, complementary study in a larger but overlapping group of 320,400 people, conducted by the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) and including the same Broad researchers, brings to 287 the number of regions of the genome associated with schizophrenia risk, including ones containing genes identified by SCHEMA.