Researchers Want to Link Your Genes and Income—Should They?
By Megan Molteni,
Wired
| 04. 12. 2019
THE UK BIOBANK is the single largest public genetic repository in the world, with samples of the genetic blueprints of half a million Brits standing by for scientific study. But when David Hill, a statistical geneticist at the University of Edinburgh, went poring through that data, he wasn’t looking for a cure for cancer or deeper insights into the biology of aging. Nothing like that. He was trying to figure out why some people make more money than others.
Along with a team of European collaborators, Hill sifted through the UK Biobank data to find about 286,000 participants who had answered a survey question about household income. Using that information they conducted something called a Genome Wide Association Study, where they looked at 18 million places in the genome to see which ones matched up with higher paychecks. They uncovered about 30, which account for 7.4 percent of household income variation across the United Kingdom. (For some context, another way of viewing the results is to say that 92.6 percent of a person’s income is explained by factors ...
Related Articles
The Center for Genetics and Society is delighted to recommend the current edition of GMWatch Review – Number 589. UK-based GMWatch, a long-standing ally, was founded in 1998 by Jonathan Matthews as an independent organization seeking to counter the enormous corporate political power and propaganda of the GMO industry and its supporters. Matthews and Claire Robinson are its directors and managing editors.
CGS works to ensure that social justice, equity, human rights, and democratic governance are front...
By Ryan Cross, Endpoints News | 08.19.2025
Human eggs are incredibly rare cells. The ovary typically produces only 400 mature eggs across a woman’s life. But biologists in George Church’s lab at Harvard University — a group that’s never content with nature’s limits — just got a...
By Katherine Drabiak, Journal of Medical Ethics Forum | 08.07.2025
Adapted from Mitochondrial DNA at
National Human Genome Research Institute
Recently, media outlets around the world have been reporting on children born from pronuclear genome transfer (sometimes called “3-parent IVF,” “mitochondrial donation” or “mitochondrial replacement therapy”) at Newcastle Fertility Center...
By Nicky Hudson, The Conversation | 08.12.2025