About the Authors

Adaikalavan Ramasamy

Contributed equally to this work with: Adaikalavan Ramasamy, Mikko Kuokkanen, Sailaja Vedantam, Zofia K. Gajdos, Veikko Salomaa, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Joel N. Hirschhorn

Affiliations Respiratory Epidemiology and Public Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

Mikko Kuokkanen

Contributed equally to this work with: Adaikalavan Ramasamy, Mikko Kuokkanen, Sailaja Vedantam, Zofia K. Gajdos, Veikko Salomaa, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Joel N. Hirschhorn

Affiliation Department of Chronic Disease Prevention, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland

Sailaja Vedantam

Contributed equally to this work with: Adaikalavan Ramasamy, Mikko Kuokkanen, Sailaja Vedantam, Zofia K. Gajdos, Veikko Salomaa, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Joel N. Hirschhorn

Affiliations Divisions of Genetics and Endocrinology, Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Zofia K. Gajdos

Contributed equally to this work with: Adaikalavan Ramasamy, Mikko Kuokkanen, Sailaja Vedantam, Zofia K. Gajdos, Veikko Salomaa, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Joel N. Hirschhorn

Affiliations Divisions of Genetics and Endocrinology, Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Alexessander Couto Alves

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

Helen N. Lyon

Affiliations Divisions of Genetics and Endocrinology, Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Manuel A. R. Ferreira

Affiliation The Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia

David P. Strachan

Affiliation Division of Community Health Sciences, St George’s, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Jing Hua Zhao

Affiliation MRC Epidemiology Unit, Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Michael J. Abramson

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia,

Matthew A. Brown

Affiliation University of Queensland Diamantina Institute, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Australia

Lachlan Coin

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

Shyamali C. Dharmage

Affiliation Centre for Molecular, Environmental, Genetic and Analytic Epidemiology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

David L. Duffy

Affiliation The Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia

Tari Haahtela

Affiliation Skin and Allergy Hospital, Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland

Andrew C. Heath

Affiliation Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Christer Janson

Affiliation Department of Medical Sciences: Respiratory Medicine and Allergology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Mika Kähönen

Affiliation Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland

Kay-Tee Khaw

Affiliation Clinical Gerontology Unit, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Jaana Laitinen

Affiliation Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Oulu, Finland

Peter Le Souef

Affiliation School of Paediatrics and Child Health, Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, Perth, Australia

Terho Lehtimäki

Affiliation Department of Clinical Chemistry, University of Tampere and Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland

Australian Asthma Genetics Consortium collaborators

Collaborators of the Asthma Genetics Consortium are listed in Supplementary Methods S1.

Pamela A. F. Madden

Affiliation Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Guy B. Marks

Affiliation Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Nicholas G. Martin

Affiliation The Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia

Melanie C. Matheson

Affiliation Centre for Molecular, Environmental, Genetic and Analytic Epidemiology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Cameron D. Palmer

Affiliations Divisions of Genetics and Endocrinology, Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Aarno Palotie

Affiliations Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, United Kingdom, Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, Medical and Population Genetics and Genetic Analysis Platform, The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, Department of Medical Genetics, University of Helsinki and University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland

Anneli Pouta

Affiliations Department of Children, Young People and Families, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland, Institute of Clinical Medicine/Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

Colin F. Robertson

Affiliation Respiratory Medicine, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia

Jorma Viikari

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

Elisabeth Widen

Affiliation Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Matthias Wjst

Affiliation Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen German Research Center for Environmental Health, Munich-Neuherberg, Germany

Deborah L. Jarvis

Affiliations Respiratory Epidemiology and Public Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, MRC Health Protection Agency (HPA) Centre for Environment and Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

Grant W. Montgomery

Affiliation The Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia

Philip J. Thompson

Affiliation Lung Institute of Western Australia and Centre for Asthma, Allergy and Respiratory Research, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

Nick Wareham

Affiliation MRC Epidemiology Unit, Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Johan Eriksson

Affiliations National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland, Unit of General Practice, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland, Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, Folkhälsan Research Center, Helsinki, Finland

Pekka Jousilahti

Affiliation Department of Chronic Disease Prevention, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland

Tarja Laitinen

Affiliations Department of Pulmonary Diseases and Clinical Allergology, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

Juha Pekkanen

Affiliations Department of Environmental Health, National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Kuopio, Finland, Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland

Olli T. Raitakari

Affiliations Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland, Department of Clinical Physiology, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland

George T. O'Connor

Affiliations Pulmonary Center, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Veikko Salomaa

Contributed equally to this work with: Adaikalavan Ramasamy, Mikko Kuokkanen, Sailaja Vedantam, Zofia K. Gajdos, Veikko Salomaa, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Joel N. Hirschhorn

joelh@broadinstitute.org (JNH); m.jarvelin@imperial.ac.uk (M-RJ); veikko.salomaa@thl.fi (VS)

Affiliation Department of Chronic Disease Prevention, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland

Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin

Contributed equally to this work with: Adaikalavan Ramasamy, Mikko Kuokkanen, Sailaja Vedantam, Zofia K. Gajdos, Veikko Salomaa, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Joel N. Hirschhorn

joelh@broadinstitute.org (JNH); m.jarvelin@imperial.ac.uk (M-RJ); veikko.salomaa@thl.fi (VS)

Affiliations Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, MRC Health Protection Agency (HPA) Centre for Environment and Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland, Institute of Health Sciences, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland, Biocenter Oulu, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

Joel N. Hirschhorn

Contributed equally to this work with: Adaikalavan Ramasamy, Mikko Kuokkanen, Sailaja Vedantam, Zofia K. Gajdos, Veikko Salomaa, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Joel N. Hirschhorn

joelh@broadinstitute.org (JNH); m.jarvelin@imperial.ac.uk (M-RJ); veikko.salomaa@thl.fi (VS)

Affiliations Divisions of Genetics and Endocrinology, Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AR MK SV ZKG HNL ACA GTO VS M-RJ JNH. Performed the experiments: DPS JHZ MJA MAB LC SCD DLD TH ACH CJ MK K-T K JL P LeS T. Lehtimäki AAGC PAFM GBM NGM MCM A. Palotie A. Pouta CFR JV EW MW DLJ GWM PJT NW JE PJ T. Laitinen JP OTR. Analyzed the data: AR MK SV ZKG ACA GTO VS M-RJ JNH MARF CDP HNL AAGC. Wrote the paper: AR MK SV ZKG ACA GTO VS M-RJ JNH.