Ophthalmologists and clinicians throughout all disciplines of medicine and surgery have been deluged in recent years by the exponential growth of molecular genetic association studies (both of candidate genes and genome-wide) for a growing number of disorders, especially complex genetic conditions that defy traditional mendelian inheritance. Ophthalmology has led the way with the first real successes in the use of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to elucidate the pathways of risk for the development of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).1 The genes identified from these GWAS efforts have become the basis for a number of therapeutic targets being explored for AMD.2