Genomic sciences for developmentalists: The current state of affairs

Our work on this Special Issue has been an extremely interesting experience. We had a chance to review and comment on the work of a number of leading scholars in the field of genetic and genomic sciences and had the opportunity to reflect on the status of the field, now approaching the 10th anniversary of the finalization of the first sequence of the human genome in 2003 (Human Genome Program, 2008). These 10 years have been fundamentally important, even revolutionary, for the field of genomics and genetics. They have been no less important for fields of science that use genomic and genetic knowledge to advance their cause: psychiatry and psychology in general, and developmental psychopathology in particular. Despite concerns that the early expectations and promises of the impact of genetic and genomic sciences on psychology and related sciences (e.g., Plomin & Rutter, 1998) have been overly optimistic, we subscribe to the statement by Collins (2010). Reflecting on the technological developments triggered by the Human Genome Project, Collins stated: “The consequences of a radical new technology are almost always overestimated in the short term and underestimated in the long term’’ (p. 268). It is in the spirit of this deterministic expectation that we have put this collection of articles together. The Special Issue is organized along a number of dimensions, cohesively sampling from the broad landscape of the state of affairs in the field. Its five major contributions can be summarized along the following lines. First, these articles present a vision for the continued advancement of the relationships between the genetic and genomic sciences and psychiatry and psychology in general and developmental psychopathology in particular. Specifically, although all of the contributions to this Special Issue contain explicit discussions of numerous difficult issues faced by researchers working at the interface of the genetic and genomic sciences and developmental psychopathology, all of the articles are marked by optimism and content. Although the field is not where it was expected to be a decade ago, the past decade has been a source of tremendous discoveries, the relevance of which for understanding the pathways of typical and atypical human development is impossible to underestimate. Second, this collection presents a blend of reviews and empirical studies from the field. Thus, the articles delineate the frontiers of current research and exemplify these frontiers with empirical illustrations. Third, the articles describe and typify the major technological advancements that have characterized the last decade. These are genome-wide association studies, whole-genome sequencing for DNA and RNA, microarray technologies, statistical developments pertaining to the analyses of gene–environment interplay, and technological applications for the generation and analyses of the induced polypotent stem cells. Fourth, these articles sample from numerous rapidly developing fields of study, bringing ideas, approaches, and methods from investigations of the genome, epigenome, and proteome to studies of typical and atypical development. Fifth, and perhaps of the most importance, this collection is true to the vision of the mission of the Journal that hosts it: all articles advance our knowledge of developmental psychopathology (Cicchetti, 1984; Cicchetti & Cohen, 1995; Rutter & Sroufe, 2000; Sroufe & Rutter, 1984) by presenting the current state of the field and outlining its future directions or by providing new data on typical and atypical development. The Special Issue opens with a contribution by Wendy Johnson, who shares her views and analyses of the role of evolutionary and developmental biology in the current landscape of the field. The article starts with a reminder that the first fundamental discoveries of genetics made by Gregor Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Elena L. Grigorenko, Child Study Center, Yale University, 230 South Frontage Road, New Haven, CT 06519; E-mail: elena.grigorenko@yale.edu; or Dante Cicchetti, Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, 51 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455; E-mail: cicchett@umn.edu. Our work on this Special Issue was supported by the National Institutes of Mental Health Grant MH082592 (to E.L.G.) and Grant MH083979 (to D.C.), National Institute on Drug Abuse Gramt DA017741 (to D.C.), and the Spunk Fund (to D.C.). Development and Psychopathology 24 (2012), 1157–1164 # Cambridge University Press 2012 doi:10.1017/S0954579412000612