Patent ID: 7107155

Claim:
A method of identifying an association between genetic information and a particular genetic trait, the method being carried out by computer program instructions and comprising the acts of: performing an iterative analytical process on a plurality of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for candidate SNP combinations of N SNPs; the iterative analytical process comprising the acts of: selecting one candidate SNP combination from the candidate SNP combinations; reading haplotype data associated with the candidate SNP combination for a plurality of individuals; grouping the haplotype data of the plurality of individuals into a trait-exhibiting group and a non-exhibiting group based on whether a predetermined trait criteria for an individual is met; performing a statistical analysis on the grouped haplotype data to obtain a statistical measurement associated with the candidate SNP combination; repeating the acts of selecting, reading, grouping, and performing as necessary for additional SNP combinations of the candidate SNP combinations in order to identify one or more optimal SNP combinations from the candidate SNP combinations; reducing a number of candidate SNP combinations of M SNPs of the plurality of SNPs for which to perform the iterative analytical process based on the one or more optimal SNP combinations of N SNPs identified from performing the iterative analytical process on the candidate SNP combinations of N SNPs; and performing the iterative analytical process on the plurality of SNPs for the reduced number of candidate SNP combinations of M SNPs, wherein M and N are natural numbers and N<M.