This month’s cover features the inspiring block-like karst mountains of the Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo in Guangxi province. The image was inspired by a study in this month’s issue reporting deep sequencing of the MHC region in individuals of Han Chinese ancestry. The study represents an important resource for the study of immune-related disorders in Asian populations. It also identifies loci associated with risk of psoriasis, thus demonstrating the power of this resource.
In addition to simply being a beautiful image evocative of the mountains in Guangxi province, the image also brings to mind the peaks that might be observed in many types of genomic data, such as Sanger sequencing reads, ChIP-seq peaks, etc.
Our own chief editor, Myles Axton, did first-hand research leading to the selection of this cover image. As he found, the Yulong River in Yangshuo is less muddy than the Li River and better for swimming and sightseeing from bamboo rafts (arrow indicates NG editor in the field).