Alzheimer disease (AD), the most common neurodegenerative disorder in the world, affects individuals of all races and ethnicities; however, most genetic research for AD has been performed on individuals of European ancestry (EA) with a limited number of large-scale genetic studies in other populations. For many centuries, Ashkenazi Jews lived in communities in Eastern Europe and were genetically isolated from their non-Jewish neighbors. As a result, researchers from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine hypothesized that some AD susceptibility variants are more frequent, and thus more likely to show statistically significant associations, in this group compared to much larger and more genetically heterogeneous EA cohorts.