Dear all,

My major is not bioinformatics. However, I would like to integrate several kinds of omics data to get more insight into my targets (Biomarker discovery). So far, I have work with data from microarrays. However, I plan to combine GWAS data with microarray data in my new project. I have several questions that need your help.

1. Do I need any ethical approval when working with GWAS data? As far as I'm concerned, they are "2nd" data, so it is not necessary to get ethical approval, is it?
2. Where can I get GWAS data?
3. Some popular tools to handle GWAS data. For example, tools to normalize data, tools to perform gene set/single gene analysis, tools for perform meta-analysis.
4. Is it possible if after finding some candidates, I integrate the results with proteomic/metabolomics data? If possible, how can I do that?

Any advice and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.