OMIM® - Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man®

Welcome to OMIM®, Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man®. OMIM is a comprehensive, authoritative compendium of human genes and genetic phenotypes that is freely available and updated daily. The full-text, referenced overviews in OMIM contain information on all known mendelian disorders and over 15,000 genes. OMIM focuses on the relationship between phenotype and genotype. It is updated daily, and the entries contain copious links to other genetics resources.

This database was initiated in the early 1960s by Dr. Victor A. McKusick as a catalog of mendelian traits and disorders, entitled Mendelian Inheritance in Man (MIM). Twelve book editions of MIM were published between 1966 and 1998. The online version, OMIM, was created in 1985 by a collaboration between the National Library of Medicine and the William H. Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins. It was made generally available on the internet starting in 1987. In 1995, OMIM was developed for the World Wide Web by NCBI, the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

OMIM is authored and edited at the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, under the direction of Dr. Ada Hamosh.

NLM's Profiles in Science -- The McKusick Papers


Dear OMIM User,

At the request of the NIH and to ensure long-term funding for the OMIM project, we must diversify our revenue stream. We are determined to keep this website freely accessible. Unfortunately, it is not free to produce. Expert curators review the literature and organize it to facilitate your work. Over 90% of the OMIM’s operating expenses go to salary support for MD and PhD science writers and biocurators. Please consider making a donation now and again in the future. We need long-term secure funding to provide you the information that you need at your fingertips.

Thank you in advance for your generous support,
Ada Hamosh, MD, MPH
Scientific Director, OMIM