Except for the functional analysis of the IL1RL1 SNP rs6543116 associated with asthma and atopic dermatitis [36, 53], there has been no functional analysis of the disease-associated variants in IL1RL1; functional characterization of genetically-associated variants is necessary to determine the causal pathways leading to expression and/or function changes in the proteins. The gene discussed is IL1RL1; the disease is atopic eczema.