23andMe has contributed to the science described in several dozen articles published in the top journals: https://www.23andme.com/for/scientists/. Is all of that useless garbage?
Unfortunately, association studies don't tell you much beyond "there is a correlation between X and Y" which typically needs to be followed up with a lot more research. It's not even clear that association studies really pay their way- they cost a lot and produce associations, but the link to disease treatment is often very poor.
it's really a shame nobody has truly shown a very convincing way to convert genotyping/genomics and medical records into better treatment.
ugh..I am being downvoted for asking what makes this particular discovery significant . I am really curious, what are some of your thoughts on what makes this particular correlation different.
Basically, the reason this is not significant is that there is no way to turn gene-disease associations into treatments. At best, it helps you focus on a gene target, but as you can see, this gene's protein product is an important player that has a role far beyond preventing/causing (or affecting the severity of) disease.
What's different (and it's not particularly different) is that this PR is in response to a social media challenge, the research was partly funded by it. Whether that means anything is hard to say- I don't really see ice bucket challenges scaling up to many diseases.
I've been a subscriber for over 7 yrs and have gotten all the upgrades they offered over the years. I am yet to get a single useful peice of data out of it. All my extended family has it too and none of them have gotten anything out of it other than of entertainment value. If they have made significant breakthroughs why I am as a consumer not seeing any benefits in over a decade.
Their relative finder feature seems to work pretty well.