What a coincidence. This was posted just as I was at the weekly "journal club" on human behavior genetics at the University of Minnesota with two researchers who used to be associated with Washington University in St. Louis (the source of the press release kindly submitted here). Genetic research on schizophrenia has been going on for a long time, and one of the WUSTL researchers I know locally[1] has been conducting that research since the year I was born. Experienced researchers on schizophrenia have always suspected that the finding announced in the press release headline is the correct description of reality, but it has taken a long time to do enough careful genetic research to be sure of multiple genotypes that all lead to the same clinical set of phenotypes that can be described as schizophrenia in current diagnostic categorization.
As other comments suggest, research along this line may eventually lead to more effective interventions for treating or even preventing schizophrenia. We already know (links below) that schizophrenia does have a very strong component of genetic risk, yet every once in a while identical (monozygotic) twins brought up in the same household are discordant for schizophrenia, so plainly some "environmental" risks matter too. It will be good to continue the research program on this devastating illness.
AFTER EDIT: Irving Gottesman is looking forward to reading the journal article by his former colleagues at WUSTL. Of course a preliminary finding like this will have to be replicated in other data sets to become part of established scientific knowledge. Then the hard work of matching treatments to patient genome patterns will begin.
As other comments suggest, research along this line may eventually lead to more effective interventions for treating or even preventing schizophrenia. We already know (links below) that schizophrenia does have a very strong component of genetic risk, yet every once in a while identical (monozygotic) twins brought up in the same household are discordant for schizophrenia, so plainly some "environmental" risks matter too. It will be good to continue the research program on this devastating illness.
AFTER EDIT: Irving Gottesman is looking forward to reading the journal article by his former colleagues at WUSTL. Of course a preliminary finding like this will have to be replicated in other data sets to become part of established scientific knowledge. Then the hard work of matching treatments to patient genome patterns will begin.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4661802
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7663622
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8069518