The advent of genome-wide association scans (GWAS) has mediated a change in gear and the Type 2 diabetes (T2D) research community has set an unprecedented record with five genome-wide association studies published since February 2007 [1–6], increasing the number of confirmed Type 2 diabetes susceptibility loci from three (PPARG, KCNJ11, TCF7L2) to nine (with the addition of CDKAL1, CDKN2A/B, IGF2BP2, HHEX/IDE, FTO and SLC30A8). The gene discussed is KCNJ11; the disease is type 2 diabetes mellitus.