MR Catalogue (http://mrcatalogue.medschl.cam.ac.uk/), a web-based tool for performing genetic look-ups in publicly-available data, was launched today. The tool takes genetic variants (either rsid or chromosome and position) as inputs, and outputs the associations of the variants (batch query is needed for multiple variants) with up to 200 different variables, including disease outcomes and continuous phenotypes. There is an option for a proxy search, so that if your specified variant is not available, the association of a correlated variant will be given. The default display is the top 10 associations (ranked by p-value); a download is needed to access all associations. Genetic associations (including proxies) have been orientated across datasets, so that the signs of all association estimates are consistent.
This tool enables Mendelian randomization to be performed quickly and easily using summarized data - beta-coefficients and standard errors - see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24114802, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25773750, or http://spark.rstudio.com/sb452/summarized/ for details on how to perform a basic Mendelian randomization analysis using summarized data, or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26050253 (MR-Egger) https://www.academia.edu/15479132/Consistent (median-based method) for robust methods using summarized data.
Outside of Mendelian randomization, this is a useful tool for calculating proxies, or checking the association of variants with a wide range of variables (phenome scan). Even if you switch off the catalogue and the proxy search, it is a quick tool for converting chromosome/position (hg19) to rsid and vice versa, or for getting major/minor alleles. Hopefully will be a widely used tool!