Mission to sequence genes of a ‘large group’ of Indians

Mission to sequence genes of a ‘large group’ of Indians

News:

1. Recently India planned to roll out a major mission to sequence the genes of a “large” group of Indians.

Important Facts:

2. This key decisions was taken at the 1st meeting of Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (STIAC).
3. The Council will act as a coordinator between several ministries to work on the projects and missions and is scheduled to meet once a month,

4. This mission is similar to the projects in the U.K., China, Japan and Australia.
5. The Health and Family Welfare Ministry and the Biotechnology Department will be closely associated with the project.
6. Aim of the mission: Sequencing genomes and linking to human health and disease by research is expected to have a major impact directly on human health.
7. Moreover the diversity of Indians requires a large-scale study of human genomes and the use of healthy and disease samples to understand the impact on health.
8. Ever since the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in 2009 announced that it had sequenced the genome of an Indian,(then making India one of six countries to achieve such a feat), several research labs have analysed genes from Indians for disease susceptibility.
9. However, no compendium of genes that differentiate Indian populations from, say Caucasian or African genomes exist.
10. A group of Indian scientists and companies are also involved with a 100k Genome Asia project, to sequence the whole genomes of 100k Asians, including 50,000 Indians.