CSIR Completes Whole Genome Sequencing Of Over 1000 Indians From Across The Country, To Help Biomedical Research In India

The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) has completed Whole Genome Sequencing of 1,008 Indians from different populations across the country under the IndiGen Genome project, a government press release said.

The project, implemented by the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi and CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad will have applications in a number of areas including predictive and preventive medicine with faster and efficient diagnosis of rare genetic diseases.

The outcomes of the IndiGen will be utilized towards understanding the genetic diversity on a population scale, make available genetic variant frequencies for clinical applications and enable genetic epidemiology of diseases.

The ability to decode the genetic blueprint of humans through whole-genome sequencing will be a major driver for biomedical science, said Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Union Minister for Science and Technology, Earth Sciences and Health and Family Welfare.

The whole-genome data will be important for building the knowhow, baseline data and indigenous capacity in the emerging area of Precision Medicine, he added.