Our genes
The Indian Genome Variation Consortium, a public-private partnership that networks six Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) labs and some private software firms, has completed genetic mapping of one of the world’s most ethnically diverse populations, the Indians.
With this, the consortium has succeeded in covering the genomic variation in India in terms of population and genomic coverage. The study included 32 large populations, with 10 million or more people in each, and 23 isolated tribal populations, representing a vast ethnic, linguistic and geographical diversity.
The data that the consortium has gathered provides interesting insights into disease susceptibility of these populations and their response to drugs. This will now allow researchers to understand the genetic predisposition of ethnic groups to diseases.
The genetic map will also give pharma companies a headway in predictive medicine and targeted drugs. A great step ahead in Indian genomic studies, indeed!
Comments
Excellent and hearty congratulations IGVC!
Iam glad that a clone of deCODE genetics of Iceland exists now in India.
I congratulate the CSIR scientists for putting efforts on this
Posted by: Prashanth Suravajhala | April 23, 2008 07:16 PM
Sure, it is a quantum leap in the Indian genomic data. As you rightly mentioned we believe this data would provide more essence to our enhanced understanding of disease pathologies. More importantly the recent transformation of 'westernized' India and subsequent threat of lifestyle disorders like diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular diseases.
However, a major concern is the appropriate analysis of this data and integrating the same to a population specific drug discovery process, which is, I feel, too distant to Indian drug discovery companies.
Arulmozhi
Posted by: Arulmozhi Kandasamy | April 24, 2008 03:55 PM
Genomic studies may help identify patients' disease susceptibility. However, the Ayugenomics program of Patwardhan at Pune University's Center for Interdisciplinary Health Sciences, and a consortium of colleagues, are now finding correlations between Ayurvedic Prakriti and specific genotypes.
This constitutes a first experimental proof of connections between Tridosha and modern science proposed by myself in 2001, founded on insights into systems biology and epigenetic regulation.
It means that knowing a patient's Prakriti may prove a convenient way to complement genomic analysis.
Posted by: Alex Hankey | April 24, 2008 10:20 PM
I have a feeling that we need to follow-up with a mapping of the proteome so that drug targeting and mechanism of actions are profiled, which combined with bioinformatics, can throw more light on drug candidate elucidation and new drug candidates based on evaluation of traditional medicine.
Sureshkmar, Scientist and Head,
PME, NIIST, Trivandrum, CSIR
Posted by: Sureshkumar. S | May 1, 2008 07:34 AM
Genes are simple in tems of nucleotides and genome but when it comes to the related parameteres that have capability to show the direction of appreciation in terms of prescriptions it opens new chapters, certainly less understood. The classification of bulk water and biological waters can nver be separated from this study. Further the behaviour of labile Hydrogen in certain nucleotides are of immense consideration. Thus how to map molecular water free from hydrogen bonding and how to justify the movement of labile hydrogen from one position to other while keeping the general physical nature of the nucleotide intact are major problems. Indians are different by nature and behaviour - this can be understood only on these two lines. And the ancient science of India wherein the total health is measured in terms of body, mind and spirit can find diagonistic view only through this academic and scientific lab exercise. Otherwise the twists are almost similar on all genes - sometimes like hairpins!
Dr. R. Dayal Yadav
Research Study Group DIM
Posted by: Dr. R. Dayal Yadav | May 4, 2008 02:49 AM