Nature India | Indigenus

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

  1. Report this comment

    Prashanth Suravajhala said:

    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

  2. Report this comment

    Arulmozhi Kandasamy said:

    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

  3. Report this comment

    Alex Hankey said:

    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.

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    Sureshkumar. S said:

    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

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    Dr. R. Dayal Yadav said:

    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

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    Ashok Singh said:

    IGVC did a nice exploration to understand the genetic divesity spanning the diverse Indian sub populations which includes different linguistics, morphological types, tribes vs non tribes and isolated population. This kind of study should be extended towards a phenotype and genotype correlation which is the ultimate aim of a geneticist. Also, to understand the exact phenotype and its hidden genetics within the gene pool of India. Now most of the Mendelian diseases are becoming complex, like in a magic box where you open one door to find more doors inside to explore. Currently, it is also necessary to study the environmental factors and their contribution towards complex diseases. The Indian Genome Variation Consortium was one of the big consortia of many CSIR labs along with people from Universities and other arena for one goal to develop IGVdb. Such colloborations are very essential for Indian science, so that we can move ahead along with the intellectual pool of scientists and teachers. Ultimately, the big work/data gives you some directions. I believe Indian science is progressing and it will shine wonderfully.

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    Genehunter said:

    You are joking, right?

    Here is the abstract of the paper:

    “We report the results of analyses of data on 405 SNPs from 75 such genes and a 5.2 Mb chromosome, 22 genomic region in 1871 individuals from diverse 55 endogamous Indian populations.

    The sequenom massarray at ICGB can type 384 samples for 50 SNPs in an hour."

    Take a look at any disease gene association that is reported in Nature Genetics or Science. These cover about 3 phases of association with 2000 cases and controls. What the IGVC has done is a small fraction of that and they claim to have mapped an Indian genome. With that kind of ridiculous claim, no wonder they found only Indian Academy of Sciences to be the only journal they could publish it in!