India Genome Project: After mapping 10,000 healthy genomes, India targets cancer DNA next

Genome India is a government-backed project to collect and catalogue the genetic variations specific to Indian populations. India-specific genetic information is not very well reflected in global human genome databases. Such information is valuable for a number of reasons, including diagnosis and treatment of several gene-related diseases.

Launched in 2020, 10,000 sequences from healthy individuals were collected in the first phase of the project. The second phase seeks to expand the database to one million sequences, including genetic information of people with specific diseases.

A comparison of the healthy and diseased genome can help researchers identify targets for developing treatments and diagnostic tests. It is the first step towards personalised treatment and medicine, which is supposed to be the future of healthcare.

The diseases that would most likely be included in the list would be different types of cancers, chronic conditions such as diabetes, and various neurological or neurodegenerative diseases. Rare diseases that are found in Indian populations are also likely to be included in the list of diseases to be studied for the next phase of Genome India project.

“This data will also help us understand why certain diseases happen, especially when it comes to rare diseases that are not yet extensively studied,” said Dr Ninawe.

The second phase would also cover many more linguistic and ethnic groups. In the first phase, individuals from 99 population groups were included. But as many as 4,635 different population groups have been identified in India.

The next phase would have representation of all the states and UTs, most linguistic and ethnic groups, and rural populations, said Prof Y Narahari from the Indian Institute of Science, one of the lead scientists on this project. More than 20 major research institutions are participating in this project.

“This is just the beginning,” Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary of Department of Biotechnology, said. “The data from the first phase has set the standards, and it makes us feel very confident to expand the dataset to one million genomes of various kinds.”

One million genomes would put India among a small group of countries that have managed to sequence a large number of genomes to understand genetic variation within their populations.

The first Human Genome Project, which was an international consortium funded by the US National Institutes of Health among others, published the world’s first complete human genome in 2003. Since then, the ‘1,000 Genomes’ project, again an international collaboration, published 1,092 sequences in 2012. A UK government project sequenced 100,000 genomes by 2018.