Indian scientists decode human genome: Prithviraj Chauhan

New Delhi, Dec 9 (ANI): Union Minister of State for Science and Technology, Prithviraj Chauhan has said that Indian scientists have decoded human genome for the first time in the country.

Talking to reporters here on Tuesday, Chauhan said: "The scientists of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) working at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology have for the first time successfully decoded the human genome of a person in India".

Chavan said the CSIR could achieve this jointly with the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) by adopting new technologies and effectively integrating complex computational tools with high analytical capabilities.

Rajesh Gokhale, Director of IGIB has said the development would help in better diagnosis and treatment of diseases including complex ones like cancer.

"Human genome can be applied to predictive diseases. You can give same medicine to 15 people (patients) and all people (patients suffering from same disease) do not react same way to same drug. The reason for that is the information that resides in our genome that can predictably tell which patient should take which medicine, " Gokhale added.

The feat puts India in a select group of countries including the US, UK, Canada, Korea and China, who have demonstrated such capability. (ANI)