'India cannot afford to ignore strides in gene research'

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, FEB. 20. India, which had missed out on the earlier two revolutions in microbiological sciences in 1960s and 1970s, could not afford to miss out on the opportunities now offered by the post-genome period, Dr. E. Premkumar Reddy, director, FELS Institute, Philadelphia, USA, said here on Tuesday.

Delivering the key-note address at the inaugural session of the three-day annual conference of the Indian Society of Human Genetics (ISHG) on `Human Genome and Beyond', Dr. Reddy said that in the next 10 years the world would have a blueprint of at least 1,000 important genes denoting all human characteristics.

That would enable one to predict what kind of disease would be predisposed and what should be the new treatment methods and drugs to be used. The drugs could become cheaper and more targeted. For that matter, several forms of cancer would be cured completely in the next five years and in another five, it could be eliminated.

Dr. Reddy said that politicians could take shelter behind the argument that they did not realise the implications of the earlier microbiological revolutions as they did not know the economic implications of it, but not any more. The journey from genomics to proteonomics had already begun and it had exciting opportunities to offer to the humankind.

If IT revolution could offer enormous job opportunities as was being perceived now, the world should realise that it was the biotechnology revolution that would create 10 times more than that in no time. It did not matter that we failed to realise the benefits of recombinant DNA technology, but it would matter if we ignored the post-genome benefits, he warned.

Prof. Lalji Singh, chairman of the organising committee, in his welcome address, said the new science would change the prevailing medical practices. Medicare would change from reactive mode curing patients to preventive mode by keeping them healthy. The Government must open a genome registry and create centres at village, district and State-levels to coordinate efforts with a central body.

He criticised replication of work done by various bodies at various places. There was no need to do that in the age of information technology. The work done anywhere could be made accessible to scientists throughout the country and it could be shared for the benefit to one and all, he said.

Dr. P.S. Chauhan, president of the ISHG, said that the new technology had already led to generation of abundance of genetic data, fortunately with a concomitant revolution in information technology. The concerted and enormous efforts in terms of technology, funding, manpower and skill employed amounted to entirely a new phase in biology.

There were individualised efforts in the country but much larger and well organized groups were required to harvest the fruits of the new revolution, available at no cost now, he added. Even the Medical Council of India had ignored to bring medical genetics in the curriculum of medical education. A national registry of major congenital malformations was yet to be made.

The Indian Genome Initiative launched in the recent years should concentrate more on genes or markers of some relevance to disease, susceptibility to a disease or a toxin rather taking random markers, he said. That would amount to launching an environmental human genome programme for which everyone should braceup.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Tax-free deficit budget for State
Next     : Cyrus broaches love!