Science & Tech   

Indians find SARS virus genes

NEW DELHI DEC. 29. Indian scientists missed the race to sequence the virus that causes SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) but they have scored a major victory by discovering three new genes of the virus — a step that should help speed up development of drugs or a vaccine against the disease that is feared to be reappearing.

The discovery has been made by researchers at the New Delhi-based Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), the youngest laboratory under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. They achieved the feat by using patented computational tools they have developed for gene prediction and functional analysis.

SARS originated in China last November, infected 8,000 and killed 774 people worldwide. With remarkable speed, scientists around the world sequenced the complete genome (DNA) of several strains of SARS in the hope of developing a vaccine. But an effective vaccine is yet to be tested.

Indian scientists could not play a role in sequencing the SARS genome because they did not have access to the virus. However, availability of complete DNA sequence of SARS virus in the public domain provided them the opportunity for the identification of protein coding genes using a novel gene prediction method called ``Gene Decipher'' developed at the IGIB. Predicting which part of DNA codes for a protein — and which is not — is the main challenge of bioinformatics — a new branch of science where modern biology and information technology converge. Gene prediction is usually made by computational methods based on previous knowledge about coding and non-coding sequences. But current computational methods face difficulty in analysing the SARS genome owing to its small size.

PTI

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Science & Tech

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Science & Tech | Entertainment | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• Indians find SARS virus genes

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu