The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : ‘Genetically-engineered humans by 2028’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 28, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

‘Genetically-engineered humans by 2028’

Low-cost anti-malarial drug to hit the market by 2010

Such humans to be with “entirely new biology”
The whole genome sequencing would cost less than $100!

Photo:Mohd Yousuf

New strides: Union Minister of Science and Technology Kapil Sibal and CSIR Director-General Samir K. Brahmachari at the inaugural ‘Human Genome Meeting-2008’ in Cyberabad on Saturday. —

HYDERABAD: Noted molecular geneticist, Charles Cantor, has predicted that there would be genetically-engineered humans on the planet by 2028 with an “entirely new biology”.

In another 20 years, individuals would be routinely sequenced either prenatally or neonatally. He said that gene expression data would be used routinely for diagnosis.

The whole genome sequencing would cost less than $100! However, he cautioned that many aspects of complex diseases would not be fully understood even then.

He disclosed this while delivering the Hugo 20th anniversary lecture on “Genomics: 20 years ago and 20 years from now” at the 13th International Human Genome Meeting which was earlier inaugurated by Union Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal.

Earlier, Jay D. Keasling, Division Director, Physical Biosciences Division of the Laboratory, told reporters after making a presentation at the first plenary session that a low-cost genetically-engineered, anti-malarial drug would hit the market by late 2010. The Atreminisin–based drug has been produced through microbial synthesis by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA.

Inexpensive drug

Dr. Keasling said the technology had been transferred to Sanofi Aventis company by the University of California which held the patent for the drug.

It had given the licence free to the company with a request that it be priced inexpensively. Initially, the price would be fixed to meet the cost of the plant-derived version and reduced gradually. “The goal is to make the drug as inexpensive as possible,” he added.

Pointing out that malaria affected 300-500 million people worldwide, he said that one to three million succumbed to the disease every year.

He said that quinine-based drug treatment was now “largely ineffective”.

He said his laboratory had also inked an MoU with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for producing an anti-cancer drug. It would be a “great project” and started soon. The Berkeley-based laboratory had also begun work on cloning genes for anti-HIV drugs. The clinical trials would be started shortly.

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

Andhra Pradesh