The Hindu : Indian scientist's tool to map genes in demand

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 26, 2003

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Indian scientist's tool to map genes in demand

By Anand Parthasarathy

Bangalore April 25. The technique developed by a U.S.-based Indian scientist may become crucial to future work on the human genetic code, the mapping of which was completed 10 days ago.

Ever since the Human Genome Project's April 15 announcement that it had completed the task of sequencing the collection of genes that make up the human code — that is about 99.9 per cent of over 3 billion pairs of DNA — interest has centred on how to fill in the few missing pieces of the puzzle. The rapid approach hitherto adopted uses trial and error. But in order to get the sequence of each DNA pair exactly right, a more rigorous method was required.

For this, the biotech community is increasingly turning to Pradeep Kumar Chatterjee, Head of Genomics and Bioinformatics at the Julius L. Chambers Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute (BBRI) of North Carolina Central University, U.S.

He has perfected a process called ``deletion mapping technology'' to map genes by checking both the sequence of every DNA pair as well as its position in the strand. It is slower but much more accurate than the rough-and-ready techniques adopted to get the bulk of the genome map right. But it is also a powerful tool for those who now want to use the genome map to analyse specific strands of DNA to attack individual diseases: what causes childhood leukaemia for example; or heart disease. Researchers at a cardio-vascular centre in Houston, Texas, looking for the gene whose absence can lead to heart-valve defects in humans, told the North Carolina ``News and Observer'' last month: ``Because of Dr. Chatterjee, we can do in a few months what would otherwise take two years''.

They are not alone: Emailed requests are pouring in to Dr. Chatterjee's lab, from biotech and molecular biology institutes in the U.S., Germany, the U.K. and Australia, seeking information on the technique. And somewhat unusually in this scientific field with huge techno-commercial opportunities, Dr. Chatterjee has consistently refused to patent his work. ``When you patent, you restrict ... I want the technology to be used,'' he says.

Now 47, Chatterjee studied in Asansol, India and did his M.Sc. in Chemistry at IIT, Kharagpur in 1976. He moved to the U.S. and obtained his doctorate in Chemistry from Columbia University in 1981. Now a naturalised U.S. citizen, Dr. Chatterjee has been a research assistant at State University, New York and a researcher at the molecular genetics department of GlaxoWellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) Research and Development, before BBRI offered him the facilities and funding to carry out the research on his process in 1999.

His subsequent work has galvanised the scientific community — and held out the hope of finding out if a person is genetically susceptible to a disease — say, cancer or hypertension — and then trying to prevent it.

``This means the university has now become a contributor to research of the human genome,'' says Kenneth Harewood, BBRI's Director, who was instrumental in getting Dr. Chatterjee to join the institute.

Since Dr. Chatterjee's coming, the university has seen a sharp rise in research grants for BBRI.

What will the world's scientific community address next, with the human genome almost fully mapped? In an exclusive appraisal emailed to The Hindu, Dr. Chatterjee writes: The focus is shifting to understanding the function of sequences in human and other genomes.... particularly, the function of non-coding sequences that are highly conserved between the genomes of mouse and man — that is about 4.5 per cent of the human genome. Only 1.1 per cent of this comprises coding sequences for protein. The big question we have to answer is: What is the remaining 3.4 per cent doing?''.

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