A major project to find out if certain groups within the country are susceptible to recessive diseases because of endogamy has been launched by CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in collaboration with Harvard Medical School.
As part of the project 230 DNA samples of different groups across the country have been collected and 70 of them were found to be associated with founder events (a signature that reflects the presence of recessive disease in those populations).
Talking to reporters after delivering a popular lecture on “Ancient DNA and the new science of the human past” to mark 30{+t}{+h}anniversary celebrations of the Department of Biotechnology here on Thursday, Prof. David Reich, a population geneticist from Harvard Medical School, said that the project would provide a great opportunity to improve healthcare of the people as most of the endogamous communities were in India.
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He said that for instance a particular enzyme was found to be absent in people belonging to Vysya community. The absence of that enzyme might prove to be risky when anaesthesia was given. In some cases, detection of such clinical conditions could lead to treatment and would also help in pre-natal screening.
Earlier, delivering the talk, Prof. David emphasised the importance of genomics in studying population history. He said the use of ancient DNA technology showed that Europeans descended from three divergent ancestral populations.
The talk was jointly organised by Centre for DNA Fingerprinting (CDFD) and National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB).
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