Latest news with #HumanGenomeProject
South China Morning Post
4 days ago
- General
- South China Morning Post
China boosts research of Southeast Asian populations overlooked in Human Genome Project
For more than two decades, the Human Genome Project (HGP) – a landmark scientific endeavour led by Western nations – mapped humanity's genetic blueprint, yet the rich diversity of Southeast Asia was overlooked. Despite being home to nearly 300 million people, including the world's largest indigenous population, mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA) contributed a mere 1.57 per cent to global genomic databases, with most data derived from diaspora communities rather than local populations. Chinese researchers say they now aim to rectify the omission. Scientists from the Kunming Institute of Zoology, an affiliate of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have spearheaded a decade-long collaboration with 34 Southeast Asian research teams, culminating in the first comprehensive genomic atlas of the region – the SEA3K data set – which was published in Nature on May 14. 02:43 Nobel Medicine Prize awarded to US duo for 'fundamentally important' discovery of microRNA Nobel Medicine Prize awarded to US duo for 'fundamentally important' discovery of microRNA The study revealed striking insights, including that MSEA populations harbour unique genetic adaptations to tropical challenges as well as distinct Denisovan ancestry linked to Russia's far east. Before China took a role in the research, fewer than 200 indigenous genomes from MSEA existed in global databases, with neighbouring India contributing most via Southeast Asian diaspora samples, according to the paper. Even city state Singapore, a regional sequencing hub, accounted for 92 per cent of the region's limited data, leaving Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam virtually invisible in the genomic era. 'For over a decade, we conducted fieldwork in Southeast Asian rainforests, adhering to local ethical protocols, fostering community engagement and documenting indigenous cultural and linguistic contexts,' corresponding author Su Bing said in an interview with China Science Daily on May 19. Researchers collected samples from Southeast Asian populations covering six countries, five prominent language families and 30 ethnic languages. They completed genome sequencing for 3,023 cases, including 40 high-accuracy long-read sequencing data.
Indian Express
29-05-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
It's not enough to overtake another country in GDP rankings. The challenge is to lead in ideas and innovation
India is projected to surpass Japan in nominal GDP as the fourth-largest economy. That is more than just a statistical feat. It is a moment of national pride, but also one of introspection. How do we transform this economic milestone into a sustainable, equitable future? The answer, as history and evidence suggest, lies not just in markets or manpower, but in mastering science. Historically, nations that led the world economically were also those that led in scientific endeavour. The United States' supremacy in the 20th century wasn't only due to capitalism, but its deep investments in basic and applied science — from the transistor and GPS to the Human Genome Project. China's rapid ascent has been propelled by high-tech ambitions, state-driven R&D, and long-term science planning. Sustainable leadership comes not from momentary success but from robust systems rooted in innovation and openness. India's growth so far has been powered by services, IT exports, and consumption. These have delivered gains, but do not constitute the deep, durable foundation that a science-driven economy offers. Episodic success in space or pharma isn't enough. We must build an ecosystem where success becomes systemic, not sporadic. That shift begins with public policy. India currently invests around 0.7 per cent of GDP in R&D — far below the levels of South Korea, Israel, or China. The newly established Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) could be a turning point — if backed by sustained funding, transparent governance, and the right priorities. Basic research, though less visible in the short run, yields far-reaching and longer-lasting economic dividends than applied research. It seeds future technologies, spills across sectors, and fuels cross-border knowledge flows. Second, science must be embedded in education. Beyond IITs and IISc, we need regional universities to become innovation anchors — collaborating with local industries and solving real-world problems. These institutions remain India's most underleveraged resource for scientific decentralisation. This calls for reform: Autonomy in governance, creative pedagogy, and faculty evaluation metrics that reward mentorship, problem-solving, and community engagement. Third, India must develop a confident and future-oriented scientific vision. Economic strength alone does not define national stature. It must be accompanied by purpose, planning, and pride in original thinking. Our innovation goals must be tied to our unique needs: Clean water, energy security, equitable healthcare, and sustainable agriculture. These challenges are not constraints — they are opportunities to lead in frugal, inclusive innovation. Fourth, we must upgrade our industrial strategy. In 2022, high-tech sectors accounted for less than 10 per cent of Indian manufacturing, compared to 30 per cent in South Korea. To rise further, India must foster world-class innovation by building domestic technology clusters — integrating labs, startups, manufacturers, and training institutes, and enabling them with shared infrastructure, IP support, and financing. Fifth, our research evaluation system must evolve. Patents and citations matter, but they cannot be the sole metrics. We must also assess real-world utility, interdisciplinary reach, and long-term societal impact. Scientific culture must reward risk-taking, embrace failure, and support collaboration across domains and institutions. Innovation is rarely linear — it thrives on detours. Sixth, we must address population dynamics in a scientific and sensitive manner. Though India's GDP will eventually surpass Japan's, our per capita income remains significantly lower. A stable population base is essential for translating economic growth into individual prosperity. India's total fertility rate is declining, but unevenly across states. A voluntary, rights-based approach — focusing on education for girls, reproductive health services, and awareness of economic opportunities — can help create a more balanced and empowered demographic landscape. Finally, science must be seen not just as an engine of economic growth, but as a cornerstone of democratic vitality. A society that values curiosity, evidence, and experimentation is better equipped to solve problems, question authority, and nurture a shared sense of purpose. We must build a culture where science is aspirational, inclusive, and woven into everyday life — from classrooms to boardrooms to village labs. India today stands at a crucial juncture: A rising economic power, but still finding its voice as a scientific leader. To move forward, we must make science not just a policy priority but a national ethos. It is not enough to overtake another country in GDP rankings. The true challenge is to lead in ideas, discovery, and innovation. That requires making science the backbone of India's growth story — not just for today's headlines, but for tomorrow's generations. The author is former Director, Agharkar Research Institute, and Visiting Professor, IIT Bombay. Views are personal
Forbes
26-05-2025
- Science
- Forbes
Find Greater Resilience By Avoiding These 3 Leadership Blind Spots
Over 96% of organizations have experienced disruption in the last two years, according to a global resilience survey from PwC. Resilience - the dynamic capacity to anticipate, adapt to and recover from adversity - is what allows companies and individuals to bounce back after a challenge. Difficulty, change and loss comes to everyone (and every organization) to varying degrees. But, as Jeff Golblum's Dr. Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, 'Life finds a way.' For leaders and aspiring leaders, understanding how resilience works can be a vital asset - as resilience can help you to "find a way". What would it mean to your career, or your company, if you could access enhanced capabilities during times of hardship and even chaos? Being resilient is the key. However, there are three blind spots that often show up inside of organizations, and individuals, when the going gets tough. Here's how to turn resilience into a competitive advantage, no matter what you're up against. When scientists with the Human Genome Project first discovered our full genetic code in 2003, they were surprised by its lack of complexity. Humans have only 20-25,000 protein coded genes. Compare that number to a water flea, which has 30,000. Were humans pulled out of the oven before we were baked? Creatures like fleas, lizards, sharks and giraffes are hard-wired from their DNA. These creatures rely solely on instinct as a means of processing the world. As a result, their genetic coding is more complex and more fixed. 'Our [human] Humans are designed to adapt, as we are built to learn from our surroundings and circumstances. Our 'incomplete' genetic code is built so that our experiences will expand on the framework, allowing for us to continuously expand our capabilities (if we choose to do so). We are more than just instincts and protein code - our ever-expanding nature has put us at the top of the food chain. The human operating system was designed around resilience: our experience, and our ability to adapt and learn, completes the picture and creates human development. And that development doesn't stop with childhood - our brains are constantly responding to new stimuli and new information, learning and growing, coming back stronger after defeat. When we step away from misunderstandings and blind spots, we see evidence all around us of our resilience and capacity for change.
NDTV
23-05-2025
- Health
- NDTV
India To Lead Global Research On Environment And Health
New Delhi: India stands at the cusp of becoming a global leader in exposomics research, with the potential to reshape its understanding and prevent the disease, said Dr Kalpana Balakrishnan, Dean of Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research. Ms Balakrishnan, who was part of a recent forum on exposomics organised by the Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC, told PTI that India's unique blend of traditional and modern health risks makes it "a natural laboratory" for exposome science. The term "exposome" was coined by Dr Christopher Wild in 2005. It refers to the totality of environmental exposures that individuals experience throughout their lives, from conception to death. Unlike a genome, which is inherited and fixed, the exposome is dynamic, ever-shifting and deeply intertwined with health outcomes. Noting that genes and genetic susceptibility alone cannot explain why people develop a chronic disease, Ms Balakrishnan said, "Someone may not have the genetic markers for heart disease or diabetes, but still end up with them because of multiple environmental exposures experienced over a life course. That's the exposome." While the Human Genome Project advanced genetic science within a decade, diseases affecting the cardiovascular system, endocrine disorders and mental health issues remain poorly understood through genetics alone, she explained, emphasising the need for cutting-edge tools that can capture exposures from chemical, physical, biological and psychosocial hazards and their interactions with lifestyles or living conditions. When asked about what kind of tools and technologies are needed for exposome mapping, Ms Balakrishnan told PTI that High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS) that can simultaneously screen thousands of chemical compounds in air, water, soil and food is one of the key technologies. "You don't just test for what you expect - A, B, and C. You do untargeted analysis to discover D, E, F and beyond. Otherwise, you stay blind to the unknowns," she said. For biological responses, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and a suite of omics platforms, including metabolomics, proteomics, and genomics, are vital. "These help us understand how internal systems react to exposures," Ms Balakrishnan said, noting that samples from blood, urine and other tissues provide critical biological signatures. However, exposomics isn't confined to the laboratory. It now includes satellite-generated data for physical exposures like air pollution, urban heat islands, vegetation cover, and land-use changes. "We can map environmental factors at high spatial resolution for entire populations," she said, adding that this is especially critical for a country like India, where environmental risks vary drastically by region and socioeconomic status. Highlighting the complexity of exposomic data, Ms Balakrishnan, who is also the director at World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Occupational Environmental Health, mentioned that mapping it requires deep learning and AI-powered pattern recognition beyond basic statistical methods. "These computational tools are crucial. We need them to make sense of massive, layered datasets across environmental samples, biological responses, and population demographics," Ms Balakrishnan told PTI. She further referred to the successful models in the North American and European exposome consortia, where patterns between pollution, green spaces, and genetic variants are predicting risks for diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular conditions. "Imagine if we could replicate and scale that here in India," she said. India's opportunity lies in its landscape, which includes traditional public health challenges like poor sanitation and lack of clean water. These challenges exist alongside modern hazards like ultra-processed food, air pollution and psychosocial stress. "We're seeing exposure overload from both ends," Ms Balakrishnan said. "That's why we need a holistic, integrative framework in the numerous ongoing cohorts in the country, and exposomics can give us that," she added. Stressing that India cannot rely on siloed scientific approaches, she further stated that it is not just the job of medical scientists. "We need engineers, economists, social scientists, and urban planners in the room - together with policymakers from the start," she emphasised. Adding an international perspective, Dr Rima Habre, associate professor of environmental health and spatial sciences at the University of Southern California and co-director of the NIH-funded NEXUS Center for Exposome Research Coordination, said India holds immense potential for global collaborations in exposomics. Speaking to PTI, Habre said, "I connected with Dr Balakrishnan around exposomics at a recent visit to Ahmedabad, India, where we were both invited speakers at an ICMR-NIOH conference. "I presented our vision in the NEXUS Center, which I co-lead with Dr. Gary Miller and Dr. Chirag Patel, to link US-based and international researchers and infrastructure for a truly global exposome initiative." She added that India's diversity of environmental and social stressors, shaped by unique regional policies and cultural practices, offers unparalleled insight into the totality of health-relevant exposures. "Dr Balakrishnan's work in establishing large, population-based cohorts in India is foundational for exposomics," Habre said, calling for a globally connected but locally governed framework to reduce the environmental burden of disease. Poornima Prabhakaran, Director of the Centre for Health Analytics Research and Trends (CHART), Ashoka University, echoed the sentiments. India's longitudinal research infrastructure provides a fertile ground to pioneer large-scale exposomics studies tailored to developing country contexts, she told PTI. "As a global effort to scale exposomics gathers momentum, we must account for a multitude of diverse exposures across geographies and populations spanning biomarkers, environmental risk factors and 'omics'," she said. This is in light of the recent Exposome Moonshot Forum hosted in Washington DC where there is already an effort across EU (EIRENE) and now US (NEXUS) and IREN to initiate this effort globally, Prabhakaran said.
Time of India
23-05-2025
- Health
- Time of India
'Health isn't shaped by genes alone - it's in the air and all around us'
New Delhi: India stands at the cusp of becoming a global leader in exposomics research, with the potential to reshape its understanding and prevent the disease, said Dr Kalpana Balakrishnan , Dean of Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research. Balakrishnan , who was part of a recent forum on exposomics organised by the Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC, told PTI that India's unique blend of traditional and modern health risks makes it "a natural laboratory" for exposome science. The term "exposome" was coined by Dr Christopher Wild in 2005. It refers to the totality of environmental exposures that individuals experience throughout their lives, from conception to death. Unlike a genome, which is inherited and fixed, the exposome is dynamic, ever-shifting and deeply intertwined with health outcomes. Noting that genes and genetic susceptibility alone cannot explain why people develop a chronic disease, Balakrishnan said, "Someone may not have the genetic markers for heart disease or diabetes, but still end up with them because of multiple environmental exposures experienced over a life course. That's the exposome." While the Human Genome Project advanced genetic science within a decade, diseases affecting the cardiovascular system, endocrine disorders and mental health issues remain poorly understood through genetics alone, she explained, emphasising the need for cutting-edge tools that can capture exposures from chemical, physical, biological and psychosocial hazards and their interactions with lifestyles or living conditions. When asked about what kind of tools and technologies are needed for exposome mapping, Balakrishnan told PTI that High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS) that can simultaneously screen thousands of chemical compounds in air, water, soil and food is one of the key technologies. "You don't just test for what you expect - A, B, and C. You do untargeted analysis to discover D, E, F and beyond. Otherwise, you stay blind to the unknowns," she said. For biological responses, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and a suite of omics platforms, including metabolomics, proteomics, and genomics, are vital. "These help us understand how internal systems react to exposures," Balakrishnan said, noting that samples from blood, urine and other tissues provide critical biological signatures. However, exposomics isn't confined to the laboratory. It now includes satellite-generated data for physical exposures like air pollution, urban heat islands, vegetation cover, and land-use changes. "We can map environmental factors at high spatial resolution for entire populations," she said, adding that this is especially critical for a country like India, where environmental risks vary drastically by region and socioeconomic status. Highlighting the complexity of exposomic data, Balakrishnan, who is also the director at World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Occupational Environmental Health, mentioned that mapping it requires deep learning and AI-powered pattern recognition beyond basic statistical methods. "These computational tools are crucial. We need them to make sense of massive, layered datasets across environmental samples, biological responses, and population demographics," Balakrishnan told PTI. She further referred to the successful models in the North American and European exposome consortia, where patterns between pollution, green spaces, and genetic variants are predicting risks for diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular conditions. "Imagine if we could replicate and scale that here in India," she said. India's opportunity lies in its landscape, which includes traditional public health challenges like poor sanitation and lack of clean water. These challenges exist alongside modern hazards like ultra-processed food, air pollution and psychosocial stress. "We're seeing exposure overload from both ends," Balakrishnan said. "That's why we need a holistic, integrative framework in the numerous ongoing cohorts in the country, and exposomics can give us that," she added. Stressing that India cannot rely on siloed scientific approaches, she further stated that it is not just the job of medical scientists. "We need engineers, economists, social scientists, and urban planners in the room - together with policymakers from the start," she emphasised. Adding an international perspective, Dr Rima Habre , associate professor of environmental health and spatial sciences at the University of Southern California and co-director of the NIH-funded NEXUS Center for Exposome Research Coordination, said India holds immense potential for global collaborations in exposomics. Speaking to PTI, Habre said, "I connected with Dr Balakrishnan around exposomics at a recent visit to Ahmedabad, India, where we were both invited speakers at an ICMR-NIOH conference. "I presented our vision in the NEXUS Center, which I co-lead with Dr. Gary Miller and Dr. Chirag Patel , to link US-based and international researchers and infrastructure for a truly global exposome initiative." She added that India's diversity of environmental and social stressors, shaped by unique regional policies and cultural practices, offers unparalleled insight into the totality of health-relevant exposures. "Dr Balakrishnan's work in establishing large, population-based cohorts in India is foundational for exposomics," Habre said, calling for a globally connected but locally governed framework to reduce the environmental burden of disease. Poornima Prabhakaran, Director of the Centre for Health Analytics Research and Trends (CHART), echoed the sentiments. India's longitudinal research infrastructure provides a fertile ground to pioneer large-scale exposomics studies tailored to developing country contexts, she told PTI. "As a global effort to scale exposomics gathers momentum, we must account for a multitude of diverse exposures across geographies and populations spanning biomarkers, environmental risk factors and 'omics'," she said. This is in light of the recent Exposome Moonshot Forum hosted in Washington DC where there is already an effort across EU (EIRENE) and now US (NEXUS) and IREN to initiate this effort globally, Prabhakaran said.
