Why in News?

• The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has undertaken an indigenous genetic mapping effort to educate a generation of students on the “usefulness” of Genomics.
• CSIR Undertakes a Genome Sequencing Project

Highlights:

• Under the Project, nearly 1,000 rural youth from the length and breadth of India will have their genomes sequenced by the CSIR
• The project is an adjunct to a much larger government-led programme which is still in the works to sequence at least 10,000 Indian genomes
• Those recruited as part of genome-sample collections are representative of the country’s population diversity and the bulk of them will be college students, both men and women, and pursuing degrees in the life sciences or biology
• Genomes will be sequenced based on a blood sample
• Every participant would be given a report and would be inform them whether they carry gene variants that make them less responsive to certain classes of medicines.

Genome Sequencing:

• Genome refers to an organism’s complete set of DNA, including all of its
• Each genome contains all of the information required to build and maintain that
• Genome sequencing refers to figuring out the order of the DNA nucleotides, or bases, in a genome.