Genomics Can Help In Fight Against COVID-19: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh

Genomics would be a major area in the 21st century and help in a big way in healthcare, the fight against COVID-19, increasing productivity and contributing to fighting challenges like climate change, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Thursday.

He said that through COVID genome sequencing, the part of the genome which is not changing frequently can be identified and it will help in vaccine development.

He noted that while Information Technology (IT) played an important role in the 1990s in strengthening the country's economy, genomics would be a major area in the 21st century and play a crucial role in the country's and societal development.

Observing that climate change is going to be a major problem in the future, he said genomics can contribute in fighting the challenges. "Along with health and treatment, it can also be used in increasing productivity," he said in a video message on the occasion of inauguration of NKC Centre for Genomics Research here. He said the NKC Centre, named after former (late) Member of Parliament from Madhya Pradesh Nand Kumar Singh Chauhan, would work in COVID genome sequencing and help towards saving people's lives.

Mr Singh hoped that the establishment of the Centre would reduce the country's dependence on other countries.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who inaugurated the centre virtually, said the dream of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is doubling farmers' income and it requires increase in productivity, reducing input cost and loss of crop, and making efforts to ensure that the farmers get the right price.

Agrigenomics can hep increase productivity, reduce input cost and increase resistance to disease, he said.

The NKC Centre for Genomics Research was set up by Nucleome Informatics, a leading genomics research service provider.

The laboratory will carry out the latest third-generation sequencing and play a critical role in fighting the pandemic by sequencing 5000 COVID genomes and 500 human genomes a Nucleome release said.

The lab would also play a role in upping India's potential in agriculture, animal husbandry, and personalised / precision medicine, among others, it said.

"The laboratory is an extraordinary feat and I congratulate Nucleome for this ambitious effort even while remaining connected to the root. This is a remarkable achievement of science and technology and these problem-solving approaches should be done at scale. I am impressed with the technology put in place and will look forward to its implementation," the release quoted Principal Scientific Adviser to the Centre Prof K Vijay Raghavan as saying.

Nucleome has contributed to the fields of agrigenomics, animal husbandry and wildlife conservation since its inception, Dushyant Singh Baghel, MD and CEO, Nucleome Informatics, said in the release.

The next NKC Centre for Genomics will be set up at Indore, he said.

"With the addition of NovaSeq 6000 (the world's largest short-read sequencing) and GeneTitan platforms, the laboratory will play a critical role in expanding the scope of our in-house services and allow seamless cross-platform services," he said.

"We will soon begin to provide our in-house DrSeq suite of predictive genomics products in healthcare to analyse the data of RNA sequencing – we expect this will improve the understanding and uptake of personalized / precision medicine in India," Mr Baghel said.

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