Dr Anuranjan Anand of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research has conducted studies on genes that cause schizophrenia, juvenile mycoclonic epilepsy. According to Dr. Jain, the HGP data could make the job simpler. He is of the opinion that in the case of schizophrenia or other common diseases like diabetes or blood pressure, one in every 300 of the three billion genes in the human genome differs in each individual. On the research for epilepsy, scientists have not been able arrive at conclusions like that in schizophrenia, despite serious studies made in this area. India has the highest rate of diabetes, epilepsy and hypertension incidence.
Scientists believe that the Indian population can form a good application base.
Though the immediate benefits include the ability to predict drug responsiveness, better diagnostics and perhaps antibiotics all are glued to the complete annotation of chromosomes, informs Dr. Gourie Devi. Researches have also found a new technique by which even infectious diseases can be diagnosed and treated with perhaps fewer side effects. In Bangalore, there is a lot of interest on the implications of the genome diversity project where countries like India are going to be involved in major way. In fact, research is underway at the department of molecular reproduction, development and genetics, IISc that will aid mutation analysis. Several biotechnology companies who do not wish to be mentioned are aware of the scope of the HGP and could be working on projects for the drug discoveries for gene-related disorders.