Source: PIB
Context: Union Minister inaugurated India’s first National Biobank and a Longitudinal Population Data Study at CSIR-IGIB, New Delhi, under the Phenome India initiative, aimed at enabling personalised healthcare and indigenous genomic research.
About India’s first National Biobank:
- What is the National Biobank?
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- A centralised, high-resolution genomic and clinical database capturing India’s ethnic, lifestyle, and health diversity.
- Part of Phenome India, a longitudinal cohort study to track disease patterns and gene-environment interactions over time.
- Developed By:
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- Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB)
- Supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India
- Objectives:
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- Build India’s own population-specific health database
- Enable personalised treatment regimens based on genomic profiles
- Facilitate AI-powered diagnostics and gene-guided therapies
- Strengthen research on rare diseases, AMR, cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases
- Key Features:
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- Collects genomic, lifestyle, and clinical data from over 10,000 individuals across the country
- Inspired by the UK Biobank, but tailored to Indian diversity in geography, caste, ethnicity, and socio-economic conditions
- Powers long-term health tracking to understand disease susceptibility, treatment response, and environmental influence.
- Significance:
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- Makes India self-reliant in health and genomic data infrastructure
- Catalyses personalised medicine and preventive healthcare in public systems
- Empowers CSIR and IGIB to develop low-cost indigenous CRISPR therapies
