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The picture shows the distinguished members who participated in a brainstorming meeting held in the Indian Institute of Science Campus (2018) to conceptualise the GenomeIndia Project .
Inspired by projects like the Human Genome Project and the UK Biobank project, the Indian scientists from 20 Major institutions in India held several brainstorming meetings during 2018 under the leadership of Prof. Vijayalakshmi Ravindranath, the then Director of the Centre for Brain Research located in the Indian Institute of Science campus, to conceptualise a national population-scale genome sequencing effort. A key motivation was India’s immense genetic diversity — over 4,600 population groups, many endogamous, leading to unique disease-linked genetic variants. The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) played an enabling role for the brainstorming interactions.
The Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India formally approved GenomeIndia in late 2019 with participation from 20 Institutions. The Centre for Brain Research (CBR) was identified as the coordinating centre.
Apart from being a coordinating centre, CBR is also a sequencing centre and a sample collection centre. The biobank of 20000 samples is also currently located in CBR.
The GenomeIndia Project was officially launched in January 2020 by the Department of Biotechnology.