A mega project on human genomes to start at CCMB

"Results of the study will give us prior knowledge which would help in understanding how each ethnic group is at risk of getting a particular type of disease. This study should help us in understanding genetic basis of diseases susceptibility and in designing strategies to develop personalised medicine," Kumar told reporters last evening after visiting Hyderabad-based central scientific institutes.

Lauding the institutions including CCMB, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services and Indian Institute of Chemical Technology for their excellence, the minister said these institutions are making huge and significant contribution in the field of science and technology.

Mentioning some of the new initiatives launched by these institutions, Kumar complimented them saying "I am delighted to say that our scientific and technological institutions are doing research and developmental works which is comparable to the finest in the world.

The institutions that we have been able to establish have acquired near global standards and in some cases they excel the global standards," Kumar added.

The number of publications, increase in the number of patents, demonstrate that pure science research is in fact being translated into technology and it in turn is acquiring cutting-edge on account of innovative strategies, he said.Mentioning other achievements and future plans of the CCMB, Ashwani Kumar said research is on in a 'Novel plant breeding approaches for food crops'.

CCMB has made major progress in identifying genes in plants that can be used to engineer production of seeds that are genetically identical clones, he said.

"Farmers will not have to incur expenditure every season and they can thus make substantial saving," Kumar said adding, "They can save the grain and use it for the next crop which will be highly economical."

This is a critical discovery for the country's food security strategy, he said.

The minister further said INCOIS which has been accepted as a partner in earthquake and tsunami prediction centre, was in the process of setting up a state-of-the-art super- computing facilities to run high-resolution mathematical models to forecast waves, tides, currents and sea-levels.

The 3D GIS mapping of the most vulnerable sectors of the coastline of the country will be done in the next 2-3 years by INCOIS, he said.