BHUBANESWAR: Eminent scientist Dr Lalji Singh on Tuesday said finding a disease-gene enables one to predict illness before patients, who are at risk, develop it or those whose children are at risk even before conception.
Addressing the gathering on the occasion of World DNA Day organised by inDNA Life Sciences Pvt Ltd here, Dr Singh, who is popularly known as father of DNA fingerprinting in the country, said with genetic analysis, humanity has come closest to decode the mystery of life, behaviour and diseases from the wonder molecule DNA.
With the advent of high-end technology and tools in molecular life sciences, he said, there has been a transition from blood, serum, sputum or tissue, protein-based diagnostics to nucleic acid (DNA/RNA) based diagnostics.
He, however, admitted that failure to identify the gene that causes diabetes is one of the biggest setbacks for human geneticists. ‘’Though geneticists have sequenced thousands of genes of individuals suffering from diabetes to identify the particular gene, they have failed,’’ he said.
Speaking on the occasion, Secretary of Health and Family Welfare Department Dr Pramod Kumar Meherda emphasised on formulation of a policy to go deep into DNA analysis of people suffering from chronic disorders and find out long term solutions for a number of diseases which have been a cause of concern.
InDNA Life Sciences Pvt Ltd is India’s first DNA-based clinic and an indigenously developed molecular platform that offers customised solutions for identification of DNA-based changes and its impact on health and disease outcome. It caters to DNA-based diagnostics services to all leading hospitals in Eastern India.
Founder and Managing Director of the NABL-accredited genetic laboratory Dr Biren Banerjee said the DNA technology is very trendy to predict diseases. Completion of human genome project and emergence of next generation rapid DNA sequencing platforms have given birth to molecular medicines which are the latest measure to deal with diseases, he said.
Among others, co-founder JB Pany, Director of AHRCC Dr Lalatendu Sarangi, Dr Solomon Paul and gynaecologist Dr PC Mohapatra also spoke.