a project to study India's genetically diverse population groups has been proposed by the department of biotechnology (dbt). The country has 75 endangered tribal groups among its 465 communities speaking 324 languages. The five-year project is part of the global human genome diversity programme.
The project aims to study how Indians differ from each other and how they differ from other communities in the world. It will also explore the relationship between genomic variation and disease pattern in the groups studied. Some of the minority communities like Kadars in Kerala, the Parsi community and tribes in Andaman and Nicobar Islands might be the focus of the study. A national repository of biological samples, such as dna and cell lines, will be set up. dbt has specified that blood samples will be drawn only from volunteers and that any benefit resulting from the study will be shared with them.
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