NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, June 22, 2017

India is the land of inventors and industry, spices and spirituality – and 1.3 billion human genomes. But although the subcontinent contributes around 20% of the world’s population, the DNA sequences of its people make up around 0.2% of global genetic databases.

In a similar vein, 81% of the world’s genomic information has been collected from people with European ancestry. Still, this is an improvement from a staggering 96% back in 2009.

At the same time, there’s a growing interest in developing new, more effective therapies tailored to an individual’s genetic makeup – an idea known as precision or personalised medicine.