The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Director General Dr N Kalaiselvi believes that gene editing and genetic sequencing could soon become the newest approach to health. Inaugurating a mobile science exhibition that explains genes and genetic diseases, called Gene-Health Connect, at the CSIR campus, Dr Kalaiselvi said that understanding the function of genes, and how their sequence can be arranged, could help address inherent problems that individuals may experience at birth.
On the occasion of World Thalassemia Day, CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), in collaboration with NCSM-Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum (VITM), Bengaluru, launched the mobile science exhibition. Telangana Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan visited the museum.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Kalaiselvi highlighted that until now, maintaining good health involved adhering to lifestyle, dietary and physical habits. But gene editing could give us some control over inherent diseases. Parents often worry about leaving assets and properties to their children but don’t realise that they are also leaving genes with the probability of developing various health conditions. This new mobile exhibition on genetic health will make such knowledge more accessible to people by going to their doorstep.
The exhibition is set in a bus with 20 exhibits that will go around science, medical, and pharmacy colleges and high schools in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the coming seven months. It aims to educate young people on genetic diseases and how they can be prevented. Dr Somdatta Karak, Science Communication and Public Outreach Officer at CCMB, said that the exhibition was created for young people to understand how genes function and look at genetic diseases more objectively.
Dr Vinay K Nandicoori, Director of CSIR-CCMB, said, “Gene health is a fairly new concept, and using certain enzymes called Cas9 and certain sequences could change a base in DNA. Although not used much at present, gene sequencing has become more common these days. There are certain rare genetic diseases, and if you can sequence those genomes where you may or may not know the cause, in that case, if you can understand the cause of it, it can help us know the outcome. Hence, understanding mutations helps us manifest the outcome.”
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