The last two decades have witnessed an enormous progress in genetics. As a consequence, the world is rapidly moving towards genomics guided decisions about health and disease. Understanding of genomics will determine optimal public health policies as well as individuals health, wellness and disease management.

In order to harness the power and potential of the continuously emerging genomic knowledge, nations in the developed world had designed and executed very large programs of genetic cataloguing of their populations. These national endeavours are meaningful as each individual is genetically unique and populations have specific patterns. Studying these patterns is crucial for decision making at the individual as well as the population level.

Given the uniqueness of populations, knowledge generated though other national programs are not always applicable to our population, increasing the global disparity in health outcomes. Recognising this, scientists in India got together to design the ‘GenomeINDIA Project’ which had the ambitious aim of understanding and cataloguing the genetic diversity of India. This would enable the informed decision-making process and reduce dependence on the Eurocentric nature of genetic knowledge.

Funded by the Department of Biotechnology under the Ministry of Science and Technology, this initiative stands as a testament to India's commitment to advancing healthcare through cutting-edge research and the early findings and future potential of this project have been published in Nature Genetics. The successful completion of this project is bound to spur a lively research ecosystem in India, harnessing the precious data that the project has collected.

Launched in January 2020, the GenomeINDIA Project brought together a consortium of 20 academic and research institutions across the nation. Coordinated by the Centre for Brain Research (CBR) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, the project was lead by Biotechnology Research Innovation Council-National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (BRIC-NIBMG), Kalyani, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) - Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, and CSIR - Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi. These four institutes performed whole genome sequencing of the collected samples, the high performance computing to generate the genomic data and developed technologies and programs to analyze and interpret the unprecedented amount of genomic data generated through this project. The BRIC-Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (BRIC-CDFD), Hyderabad, played a key role in the development of the project’s official website, https://genomeindia.in/. This user-friendly platform showcases the project’s progress, hosts data resources, and provides access to genomic data of the GenomeINDIA project. Further, CDFD established a framework for utilizing the sequence data to improve accuracy of identifying causal mutations in both familial and sporadic diseases.

The mega project saw the convergence of expertise from various centres. It engaged more than hundred researchers who contributed to the sample collection, data generation, data analysis and data curation. Besides the above-mentioned four centres there were nine other institutes, spread across India, who through direct public engagement collected the blood samples, epidemiological and demographic data from approximately 20,000 individuals. There were eight other institutes who contributed in developing additional methods to analyze genomic data. The required leadership in orchestrating such a large effort was initially done by Professor Vijayalakshmi Ravindranath (CBR and IISc) who was the national co-ordinator and is currently done by Professors Y. Narahari (CBR and IISc) and K. Thangaraj (CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad).

The GenomeINDIA Project underscores India's scientific prowess and further emphasizes the Government’s commitment to improving public health. By capturing the genetic diversity of one of the world's most varied populations, India positions itself to move to the forefront of global genomic research. This initiative aligns with the nation's vision of self-reliance in genomics, reducing dependency on foreign genomic data and propelling India into a new era of biotechnology.

The GenomeINDIA Project stands as a beacon of scientific achievement, illuminating the path toward a future where healthcare is personalized, precise, and predictive. As the nation celebrates this monumental accomplishment, it also looks forward to the myriad possibilities that this genomic initiative heralds.