Ministry of Science and Technology recently inaugurated the state-of-the-art Phenome India “National Biobank” at the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) in New Delhi. It aims building India’s own longitudinal health database and enabling personalised treatment regimens in future
About Biobank
- It will serve as the backbone of a nationwide cohort study, collecting comprehensive genomic, lifestyle, and clinical data from 10,000 individuals across India.
- It draws inspiration from the UK Biobank model
- It is tailored to capture the country’s unique diversity—across geography, ethnicity, and socio-economic backgrounds.
- It has been launched under the Phenome India Project
- This project is designed to be a long-term, data-rich study tracking the health trajectories of individuals over several years.
- It will help scientists uncover disease patterns, gene-environment interactions, and response to therapies—all within the Indian context.
- Significance: It will aid early diagnosis, improve therapeutic targeting, and bolster the fight against complex diseases such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular ailments, and rare genetic disorders.