Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science & Technology (S & T) and Vice President of CSIR, Dr Jitendra Singh, inaugurated the state-of-the-art Phenome India "National Biobank" at the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), New Delhi.
The newly launched facility marks a significant stride towards building India’s own longitudinal health database and enabling personalised treatment regimens in future.
The Biobank will serve as the backbone of a nationwide cohort study, collecting comprehensive genomic, lifestyle, and clinical data from 10,000 individuals across India.
Drawing inspiration from the UK Biobank model, the Indian version is tailored to capture the country’s unique diversity, across geography, ethnicity, and socio-economic backgrounds. Researchers believe the initiative will aid early diagnosis, improve therapeutic targeting, and bolster the fight against complex diseases such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular ailments, and rare genetic disorders.
The Phenome India Project, under which the Biobank has been launched, 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.
