Thai scientists want to put the genetic heritage on the world map. A major challenge for a country that is still largely under-represented in global studies.
From our correspondent in Bangkok,
More than 80% of the genetic data available to scientists in the world come from populations of “European ancestry”, that is to say white in common language. Slight progress has been made in diversity in recent years with the entry into the human genome sequencing race of China and Japan, but whole sections of humanity, in Africa, South America, or Southeast Asia, remain under scientific radar.
The Thai program wants to fully sequence and analyze 50,000 individuals over the next 10 years.
A single race but infinitesimal variations
The variations from one genome to another are of the order of the infinitesimal, less than 0.01% of our three billion pairs of nucleotides, these rungs of ladder which punctuate our DNA. But in these tiny differences are hidden important consequences on our physical appearance and our health. Drugs tested mainly on Europeans, such as the molecule carmabazepine against epilepsy, later revealed devastating side effects in other populations.
With the development of genetic medicine, which looks at a patient’s gene map before making a diagnosis or offering treatment, this is particularly troublesome because if a patient belongs to a group that is poorly represented in global statistics, many of his genes deviate from the established norm and therefore this can mislead doctors.
Prevent and cure
It is for this reason that Thailand, but also other small countries in the region such as Singapore, are launching their own programs to put their still unknown genetic heritage on the world map. Doctors involved in these issues are also calling for a rethink of the racial categories used by Western laboratories for testing drugs and vaccines, for example.
Just read the clinical studies of recent anti-Covid vaccines, for example, which use categories like “Black” which brings together very diverse African and Caribbean populations, or “Asian” a category which mixes Chinese, Indians, Indonesians, in short, almost 60% of the world’s population, and which do not make much biological sense.
Geneticists also warn against possible political drifts of the sequencing race, since the United States and China have launched enormous programs to deepen their knowledge in these fields. Global genetic data, they remind, must remain a common good of humanity.
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