National Biobank:
The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science & Technology inaugurated the state-of-the-art Phenome India “National Biobank” at the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB).
- National Biobank will serve as the backbone of a nationwide cohort study, collecting comprehensive genomic, lifestyle, and clinical data from 10,000 individuals across India.
- It is tailored to capture the country’s unique diversity—across geography, ethnicity, and socio-economic backgrounds.
- It 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.
- It is launched under the Phenome India Project.
- 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.
- Phenome India Project is officially named Phenome India-CSIR Health Cohort Knowledgebase (PI-CheCK) is an initiative launched by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on December 7, 2023. The main objective of the project is to develop India-specific risk prediction models for cardio-metabolic diseases including diabetes, liver diseases, and cardiac diseases.
