King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC) revealed details about the first project of its kind in specifically mapping genomes of Saudis to identify prominent genetic traits and characteristics of the Saudi society.
This project was executed in state-of- the-art laboratories of the Medical Genome department at KAIMRC lead by a team of Saudi researcher scientists and genetics technicians and other clinical specialties. The Center is expected to become the largest genome center for testing and research in the Kingdom, equipped with the latest genetic engineering technology.
Genome maps provide an accurate coding of the human genetic information which is known as (DNA). In the beginning of 2009 (USA, UK and China) decided to join in the launch of a large international project of mapping the genome of a thousand individuals whom have been selected from ten different nations to study the effects of genetic differences in the spread of diseases.
Genome mapping was not possible in a short period of time until the revolution biotechnology used in Genetic Engineering especially Next-Generation Sequencing in order to identify the genetic sequence.
This project aims to establish standards for personalized medicine such as classifying patients into different categories according to their genetic nature to provide a more accurate and efficient treatment targeting that specific patient.
One of the most significant findings of first phase is that there are more than 1.7 million distinctive single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) among those tested that will help in explaining the spread of certain diseases such as diabetes and obesity in Arab countries.
The study also elucidates the changes in the Saudi genome. These changes are very important in studying personalized medicine.
Moreover, there were genetic markings in Arab genome map which were discovered to derive from ancient tribes (L0a) who had lived for150000-170000 years ago.
The project will target a larger group of citizens and will coincide with initial genome studies among some patients with multiple sclerosis in order to identify genetic changes that cause the disease when comparing their own genome with healthy people genomes. This will be done in collaboration with King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology.
Additionally, the genetic sequence of the Mitochondria has been recorded in the U.S National Center for Biotechnology Information.