MASTERING TECHNOLOGY AND NARROWING SPACE

Dr. Lê Sỹ Vinh added that their group had received the data of a Vietnamese individual genome in the end of 2013. These data consist of more 108 billion nucleotides. On this basis, the research team had built and analyzed the genome of this Vietnamese individual with the state-of-the-art technologies and calculation method and it had high accuracy, being implemented on the computer system of VNU University of Engineering and Technology and Hanoi University of Science and Technology. The analytic result as compared with human standard genome found that most of the standard genome was covered by this Vietnamese individual genome.

Dr. Vinh pointed out that the above-said data of a Vietnamese individual genome had been received by  Illumina HiSeq 2000 - new generation sequencing machine with high coverage (34 times), similar to the coverage of 30 times in the human genome projects from other countries at the Centre for BGI –Hongkong Genome Sequencing.

The genome of this Vietnamese individual has more than 3 million Single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) as compared to the human reference genome. Many changes are new and can be found only in the Vietnamese individual genome. The analytic results have also discovered a number of other new changes related to structures.

GENOME RESEARCH – A BREAKTHROUGH OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The building of the human standard genome was fundamentally finished in 2001 with a cost of USD 3 billion and had been implemented within 15 years. This is regarded as one of the most important scientific breakthrough in the 21^st century.

In the past, the research and application of human genomes were only the job of the rich countries. Nowadays, the new generation of genome sequencing technology with low cost has taken shape, making the dream of many countries’ researching and developing products relating to the human genome come true. Now there are about 20 countries having built and analyzed successfully their nations’ genomes.

DOUBLE BENIFITS

The building and analyzing of a Vietnamese individual genome by the research group led by Dr. Lê Sỹ Vinh show that the Vietnamese scientists begin to master the process as well as the modern calculation methods in order to step by step carry out the projects relating to genome in general and to human genome in particular.

This research result is also an important premise for us to carry out the following projects in order to study the biodiversity as well as the relation between the races of the Vietnamese people and the other races in Asia and the world.

Dr. Lê Sỹ Vinh said that the group’s results were of trail-blazing character in Vietnam. With a modest fund, however, with the reasonable guidance, organization and good orientation, we can be able to start the important projects that could deliver upbeat results with great influence./.

>>> Vietnamese