Dubai Genomes

Dubai authorities will create a DNA bank of its residents

Elizaveta Ivtushok, N+1

Dubai Department of Health he announced his intention to create a biobank of genomes of all his residents. The obtained data are then used to improve the effectiveness of medical diagnostics, especially to determine the predisposition to genetic diseases and their prevention. This is reported by the news site Khaleej Times (Dubai to map genome of all its residents).

DNA collection and analysis helps to identify genetic markers of predisposition to various diseases. Analyzing the genome of a population affected by a disease or condition, it is possible to identify, for example, a set of single–nucleotide polymorphisms (changes in DNA sequences into one nucleotide) - it will be considered such a marker. For such studies, however, a very large sample is needed. That is why medical representations of various countries and commercial companies create DNA banks, or biobanks of genetic information of the population. For example, the British organization UK Biobank stores information about more than half a million Britons: with its help, for example, it was possible to show the relationship between the weight gain of the country's residents and natural selection. Another well–known organization, 23andMe, stores data on more than a million people around the world and also effectively provides them for research: for example, to study genetic markers of depression. 

Now the collection and storage of the genome will be engaged in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai authorities plan to create a large-scale (at the end of 2017, the city's population was slightly more than three million people) biobank of the DNA of its residents. The next step will be both the identification of markers of predisposition to the disease in patients, and the creation of an algorithm for automatic and effective analysis of the genome of a healthy population. 

According to the head of the Department, Humaid Mohammed al-Qatami, the first stage of long–term research (namely, DNA collection and the creation of laboratories) will be completed within the next two years.

A few years ago, the UAE authorities introduced mandatory premarital examination of couples. Such measures make it possible to notify future spouses of possible diseases that they can pass on to their children: for example, thalassemia is an inherited disease characterized by a violation of the structure of normal hemoglobin and common among residents of Middle Eastern countries.

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