Personalised medicine, individual genomes on CDs, drugs without side-effects, sexual harassment by robots, organ replacement with biologically synthesised cells are some of the possibilities in the near future thanks to the revolutionary advances being made in the field of biotechnology. This was stated by Dr Lalji Singh, Director, CCMB. He was delivering a lecture on "Biotechnology: Past, Present and Future," organised by All-India Biotech Association (Southern Chapter) in Hyderabad on Thursday.

Biotechnology was known and was being practised since the onset of human civilization. Some of the examples were in the fields of agriculture, brewing, fermentation and curd-making. But the greatest achievement in biology over the past millennium had been the elucidation of the mechanism of heredity. Scientific studies of heredity eventually emerged through breeding strategies in plants and animals for betterment and survival.

In a two-hour Power Point presentation, Dr Lalji Singh ran through some of the important milestones like Mendel's revolution in 1865, the finding of chromosomes (1882), verification of Mendel's laws (1990), connection between chromosomes and Mendel's Factors expanding the science of genetics from the organismal level to the sub-cellular level (1902), some traits linked with sex (1910), genetic mutations (1927), transformation of one strain to another (1928), DNA-Heredity material (1944) by which Oswald Avery and Colin Maclyn McCarty proved that DNA, not protein, embodied the heredity material in most living organisms, X-Ray diffraction of DNA (1952) when Rosalind Franklin obtained X-Ray diffraction data of DNA, which became central to the elucidation of DNA's molecular structure, DNA, a double helix, James Watson and Francis Crick announced the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA (1953), Isolation of the first gene (1969), chemical synthesis of gene, a team at the University of Wisconsin, led by Hargobind Khorana, synthesizes a gene from scratch, beginning what might be called chemical genetics (1970), first Recombinant DNA (1972), genetic engineering (1973), DNA Fingerprinting for identifying individuals by analyzing polymorphic (variable) sequences in their DNA (1984), Human genome project (1986), first physical map of human genome (1987), creation of human genome research center with the goal of mapping and sequencing all human DNA by 2005 (1988), Human genome project formally launched (1990), gene for breast cancer (1990), first genome sequenced , the first complete DNA sequence of the genome of a free living organism, the bacterium haemophilus influenza (1995), first sequencing of eukaryote genome (1996), first cloning of a sheep named Dolly (1997), the first genetically engineered Primate ANDi (2000), completion of the first draft of the sequence of the entire human genome (2000) and the claim of the cloning of humans in 2002 which proved to be a hoax.

Human genome sequence information would lead to discovery of new targets, which could be used for discovering and designing of drugs. US FDA had approved 348 bio-medicines so far and 370 were in development phase.

Talking about the new challenges, Dr Singh said it was important to find out the functions of most of the genes. There were 40,000 protein coding genes and the functions of only 1,500 genes were known so far. He said more than 98% of DNA in human genome was non-coding and a major part of it was called by the scientists as junk. The question is if all the genes code for and all of us have the same gene, then why are we so different? The answer to this probably lies in the non-coding DNA. Therefore, it was very important to understand the functioning of the remaining genes.

Dr Singh said the interaction of gene with environment makes people behave differently. It was the environment that would make a person a criminal. The functioning of certain part of the brain was influenced by environment and he quoted the peculiar attitude of the taxi drivers in London, who use that part of the brain all the time. Even identical twins behaved differently in different environments.

Dr Singh says it is technology that drives science and not the other way round. Technological breakthroughs enable us to get answer to most of the problems. He discussed the role of DNA chips or the micro-array technology, proteomics, functional and comparative genomics based on bioinformatics and structural biology such as X-Ray Crystallography and the Transgenic Gene Knock-out technology. All these facilities are available at CCMB and are on par with international standards.

To make use of these knowledge for drug discovery, there was need to set up transgenic animal models for human diseases. The imported animal models are very expensive. He said CCMB had these animal models and were available for the pharma companies for testing purposes. He suggested the setting up of Resource Centres either by the government itself or with the help of the private sector and sharing them by networking.

Dr Singh said the individual companies could send their proposals which could be screened by funding agencies selectively. Once selected they could be given grants and the Resource Centres asked to provide all facilities for which payment might be made by the government from the grants. In this way no worthwhile idea would go waste, he said.

One of the future challenges was in the area of individualized/personalized medicine based on individual genotype. At present patients suffering from the same disease were given the same medicine. Some of them responded and others did not. This was because of the inherent difference in their genetic make-up. In some cases, the medicine could be fatal. The physician, therefore, had to know the genotype before he prescribed the medicine.

He said this raised a big question. "Are we going to provide the personalized medicine only to those who can afford it because they are rich or because of the powerful position they hold, or are we going to provide it to all citizens in the country. If you want to provide it to every one, how is it going to be done?" Dr Singh said this could be done through the Resource Centres and people's participation. India should take a lead in this, he added.

All eyes are on Stem Cell technology, a revolutionary technology enabling tissue engineering. Eventually, growing replacement organs -- liver, pancreas, skin etc - may be possible. However, India was many years away from producing needed tissues, let alone whole organs, he said.

The use of nanoscale machines cruising through the body, attacking viruses and diseases, killing cancer cells, repairing damaged cells and tissues, may now seem to be science fiction. However, in researchers' imaginations, such machines have already appeared and these are only a few steps to make designs come true.

Summing up on the future, Dr Singh said advances in basic research in plant and animal sciences would yield information about the genes that control molecular and cellular processes. Advances in medicine would help understand the genetic control of health and disease. Advances in bioinformatics would result in the creation of large databases, which would require complex software programming for structural analysis and recognition of patterns.

Some of the predictions for the future include worldwide shortage of paper, sexual harassment by robots, drugs without side-effects, organ replacement with biologically synthesised cells and individual genomes on CDs.