CCMB has set up 'Ancient DNA' laboratory, in collaboration with the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). It was inaugurated by Dr MK Bhan, secretary of DBT, Government of India on Monday.

The CCMB laboratory is the first of its kind in India and has already started pursuing projects in collaboration with reputed Archaeologists and Palaeontologists. The lab is specially designed with positive pressure created by highly filtered air, an exclusive water supply, and UV irradiation to maintain it free of contamination, officials claim. CCMB has already been invested about Rs 4 crore in the facility.

In a recent study, CCMB has found skeletal remains of people belonging to 8th century AD in 'Roopkund Lake' (also known as mystery lake), situated in the eastern part of Chamoli district in Uttaranchal. Dr S R Walimbe (archaeologist) and his colleagues at Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute have been collaborating with CCMB in this regard, providing samples and theoretical support in these investigations. About 30 specimens are currently being analysed. Efforts to extract and amplify DNA from these remains have been successful. DNA sequencing and preliminary analysis have been performed. Currently, sequencing of some of relevant contemporary populations is being pursued, and the origin and relationship to today's world population is being evaluated.

The Indian subcontinent provides a spectrum of human skeletal evidence representing a wide geographical region and covers a temporal span of the last 20,000 years. Ancient DNA studies help to understand the biodiversity and the pattern of human health that have unfolded in the Indian sub-continent. After the advent of genomic technologies that allow DNA to be rapidly sequenced, studies that rely on the comparison of DNA sequences from living organisms have become routine in many laboratories all over the world, Dr Singh said.