A researcher works at the Vinmec Research Institute of Stem Cell and Gene Technology.

The project’s results were recently published in Human Mutation, an international medical journal on human genetics. This is an important reference data source for biomedical, pharmacological and historical research and application.

The project comprised of decoding the genomes of 305 healthy Kinh people in combination with data of 101 previously published genomes.

Conducted independently by all Vietnamese scientists at Vinmec Research Institute of Stem Cell and Gene Technology (VRISG) from December 2016 to March2019, the research results published more than 24 million points of change, including more than 700 thousand completely new points.

Accordingly, the Vietnamese genome is different from the genomes of other populations, which is reflected in thelarge difference in the frequency of occurrence of many genetic changes.

Specifically, research found that 1.24 million changes appear in Kinh people, but appear very little in other populations. This is an important contribution, providing a highly reliable reference base for future biomedical studies and applications on Vietnamese people’s health related to genetics.

Analysing the Vietnamese genome showed the difference of Kinh people to other populations. Compared to the international database of 1,000 human genomes, about one third of the genetic variation in the Kinh population does not occur in the Han Chinese population and vice versa.

In particular, analysis results of the ancestral origin of human populations showed that current Southeast Asians, including the Kinh Vietnamese people, have their roots in ancient Southeast Asia.

The data also confirms that Kinh and Thai people have high genome homology in genomes and close evolutionary relationships. Meanwhile, the interference and gene transfer from East Asian populations to Vietnamese Kinh population is negligible.

The Vietnamese genome database is considered to be the most complete dictionary of the Vietnamese human gene data system. Previously, domestic scientists often had to refer to genomes from foreign populations.

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thanh Liem, Director of VRISG andhead of the project, said genetic data closely relates to health and pathology, contributing to the treatment ofcancersand genetic diseases, especially with the development trend of individualised medicine.

Therefore, the research is an important reference basis for the development of methods for early detection of cancer genes, metabolism and response to drug treatments, genetic diseases or neurodegeneration problems like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, he noted.

Nhan Dan