Geneticists at the department of biological sciences said that the multidisciplinary nature of genome mapping rules out the possibility of doing research in isolation.

The real challenge for India, scientists said, would be to set up an inter-disciplinary research programme under which molecular biologists, geneticists, clinicians, computer scientists and even theoretical physicists and synthetic chemists would work together.

The scientists also felt that the department of biotechnology should play a pro-active role in identifying isolated and hidden talents in various fields to make the project successful.

Prof BJ Rao, a senior geneticist said that with the information generated in Phase I of the project, which mainly constituted the physical and chemical mapping of genes, already indicated differences (polymorphism). "Indian scientists can take off from here to focus on understanding our own population's genomes and show how we differ from the rest of the world genetically." Besides, understanding genetic similarities and differences between various ethnic races, meticulous research on the functional genome could also reveal special genetic traits which are responsible for both disease resistance and susceptibility, said Rao, who is trying to unravel the mysteries of Y-chromosome. He said that the technology for the genome research is easily available to scientists and almost all the reagents required to do so are in the public domain.

There are evidences to show intra-ethnic differences and inter individual differences (one nucleotide per 1000), he said. "Since a fair amount of genetic changes are there, even if a small fraction of genome is functional, the inter-individual differences will turn out to be significant in size in terms of nucleotide changes which could be several thousand per genome," he said. Rao also urged that unlike the gap between the development of interconnectivity of computers through internet and framing of cyber laws, the geneticists along with legal exerts, politicians should make sure that the information generated through the Human Genome Project is not misused and Indian science managers could start working on ethical and legal issues involved simultaneously.