"Only the anonymised summary of clinical variants in the BCGA is accessible to clinicians"

IT-Madras embarked on an initiative to build India's Cancer Genome Database, which can completely transform cancer research in India.

- Anusha Ashwin

With the support of DBT, IIT-M kicked off the Indian breast cancer genome sequence generation a few years ago. In line with World Cancer Day, which falls on February 4 every year, IIT-M unveiled an open source database called the Bharat Cancer Genome Atlas (BCGA). So far, whole exome sequencing has been done on 958 tumour-normal samples from 479 breast cancer patients across India. BioSpectrum India spoke to Prof S Mahalingam, Faculty, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras to understand about BCGA and more. Edited excerpts:

With the launch of the BCGA as open-source data, tools like AI/ML and data analytics software will be deployed. How will these technologies support informed decision-making in diagnosis and treatment?