INSACOG recognises Tamil Nadu genomic sequencing lab

Genomic sequencing of Covid-19 samples can now be done at the State Public Health Laboratory here set up by the Tamil Nadu government earlier this year instead of sending them to Pune or Bengaluru.

Health Minister Ma Subramanian said the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) recognized the whole genome sequencing (WGS) laboratory at the SPHL on December 29. “With this recognition from INSACOG, the Tamil Nadu government can get the results of the genomic sequencing of samples of Covid-19 patients much faster which could help in better containment of the spread of the virus,” Subramanian said.

The SPHL at the Directorate of Public Health (DPH) campus in Chennai is an initiative of the DMK government which assumed office in May this year after it was noticed that sending samples to Pune or Bengaluru was leading to delay in the results.

While the lab was announced in July, Chief Minister M K Stalin inaugurated the laboratory set up at a cost of Rs 4 crore in September.

Subramanian said this is the first time that a state government has set up a genomic sequencing lab on its own. The state has so far been sending samples for genomic sequencing to the National Institute of Virology, Pune or the Institute For Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine (InStem), Bengaluru.

The state had sent hundreds of samples during the second wave and in the past few weeks to the above-mentioned institutes for genomic sequencing of Covid-19 samples to find out their variants – Delta or Omicron. As of December 30, Tamil Nadu has 45 confirmed cases of Omicron variant, while nearly 100 people have S-gene dropout in their samples.

INSACOG, jointly initiated by the Union Health Ministry of Health, and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) with the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), is a consortium of 38 laboratories to monitor the genomic variations in the SARS-CoV-2.

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