Genome Analysis and Human Health

This book highlights selected current data and its relevance in the human health care system, offering a fundamental primer on genetics and human health.

With the advent of new high-throughput technologies (for the whole genome including exome sequencing), the conventional focus on genetics and individual genes is now shifting toward the analysis of complex genes, gene-gene interactions and the association between genes and environment, including epigenetics. The rapidly changing scientific research landscape, with the ever-growing influx of data on one hand and emergence of newer and more complicated diseases on the other, has created a dilemma for researchers and caregivers, who are still hopeful that advances in genetics and genomics will provide avenues for the understanding, prevention and possible cure of human diseases.

The book focuses on the interactions between genes and proteins at both the transcriptome and proteome levels, which in turn affect the human genome and health. Additionally, it covers the domain that must be explored in order to understand the gene-gene and protein-protein interactions that contribute to human health. The book offers a valuable guide for all students and researchers working in the area of molecular genetics and genomics.

Dr. Leena Rawal is currently working as a Senior Scientist at the Department of Cytogenetics, Dr Lal PathLabs Limited, New Delhi. She was awarded her PhD degree in Molecular Genetics by the University of Delhi in 2014, and subsequently worked as a Post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi. She has since worked as a Senior Scientist and Head of the Molecular Diagnostics and Research Division at a renowned pharmacogenomics-based organization. Dr. Rawal has published several original papers in international peer-reviewed journals like Plos ONE, BMC Genomics, DNA and Cell Biology, Gene and the Journal of Molecular Structure and Dynamics. Her expertise lies in the area of Human and Animal Genetics, Proteomics, Cytogenetics and Bioinformatics. She presented her work at the 34th Annual Lorne Genome Conference in Melbourne, Australia in 2013. She has also been a reviewer for Plos ONE.

Professor Sher Ali is an internationally respected scientist in the field of genomics and molecular genetics. He received his PhD from the University of Delhi in 1981 and subsequently worked as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg, Germany. He retired from the National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi in 2015 after serving the institute for more than 25 years. At the NII, he was head of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory. Currently, he is working as a Professor at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Basic Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

His research interests include Genome Analysis, Molecular Human and Animal Genetics, Germ Line Genetics, Toxicogenomics, DNA Diagnosis and Cancer Genetics. His outstanding research has attracted attention from various pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Ali has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in reputed international journals. He is a member of all three Academies of Sciences in India namely the Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences and Indian National Science Academy, and has been a reviewer and editorial board member for various prestigious journals such as Molecular and Cellular Probes; American Journal of Cancer Genetics, Scientific Reports etc. He is the recipient of several national and international awards, including most recently an Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung Fellowship, Bonn, Germany and the N.K. Iyengar Memorial Gold Medal.