The genome sequencing of the novel coronavirus has begun by Indian researchers with the aim of understanding the evolution of the virus.

The sequencing has been started jointly by the scientists of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad and the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), New Delhi.

“This will help us to understand the evolution of the virus, how dynamic it is, and how fast it mutates," said CCMB director Rakesh Mishra.

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"This study will help us to know how fast it evolves and what the future aspects of it are," he added.

Whole-genome sequencing is the method used to determine the complete DNA sequence of a specific organism’s genome.

The approach for sequencing the latest coronavirus involves getting samples from patients who have been found to be positive and sending these samples to a sequencing centre.

Genome sequencing needs a very large number of samples for study.

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“Without much data, if you make any conclusion that may not be right," Mishra added.

"At the moment we are accumulating as many sequencings as we can, and once we have a few hundred sequencings with us, then we will be able to make many inferences from many biological aspects of this virus”, he further said.

Three to four people from each institute are continuously working on the whole genome sequencing.

In the next 3-4 weeks, researchers will be able to get at least 200-300 isolates, and this information will help them to make some further conclusions about the behaviour of this virus.

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For this purpose, the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, has also been requested to give a virus that has been isolated from different places.

This will help scientists to cover the whole country to get a bigger and clearer picture.

This will help the institutes to establish the family tree of the virus.

Mishra said that based on this, they can study from where the virus has come, which strain has more similarity, the varied mutations and which strain is weak and which is strong.

“This will give some strategic clues to understand it and to implement better isolation strategies,” he said.

In addition to this, the institute has also increased the testing capacity.

A large number of people are undergoing testing, and they will go for mass screening.

This will help them to identify the number of positive cases and then send them for isolation or quarantine.

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