Kalyani, Nov. 11: Nobel laureate scientist professor Harold Eliot Varmus on sunday inaugurated “Human Genome Hall”, an archive cum exhibition centre at Kalyani based National Institute of Biomedical Genomics.
The Human Genome Hall is an unique exhibition to enhance public understanding of human genome and biomedical genomics. The exhibit comprises history of development of discipline of human genetics, contribution of Indian scientists, anatomy of human genome, mysteries of human diseases like thalassaemia, oral cancer, mental disorders and many other things with visual representation.
Inaugurating the exhibit, the American scientist who was jointly awarded Nobel in Physiology with J.Michael Bishop in 1989 for their discovery of cellular origin of retro viral oncogenes, said that days are not far away when vaccines would be available for all types of cancer. “A positive result has already been achieved by administering vaccine in human body for cervical cancer. I am hopeful that similar vaccine can also be made possible to combat cancer in lungs and skin”. He later delivered a speech on “Transformation in cancer research”.
Professor Varmus, former Director of National Cancer Institute in USA, who is presently attached to Well Cornwell Medicine and with New York Genome Centre as a senior associate, has expressed his satisfaction about the research works at NIBGM and about the Genome hall. The Genome hall that is built inside the NIBMG campus by incurring around Rupees 1-crore would accommodate visual details of research works on human gene. Provisions have been made by the NIBMG authorities so that school and college students can visit the archive to quench their thirst about the study of genes. In the picture above, Professor Varmus is planting a tree at the NIBGM campus flanked by Director Professor Saumitra Das.