He maps genes of the world's fish species

Straits Times 15 Apr 12;

He is a steward of a 21st-century ark.

Scientist Byrappa Venkatesh is leading part of a mammoth effort to map out the genetic make-up of many of the world's animal species.

Called Genome 10K, the project aims to eventually sequence the complete genetic material of 10,000 vertebrates, or animals with backbones - around one from each genus.

Scientists call it a game-changing endeavour which will let them see evolution in action, as well as predict how animals will respond to challenges such as climate change and pollution.

Professor Venkatesh, who heads the Comparative Genomics Laboratory at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, is in charge of fish.

For a start, his team is looking at 28 key species ranging from seahorses and giant mudskippers that can be found in local waters to the highly prized arowana and the sex-changing gilthead sea bream. Since fish represent about half of all vertebrates, the long-term plan will be to sequence 4,000 fish genomes.

'We want to start with fishes that are each unique in their own way,' said Prof Venkatesh, who is a chair of the Genome 10K committee.

The primitive bichir, for instance, whose lineage gave rise to all fishes, has been picked because it will highlight how fishes have evolved and how their diversity has developed, he said.

There is also the commercially important golden arowana.

The $1,500 specimen he used was donated by Qian Hu fish farm, revealed Prof Venkatesh, who added: 'Some of my staff almost cried when I dissected it to get samples of blood and tissue.'

Also under the microscope is the world's largest bony fish, the sunfish (Mola mola).

This super-evolved creature has lost its tail fin and is basically just a silver disc containing brains, stomach and gonads, said Prof Venkatesh, part of the team that won the National Science Award in 2004 for its work in identifying and sequencing the fugu genome.

'All it does is eat and reproduce. I sometimes think humans are headed that way too,' he quips.

Commenting on Prof Venkatesh's leading role in the project, IMCB executive director Hong Wanjin added that it was also an opportunity for Singapore science to shine.

'The achievements and visibility further strengthen Singapore as a major centre of excellence in the area of comparative and functional genomics,' he said.

Work on the Genome 10K effort, projected to cost around US$50 million (S$63 million), began in earnest last year. Scientists from major zoos, museums, research centres and universities all over the world have been roped in.

China's BGI, formerly known as the Beijing Genomics Institute and among the world's largest genome sequencing facilities, is in the thick of the action, doing a large chunk of the sequencing work.

Noting how the project calls for enormous computing power and new algorithms, Prof Venkatesh said that an army of people working on the effort would become the next generation of computational biology experts.

'In the future, we talk about individualised medicine and sequencing each individual's genome to look at disease risk and treatment.

'These are the people who will be doing it, and making sense of all the information in human genomics,' he said.

Chang Ai-Lien