Mintoo out to crack his own DNA

Business leader Abdul Awal Mintoo is aspiring to be the ‘first Bangladeshi’ to have his genome sequenced.

It was none other than Mintoo, BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s adviser, who revealed the plan to bdnews24.com

The geneticists of Beijing Genome Institute will reveal his full DNA, the Multimode Group supremo said before adding that he will travel to China next month to give blood samples.

It will take six months at the latest to have the genome sequenced, according to him.

Miintoo’s Lal Teer Livestock Ltd and BGI decoded the genome of a buffalo last January.

Shahnoor Hossain, assistant professor at the Department of Genetic Engineering, Dhaka University, confirmed that no one from Bangladesh has had their DNA sequenced.

“Human genome sequencing is a simple task now. It can be done within a day or two. But the subsequent analysis is complex and time-consuming,” he said.

Skilled experts take at the most six months to do such analyses, he added.

“Once his genome sequence is analysed, Abdul Awal Mintoo will be able to take personalised medicine for treatment,” he said.

Personalised medicine is the application of drugs tailored for the individual patient on the basis of their personal genomics.

Personal genomics can help one find out if they are predisposed to complex diseases, health conditions and traits.

It can also be used to predict whether any disease could be passed on from the individual to his or her offspring.

Sequencing is a way of "reading" DNA molecules -- two strands twisted together to form that famous double helix. The entire human genome contains roughly 3 billion molecular base pairs.