Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Emerging opportunities for gene editing therapies in India

Nature Medicine volume 30, pages 324–325 (2024)Cite this article

Subjects

India’s population recently surpassed China’s, making healthcare a crucial issue for the coming decade. Genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia, β-thalassemia and retinal dystrophies are prevalent in India due to consanguinity and founder effects1,2,3. Therapies such as CRISPR-based gene editing need to be available in India, to reduce the dependence on costly imported drugs.

In India, healthcare is mainly community based4, and there is little awareness of rare genetic diseases, although this has recently improved. The pandemic demonstrated India’s ability to scale up the production of biologicals such as vaccines, and there is now governmental and non-governmental support for gene and cell therapy programs, including the Sickle Cell Gene Editing mission, the development of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy and indigenous vaccine development5. We are approaching a critical inflection point for gene editing technologies in India driven by the convergence of three critical factors: patient awareness; evolution of indigenous technologies; and availability of regulatory approval pathways.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. GUaRDIAN Consortium. et al. Hum. Genomics 14, 52 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Anonymous Nat. Med. 27, 1311 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Fox, T. et al. Nat. Med. 29, 518–519 (2023).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Chokshi, M. et al. J. Perinatol. 36, S9–S12 (2016).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Mandal, S. et al. Lancet Glob. Health 9, e1197–e1200 (2021).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Acharya, S. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116, 20959–20968 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Ghosh, A. et al. Mol. Ther. 16, 124–130 (2008).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. National Guidelines for Gene Therapy Product Development and Clinical Trials; https://main.icmr.nic.in/sites/default/files/guidelines/guidelines_GTP.pdf (2019).

  9. Graff, G. D. & Sherkow, J. S. Annu. Rev. Genomics Hum. Genet. 21, 509–534 (2020).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Ikawa, Y. et al. Hum. Mol. Genet. 28, R24–R30 (2019).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. GROW Research Laboratory, Narayana Nethralaya Foundation, Bangalore, India

    Arkasubhra Ghosh

  2. CSIR-Institute of Genomics & Integrative Biology, Mathura Road, New Delhi, India

    Souvik Maiti & Debojyoti Chakraborty

  3. Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, India

    Souvik Maiti & Debojyoti Chakraborty

Authors
  1. Arkasubhra Ghosh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Souvik Maiti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Debojyoti Chakraborty
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Debojyoti Chakraborty.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ghosh, A., Maiti, S. & Chakraborty, D. Emerging opportunities for gene editing therapies in India. Nat Med 30, 324–325 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02752-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02752-3

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing