Centre for Medical Genetics (bio Arbor)

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I would like to bring to your kind notice that the department of Human Genetics at Andhra University has recently established a Centre for Medical Genetics from a generous grant of rupees sixty five lakhs from the CSR funds of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (RINL) for purchasing some of the instruments. Our dynamic Vice-Chancellor Prof. PVGD Prasad Reddy garu had sanctioned funds for a tune of almost one crore for the construction of the laboratory in which RINL – AU Centre for Medical Genetics was housed. Other instruments required for carrying out cutting edge research was acquired from research grants from other funding agencies like Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). This laboratory is fully equipped to render Molecular Diagnostics in addition to carrying out some world class research in the field of Medical Genetics.

This laboratory is basically meant to provide Genetic Diagnostics including Molecular Diagnostics to the needy people at minimum charges. Human Genetics Department has the wherewithal technology to offer various Molecular Diagnostics along with Genetic Counselling to the needy couples. The incidence of Genetic Diseases is relatively high in Visakhapatnam and in fact in the entire South India because of the practice of inbreeding and consanguineous marriages by these populations which bring in hither to scattered deleterious recessive genes into homozygous state, where they get expressed as Genetic Disease, which can be avoided through Genetic Counselling, Prenatal Diagnosis and Molecular Diagnostics.

We have all the infrastructural facilities in place in our RINL–AU Centre for Medical Genetics (bio Arbor) except the resources to dispense the diagnostic services on a regular basis.

These are the instruments we have in the Centre for Medical Genetics.

• Oxford Nanopore MinION Mk1C sequencer.
• Invitrogen Qubit 4 Benchtop fluorometer
• Thermo Scientific Sorvallâ„¢ ST 8 Small Benchtop Centrifuge
• Applied Biosystems Veritiâ„¢ 96-Well Fast Thermal Cycler
• VILBER BIOPRINT gel documentation system
• ZEISS Axioscope 5 Microscope with iKAROS (Automatic karyotyping software)
• Thermo Scientific 1300 series A2 Biosafety Cabin
• Thermo Scientific Forma 900 Series 5908 Upright -86 Ultra-Low Temperature Freezer