Dr Vinod Scaria FRSB, FRSPH (born 9 March 1981) is an Indian biologist, medical researcher pioneering in Precision Medicine and Clinical Genomics in India.
They were also instrumental in setting up a comprehensive fellowship programme in genomics for clinicians[11] His research has also contributed to a number of commercially viable technologies for healthcare and public health applications.
His group also pioneered the use of social web, cloud computing and students for solving complex drug discovery problems for Neglected Diseases.
[20] Over years he with colleague, Sridhar Sivasubbu created a large research network in area of Clinical Genomics with focus on rare genetic diseases and pharmacogenomics.
He was conferred the CSIR Young Scientist Award for biological sciences for developing computational tools to analyse genomic data, by the Prime Minister of India in September 2012.
[33][34] Scaria has been pioneering the application of genomics to diagnose and solve rare genetic diseases in India, including discovering novel variants.
[35] He, with his colleague Sridhar Sivasubbu co-founded a national network (GUaRDIAN)[36] of clinicians and researchers working on rare disease genomics.
[42] The IndiGen programme[43] on population Genomics for public health was initiated in 2019 with an attempt to start understanding the genetic diversity of the country by sequencing over a thousand Indian individuals.
[44]"The outcomes of IndiGen will have applications in a number of areas including faster and efficient diagnosis of rare genetic diseases", said Union Science Minister, Harsh Vardhan, at the press conference announcing the programme.
[50] This database al mena[51](alleles for Middle East and North Africa) provides information on over 26 million variants indexing a number of whole genome and exome datasets from the region.
[66] He has also been instrumental in creating a comprehensive genomic surveillance programme for SARS-CoV-2 in the state of Kerala[67][68] which has been able to provide early insights into variants and influencing policy.
The recent Zika virus outbreak[72] in Kerala has seen Open research approaches to track and understand the epidemic[73] as part of a framework for Citizen science